A recovery & ADHD journal
The Bside of Recovery.
Not the highlight reel. The other side of the record — the honest one. I'm B: in recovery, wired with ADHD, and writing down what actually gets me through the day. Hard days, small wins, and the systems that hold when willpower doesn't.
The journal
Recent entries
The Toolkit in the Wild: What the Science Actually Says About the Things I Do
I’ve spent a lot of entries telling you what I do. This one is about why any of it works — where the science actually backs me up, where it’s thinner than people pretend, and what all of it looks like on a Tuesday morning with a testing appointment at 8:30.
Read the entry →Eight to Ten Hours a Day: What Music Actually Does to My Brain
A deep dive into my lifelong, hyperfocused relationship with music — from Eminem and mosh pits to EDC Las Vegas, and the actual science behind why ADHD brains latch onto EDM.
Read the entry →A Good Day, a Mood Shift, and an Emotional Check-In
A morning full of gratitude, an afternoon that flipped without warning, and what I’ve learned about riding out the drop instead of hyperfocusing on it.
Read the entry →What Surrender Means When Your Brain Never Stops Moving
For a long time, the word “surrender” sounded like giving up control. With ADHD, control was how I survived. Learning the difference changed everything.
Read the entry →Reading Everyone Else, Understood by No One
People who grew up feeling misunderstood become experts at reading everyone else. Here’s where that started for me, and the whole substance history that came after it.
Read the entry →One Small Step
I finally went back to the meeting where I once couldn't sit still long enough to listen. Tonight I watched three people celebrate over a hundred years of sobriety combined, and heard people tell me I look like I'm doing good. Learning to believe them might be the hardest part.
Read the entry →Playing My Own God
Overworking myself to prove I deserved a second chance wasn't dedication — it was me refusing to listen to anyone, including the people trying to help me. That's a real part of how I ended up here.
Read the entry →The Day the Curtains Caught Fire: ADHD, Anxious Attachment, and Learning to Trust
Behind the strong exterior we show the world, there's still a kid in there who never got loved the exact way they needed. A hard childhood story, and what it taught me about anxious attachment and ADHD.
Read the entry →Chasing the Squirrel: ADHD and Finding a Higher Power in the Rooms
Tonight I sat with a topic that took me a long time to face: ADHD and finding a higher power in the rooms — the one I personally call God — built slowly, on my own terms, once the obsession finally loosened its grip.
Read the entry →Two Tests, Same Truth
Two false positives, four months apart, and the same choice both times: tell the truth even when it's the harder path. This is where I'm at today.
Read the entry →The Spiral, and the Way Back
In November 2024 I lost my mother to a fentanyl overdose while I was already fighting to stay clean in a court program. I used again on purpose, hoping the state would just take me to prison. Here's what actually brought me back.
Read the entry →The Timer System That Finally Stuck
That mountain job was my first day back after a year and a half away from work, focusing on myself through Drug Court and my addiction. I started in October — then Drug Court's own pressure cost me the job anyway.
Read the entry →A Genuinely Small Win (That Felt Enormous)
Six weeks of opening the mail the same day it arrives. I know how that sounds. I don't care — and neither does the dog who keeps the streak going without knowing it.
Read the entry →The Day I Almost Didn't Write This
Some days the honest version of the story is a lab result I don't trust, still deciding whether I go to prison. I haven't gotten through it — I'm still in the fight. But I'm staying sober one day at a time, and I'm staying accountable for myself.
Read the entry →Why I Started This Blog
I'm not an expert, a counselor, or a cautionary tale with a tidy ending. I'm just B, sober since January 5, 2025, trying to be honest about the parts of this nobody warned me about.
Read the entry →Two things, tangled together
Recovery and ADHD were never separate stories.
Nobody warned me how much they'd talk to each other — the same brain that struggles to plan and follow through is the one rebuilding trust with itself, one day at a time. This blog is where I keep track of both, honestly, without a tidy ending.
Read more about B →
“The small wins are not the consolation prize. They're the actual prize. They're the whole game.”
— from A Genuinely Small Win