Sober Shepherds

Sober Shepherds Guiding Recovery, Inspiring Sobriety. A faith-based recovery community built on honesty, connection, and hope. We don’t pretend to be experts.

Sober Shepherds: Because Every Voice Matters

At Sober Shepherds®, sobriety isn’t a finish line — it’s a journey we walk together, one day at a time. We don’t hide behind numbers or titles. We are fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, and friends — ordinary people learning to live with honesty, courage, and faith. We believe in the power of honesty. We believe in the courage it takes to tell your sto

ry, and the healing that comes when someone else hears it and realizes they’re not alone. We don’t offer coaching. We don’t sell easy answers. We simply offer truth, connection, and the reminder that you don’t have to be somebody to mean something. Our community exists to reach those who feel out of place, those who’ve been told they don’t belong, those who carry shame in silence. We are not here to glorify success stories packaged for validation and tailored for recognition. We are here for the raw, the messy, the ones who wonder if they matter. Because here — you do.

11/02/2025

Taking Your Time 🕊️

I’ve often heard it said along my journey in sobriety that those who claim time means nothing are usually those who don’t have any. Time, it seems, becomes our first major accomplishment after losing so many years to its relentless passing. The great starter but terrible finisher begins life anew by achieving the seemingly impossible mission of staying sober from time up until bedtime. Then, they are reborn on a fresh calendar date, all of it beginning with a singular moment in time.

In recovery, time takes on countless forms—it comes in all shapes, colors, materials, and even adornments. Some of us carry our time on a necklace or a keychain, while others tattoo it to their skin. For some, it’s worn proudly on their sleeve, while others take advantage of those who haven’t yet discovered its meaning. Time is celebrated and revered, especially by those who fear losing it. Time transforms into a responsibility, a reputation, an education, and a meaning that far transcends the ticking of a clock on the wall. It becomes a teacher—one that leads by example, where those with more time show those with less time how to make the most of their time.

From day one, we are reminded that time takes time. Along the way, we learn that one bad decision can sn**ch time away as quickly as it’s gained. Time can heal all wounds, but it can also lead us to the grave. The recovery date we cling to this time may not be the last time. Through the lessons of others who stumble, we learn that time is fragile—realistically, it lasts only twenty-four hours at a time. Time in is time earned, and it’s earned by showing up again and again, one day at a time.

🕊️ www.sobershepherds.com

10/31/2025

The Me I Don’t Want You To See

For the past twenty-four years, I have been in and out of recovery in five states. Throughout that era, I have painfully graced countless psychiatric institutions wherein each of them I was diagnosed with numerous emotional and mental disorders. I have been prescribed dozens of mind and mood-altering medications in desperate measures to heal a wound that no pill could ever repair. Even up until recently, and after having worked all twelve steps to the best of my ability I still sensed that something was absent. Even while involving myself in service and selflessly helping others, there still remained a part of me that felt deficient. Therefore, I abstained from allowing anyone in too close; manipulating myself over a lifetime into a much deeper denial than I ever was while drinking and using drugs.

It’s far from a comic tale when I reflect on my upbringing. The domestic dysfunction I was born into I never dreamed could have such an impact on my life as an adult. As a child, I learned to hide within myself to shield my innocence to survive the unbearable trauma I could shake off. I hadn’t a clue that as I grew older, parts of me would remain trapped in the earliest stages of human development, and as an adult, permit fear to rule my existence. Throughout my life whenever anyone expressed deep feelings of love for me, subconsciously, my inner child would surface and begin to manipulate and extract affection from the other party until they could no longer provide what I still longed for from my parents. Eventually, I got the same reaction I feared the most as a child – abandonment.

I don’t believe for a second that I was born this way. Sure, there are still parts of me that are incapable of being honest with myself, but it’s not because I am the unfortunate one. It’s not because I don’t speak my mind in a crowded meeting with as much validity as my heart can lend in three to five minutes. It’s certainly not because I lack courage or integrity or haven’t been willing to go to any and all lengths. It’s not because I am a bad person or because my intentions aren’t sincere when it involves matters of the heart. It’s not because I don’t deserve what I envy when I see families united as one unit or feel shame when my own mother or father tries to show me affection. It’s merely because there are parts that make up my person I have never quite understood; issues deep within me I could never quite resolve; always allowing others to define me. I was raised feeling so inadequate that I eventually branded myself incapable of nurturing the adult in me that still reacts to intimacy like an infant. My own conclusions to my inability to form a true partnership with another human being I have always viewed as a handicap. Isolating the frightened child inside of me was the safest way to survive in this world. However, the new freedom and new happiness I have heard in the promises can only be obtained if I am willing to set my sail a little further. Contentment behind the internal freedom I have always dreamed of owning requires much more courage than just the supply of basic tools I was given to stay sober.

I think I’ve always wanted to be the student, but I’ve executed every teacher. I wasn’t able until this very moment in time to distinguish the reality between who I perceive myself to be versus this character I play to the world as a wonderful, stable and capable being. I work hard at playing it safe and get very comfortable for years at a time until I forget about the horrors that come along with getting too close to the roots that make up my tree. I fantasize that every heart that strolls into my world for is for a lifetime. Nevertheless, maybe they are just angels in disguise pulling me closer to the promises I have always feared will come to fruition for everyone except me. Perhaps I am justifying the excruciating pain of having to let someone I adore depart my life in order for me to journey into a piece of myself I know I can only face with a higher power. And even Him I still question because I trust no one! I wish a spiritual big shot could provide me the answers as quick as I can open a bag of dope and recipe myself into an immediate fix. I’ve always been more willing to evade the throbbing process that’s required to address such frightening topics. Subsequently, it may just be another clout of painful optimism that is shedding light to the darkest side of hope to begin a new chapter into rewriting the book of me.

🕊️ www.sobershepherds.com

The Gift of Desperation 🕊️ Whoever would dare to define the gift of recovery as just a mere coincidence surely has neve...
10/29/2025

The Gift of Desperation 🕊️

Whoever would dare to define the gift of recovery as just a mere coincidence surely has never lived our misery. As once explained to me, the opportunity to recover simply appears when the sufferer is ready to admit complete defeat. When that brief moment of clarity arrives we formulate a passageway to a new unknown. The population of the world around us stems from a single digit to a room filled with strangers who speak a new vocabulary. Although our heads are shattered with deception, what seems foreign to such sore ears somehow transforms our desperation into a position of consideration. By pure magnetism, we return again to try and capture the phenomenon of what it is we have been seeking our entire lives. Unsure, we continue to revisit these rooms filled with unfamiliar faces while optimism becomes a factor for the first time in our existence.

The elimination of isolation is essentially what ignites the fuse to demolish what has been the obstruction over a lifetime of any spiritual light. This transformation that occurs in a terrified newcomer is in fact what we speak of when others around us witness such a miracle. As the seed of willingness germinates in a beginner, they soon become a new life form that requires unconditional compassion from those with much stronger roots. Hope becomes the driving force between what has always been and what could possibly be. Understanding and kindness are offered unconditionally to those who continue to fall. Eventually, the handicap of never having been able to walk through one day sober soon stands on two firm feet. It is truly unexplainable to those who have never stood in our shoes – and so we continue to keep coming back if only for the mere fact that we have finally found hearts that match our own.

Anyone that receives a daily pardon in the course of submitting their will can attest to some of the most horrid stories ever heard by sober ears. If the desperate are willing to go to any and all lengths to beat the odds that are already against them, there should be no contest when an insane newcomer begs you to help save their life. Still, I have known the names of many anonymous individuals who never saw another day’s dawn.

How many of us find such liberty on a daily basis only to return to the ruins we swore off forever. It’s the insidiousness of this incurable disease that baffles even the minds of those who acquire doctorates to study us. It’s sinister to lurk outside our programs writing books about a cure to try and stray us or the greedy in Hollywood that spends millions of dollars entertaining the majority who are not us. How quickly the world forgets about the thousands each day that perish from this life only wishing they could have found us.

Every morning a recovering addict opens their eyes they are conditioned from the very beginning to give thanks to a power greater than themselves for another chance at life. We learn through self-awareness and working with others who also share this common bond to never take for granted the twenty-four-hour reprieve from a nightmare that at one time we could not awaken from. Through a new understanding, we become attuned to the fact that at any given time this priceless gift that we have acquired can vanish like a mystery in the course of one bad decision. Therefore, we carefully assess how we react to each situation that confronts us and use honesty and faith to be our guiding force to a new foundation for how we live our lives.

🕊️ www.sobershepherds.com

10/26/2025

Podcast - "The Roots Beneath the Recall"

Because being restored to sanity is a daily affair.

🕊️ www.sobershepherds.com

10/22/2025

Just when you think it’s over — it’s really just beginning.

www.sobershepherds.com 🕊️

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