Somewhere in the last few days I read something that said we accomplish more when we are having fun and when we are doing something we are passionate about. I’ve been thinking about that and I think it is absolutely true. When I am doing something for fun or that I am totally into, I can “work” at it for hours and end up more energized than when I started.

Lately I have been putting myself into a stew (as most of you know) trying to figure out how to make a living, what book to write about and how can I keep myself off the streets. The more I tried to figure it out the more confused I got. I prayed a lot of rosaries and asked for guidance non-stop.

I think I have the answer!

It didn’t come as a lightning bolt or a gilded letter from the Holy Spirit. It was more a small, soft whisper of thought that nudged me while I was praying.

It wasn’t a direct “What to Do” message but rather a “How to Go About Figuring it Out” message.

Basically it was this.

If I only had one year left of my life – what is the book that I would most want to do, that I think would help people the most?

Not every one of course, but a few that such a book might make a difference.

Then another thought came into my head.

 This was from something I read about book marketing a long time ago. It was the advice to create a resource book that could be updated every year or every couple of years. Something like the ’2011 Guide to Best Restaurants in Seattle’. A book that was practical, helpful and resourceful and people would want year after year. A sort of Farmer’s Almanac type of thing.

So I put those two thoughts together and did some more thinking.

This is what I came up with.

Catholic Recovery Guide 2012

A book that would offer Catholic resources for recovery that would include Catholic Addiction treatment centers, Catholic Hospitals with Addiction Treatment programs, Catholic Retreat Houses with AA, Al-Anon and other addiction related retreats by city and state. It would list Catholic Web sites, bloggers, authors, and speakers that are addiction related. It would list the books, audio and videos on recovery for the year by Catholic authors or publishers as well as a Classic list of Catholic Recovery material.I don’t think there is anything out there like that right now. (If there is please let me know so I can go back to the drawing board!)

What would be good about this project is that I would be following the powerful advice of Dr. Doug (now Saint Dr. Doug RIP) at Guest House who told us over and over that if we made “Recovery” the number one priority in our life everything else would work out as well.

So that is my latest decision. This first Catholic Recovery Guide will be available January 2012 in both print and as an E-book on Kindle, Nook, etc. I am just going to start and do as much as I can – this first year it may not be as complete or extensive as I hope but it will grow. So now I am starting and will see how it goes.

One step and one day at a time.

I hope you will share with me any information or resources you know about Catholic places that are connected with recovery. Retreat houses that offer AA or other Addiction based retreats,

Blogs (Catholic bloggers)

Books (preferably by Catholic Authors)

Twitter (Catholic person and addiction based)

Anything and everything will help as I am starting completely from scratch! Every little bit will help.

P.S. I am now sending the blog updates via a mail server. The old one is not supposed to be working but apparently it is? If you get two do not delete the one that will start this time with  ”New Joy in Recovery Message”.