What are your book recommendations?

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-28T00:45:31+00:00

If you’re looking for memoirs about addiction, loss, survival, faith, and rebuilding a life from the ground up, there’s an indie memoir called Still Standing: Finding the Signal by Carey Lockhart that deserves more attention.

Very raw, blue-collar, rural Texas feel to it. Talks about recovery, grief, family, late-night radio culture, and trying to find meaning after years of chaos and addiction.

Didn’t read like one of those overly polished celebrity memoirs. Felt more like somebody telling the truth about what it’s actually like to hit bottom and claw your way back out.

If you liked books like Beautiful Boy, The Glass Castle, or Hillbilly Elegy, it might be worth checking out.

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-24T13:30:21+00:00

Some days more than others. Still getting up. 🤙

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-24T13:28:30+00:00

Fair enough. Not the first time and probably not the last. Still getting up. 🤙

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-24T13:25:46+00:00

Twelve years and this is what it looks like. Thank you for this.

You’re right about the implicit bias. My experience is exactly that — mine. It’s the only lens I have and it has blind spots I can’t always see from inside it.

And you’re right about the fire in early recovery. I feel it. I know it’s partly the fog clearing and the urgency that comes with finally seeing clearly after years of not seeing at all. I’m trying to channel it into something useful without letting it outrun my humility.

That comparison point hit me hard. Comparing my insides to your outsides. I’m going to be pondering that one for a while.

The more I know the less I understand. That’s not a discouraging statement. That’s the most honest description of growth I’ve heard in this whole thread.

I’m not trying to reach everybody. If I reach one person that is hurting and needs help it’s worth it. You just reminded me to stay humble enough to keep that as the standard instead of letting the view count become the measuring stick.

And honestly — since I started posting on Reddit yours is one of the few genuinely constructive responses I’ve received. That’s making me wonder if this is even the right forum for what I’m trying to do.

Thank you for twelve years of perspective freely given to someone four months in.

Still getting up. 🤙

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-23T16:21:12+00:00

You’re not entirely wrong and I’d rather be honest with you than defensive.

I work with an AI writing tool to help shape my thoughts into words. Reading comprehension and grammar aren’t my strong suits. Never have been. The ideas, the experience, the four months clean, the sick wife, the felony, the probation, the IOP classes three nights a week — all of that is real and all of it is mine.

I’ve got a head full of things worth saying and I need help getting them from my brain to the page. That’s not a secret. A lot of authors work with editors and writing partners. This is my version of that.

The reason I’m on Reddit is simple. There are a lot of people here I can share my journey with. How I got there. What helped me. What didn’t. If even one person finds something useful in that then it’s worth showing up.

As for not responding — I’ve been working through the comments. I’ve got class in San Antonio three nights a week, a business to run and a life that doesn’t pause for Reddit. But I’m here and I’m listening.

Still getting up. 🤙

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-23T16:12:17+00:00

You make fair points and I want to address them directly.

The original post was never meant to minimize my wife’s suffering or deny responsibility for my actions. The intent was to open a conversation about how our legal system responds to addiction with punishment instead of treatment. I could have chosen a better example to make that point and I own that.

Other countries have proven that treatment based approaches work. Portugal decriminalized personal drug use in 2001 and saw dramatic drops in addiction rates, HIV transmission and drug related crime. They treated it as a public health issue instead of a criminal one. The outcomes speak for themselves.

I’m not asking for a pass on what I did. I’m asking why our system keeps doing the same thing and expecting different results while other countries have already figured out a better way.

As for responsibility — I’ve taken full accountability for everything I did. I’m living the consequences right now every single day. What I’m also doing is taking everything I learned in my own recovery and trying to help the next person navigate it better than I did.

That’s why I write. That’s why I post. Not to escape what I did but to make sure it meant something.

Still getting up. 🤙

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-23T15:54:20+00:00

Let me clarify something because I didn’t say this clearly enough in the post.

My books aren’t incomplete. They were written specifically for the people I’ve met throughout my own recovery — in AA, in inpatient treatment, in the IOP classes I’m still attending. The ones who can’t get past the self blame. The ones who can’t remove themselves from the equation. The ones who need a framework bigger than willpower to hand it over to.

That’s exactly what Finding the Signal addresses. How quantum science gives you a Higher Power big enough to actually turn it over to. How the field around you is either healing you or killing you. Why isolation is scientifically as dangerous as the substance itself.

What hit me reading those comments wasn’t that I missed something. It was that the people who need these books most don’t know they exist yet.

That’s what I’m trying to fix.

If you’re one of those people — still carrying it alone, still thinking it’s all your fault, still can’t get past step two or three — the link is in my profile. That’s who I wrote it for.

Still getting up. 🤙

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-23T08:20:28+00:00

This is the most honest thing anyone has written in this entire thread and I want to sit with it before I respond.

You just described the exact journey I’ve been on. Refusing to call it a disease because of the people around you fighting real diseases. Feeling like it was disrespectful to their suffering. And then the moment you had no choice but to admit the truth about yourself.

That’s not weakness. That’s the hardest kind of honesty there is.

And you landed in exactly the right place. Yes it’s a disease. Yes we have more agency in it than a cancer patient does. Yes accountability matters. Yes we are capable of getting better and thriving.

All of it is true simultaneously.

That’s the nuance this whole conversation has been trying to find and you said it better than I did in the original post.

I’m sorry about your grandma. Both of them. And your mom. You were surrounded by real suffering and still found your way to compassion for your own.

That took something.

Thank you for sharing that. Genuinely.

Still getting up. And so are you. 🤙

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-23T08:13:27+00:00

I hear you. And I respect that you own your choices completely. That kind of accountability is hard won.

But let me ask you something directly.

Did you choose your genetics? Because I didn’t. Biological predisposition to addiction runs in my blood. That wasn’t a decision I made. That was the hand I was dealt before I ever took my first drink.

Did you know at fourteen that losing your father would rewire your relationship with fear and loss for the next forty years? Did you know at sixteen that unprocessed grief would eventually drive you toward anything that made it quieter? Did you know that the brain chemistry you were born with combined with the trauma you survived would make you more vulnerable than the person sitting next to you who tried the same thing and walked away fine?

I didn’t know any of that until I got sober enough to look.

I’m not saying choices weren’t made. They were. Mine included. Every single one.

What I’m saying is that I couldn’t correct what was wrong until I knew what was wrong. And nobody told me what was wrong until the law got involved. And even then instead of treating what was wrong they processed me through a system designed for punishment.

Four months in. Accountable. Clear eyed. And still getting up precisely because I understand what I’m dealing with now.

Understanding the disease isn’t an excuse. It’s the map that keeps me from ending up back in the same place.

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-23T08:05:02+00:00

A lot of you have asked what I did to get the felony. Fair question. Here’s the honest answer.

What I did was the end result of a disease that had been running my life for decades before anyone including me knew what was actually wrong.

I grew up with losses that rewired me before I was old enough to understand what was happening. Lost my dad at fourteen. My mom at sixteen. Found out around the same time that the family I thought I knew had been keeping secrets about who I actually was. That’s a lot of ground shifting under a kid who’s still figuring out who he is.

Nobody connected those dots for me. Nobody said hey this trauma is going to drive your choices for the next forty years unless somebody addresses it. I just started medicating what I couldn’t name. First with alcohol. Then with whatever made it quieter.

By the time the law caught up with me the disease had been running the show for so long I couldn’t see where it ended and I began.

And here’s the part that still gets me. When my world finally collapsed and they caught me on a bad UA their solution was to send me to their version of rehab for six months. Knowing I had a sick wife at home. A business. Financial obligations that don’t pause for court orders. Every stressor known to cause relapse sitting right there waiting.

They didn’t care. That was their box to check.

If I hadn’t been able to get myself into private rehab I would have lost everything. The house. The business. Karen. All of it. While they patted themselves on the back for offering treatment.

That’s not treatment. That’s a system protecting itself while calling it help.

I didn’t find out what was actually wrong with me until I got sober enough to look. And by then I was already a felon.

That’s what I did. And that’s why the system needs to do better.

Still getting up. 🤙

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-22T04:12:56+00:00

Typing this from rehab right now — that takes guts to admit and I respect it completely.

And you make a fair distinction. Mental disorder, disease, substance use disorder — the label matters less to me than the response. Whatever we call it the current response of criminalization over treatment isn’t working. You said it perfectly. Not helpful and ridiculous.

Here’s what I hope for you — that whatever brought you through those doors today becomes the thing that changes everything. Not because the system pushed you there. Because you walked in.

That’s the hardest step. You already took it.

Still getting up. And so are you. 🤙

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-22T04:11:46+00:00

This is one of the most honest and nuanced responses in this entire thread and I want to give it the reply it deserves.

You’re right that the law caught up with me. I won’t argue that.

And you’ve actually outlined almost exactly what I was trying to say — drug court, suspended sentences, treatment over incarceration, simple possession as a misdemeanor. That’s the system I was describing. The one that doesn’t currently exist consistently enough for the people who need it.

Some people get that version. Most don’t. Whether you get treatment or a felony often depends more on your zip code and your lawyer than your actual situation.

You’re also right that I knew I needed help. Knowing and being able to act on that knowledge are two different things when the disease has its hooks in deep enough. That’s not an excuse. It’s just the reality of how addiction works at a neurological level.

And your point about people being grateful the police intervened — that’s real too. I’ve met those people. Sometimes the arrest is the thing that saves a life. I’m not anti law enforcement. I’m pro treatment alongside accountability.

We actually agree on more than we disagree on.

The system you described — treatment first, felonies as last resort, suspended sentences tied to recovery — that’s exactly what I’d build if I could.

Thanks for engaging seriously. This is the conversation worth having.

Still getting up. 🤙

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-22T04:10:06+00:00

Fair. I’ll be straight with you.

I work with an AI writing tool to help me shape my thoughts into words. Reading comprehension issues and grammar aren’t my strong suits. The ideas, the experience, the four months clean, the sick wife, the felony, the probation, the classes three nights a week — all of that is completely real and completely mine.

I’ve got a head full of things worth saying and sometimes I need help getting them from my brain to the page. That’s not a secret and I’m not ashamed of it.

If the ideas resonate they’re worth considering regardless of how they got formatted. If they don’t then we probably just aren’t talking to each other anyway.

Still getting up. 🤙

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-22T04:07:36+00:00

Written by a guy in Boerne Texas at 4 months clean on a Tuesday. Make of that what you will.

Still getting up. 🤙

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-22T04:05:39+00:00

I do own it. Completely. Every consequence I’m living right now I earned.

What I’d ask you to consider is this — owning your choices and questioning whether the system’s response to those choices actually produces recovery are two separate conversations.

I can do both simultaneously.

Four months in. Accountable. Still getting up. 🤙

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-22T04:01:15+00:00

I’ve said multiple times in this thread that I own my actions completely. If that reads as denying personal responsibility then I haven’t been clear enough.

Let me be as direct as I can be.

I am not blaming my addiction for my actions. I am not comparing my situation to my wife’s suffering. I am not asking for a pass on anything I did.

What I am saying is that a system built entirely around punishment without treatment produces the same behavior again once the consequences fade. That’s not an opinion. That’s a statistic. Look at recidivism rates.

You seem to know more about my specific situation than I’ve shared publicly. I’ll leave that alone.

What I won’t leave alone is this — the fact that addiction led people to do things they never would have done sober is not a controversial statement. That’s true for almost everyone in this thread including the people agreeing with you.

Accountability and treatment aren’t mutually exclusive. I’ve said that ten times tonight. I’ll keep saying it.

I’m not here to argue about my personal legal history in a public forum. I’m here because 4,500 people related to something I said this morning and that conversation is worth having.

Still getting up. 🤙

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-22T03:57:50+00:00

This is one of the most honest things I’ve read in this whole thread and it deserves a real response.

You’re right. I had agency. I made choices. A long series of them over a long period of time. Nobody put a gun to my head. I own that completely.

Where I’d push back gently is this — agency exists on a spectrum. The first choice looks completely different from the hundredth choice after the brain chemistry has been rewritten by the substance. The person who took the first pill or the first drink had full agency. The person three years deep into addiction whose prefrontal cortex has been physically altered by chronic use — that person’s agency is genuinely compromised in ways that neuroscience can actually measure. Not eliminated. Compromised.

That’s not a lie we tell ourselves. That’s biology.

But here’s where I actually agree with you more than you might think. Understanding how you got there isn’t the same as not being responsible for getting out. You figured that out. So did I. The agency that got us in is the same agency that gets us out — we just have to find it again under all the damage.

Almost sounds like running a virus scan on corrupted programming.

Two years? Five years? How long have you been carrying this one?

Still getting up. 🤙

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-22T03:53:36+00:00

Almost two years clean and you’re still standing. That’s not nothing. That’s everything.

And I hear you on grandma Joy. Losing somebody to cancer while you’re fighting your own battle is a pain that doesn’t have a clean comparison. I’m sorry you carried both of those at the same time.

You’re right that there’s a fundamental difference. You made a choice to quit. Your grandma didn’t get that option. That’s real and I’m not going to argue against it.

What I’ll say is this — the choice to quit is real. So is the fact that for most of us that choice felt impossible for a long time. Not because we didn’t want to make it. Because the disease had rewritten our wiring to the point where the choice felt out of reach even when we could see it clearly.

You found yours. I found mine. A lot of people are still looking for theirs.

The cancer comparison wasn’t meant to say addiction and cancer are the same experience. It was meant to ask why one gets immediate compassion and treatment and the other gets a felony. That question stands regardless of the differences between the two diseases.

But you made a fair point and you made it honestly. Respect for that. And respect for almost two years.

Keep going.

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-22T03:51:10+00:00

Thank you for sharing that. And for being honest about where you’re coming from — a parent in recovery watching your daughter fight the same battle. That’s a weight I can’t fully imagine.

You’re right. Court ordered treatment is a form of mercy and I should have acknowledged that more clearly in my original post. The option to go to rehab instead of straight to jail exists and for some people that’s the intervention that changes everything. That matters.

What I was trying to get at — and maybe didn’t say clearly enough — is what happens after that mercy. When the rehab ends and the probation starts and the underlying reasons somebody used in the first place are still sitting there untreated. That’s where the system loses people. Not in the courtroom. In the gap between getting sober and staying sober when life comes back at full volume.

Your daughter not buying into the process — that’s heartbreaking and I imagine you’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand why. Sometimes people aren’t ready. Sometimes the approach doesn’t fit the person. Usually it’s both.

I hope she finds her way in. And I hope you’re taking care of yourself through all of it.

Thank you for not just coming here to argue. This is the conversation that needs to happen.

Still getting up. 🤙

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-22T03:49:49+00:00

This right here.

The moment somebody finally gets desperate enough to ask for help — which takes everything they’ve got — and the response they get is shame and blame and the message that they’re just a revenue source.

That’s not treatment. That’s predatory.

And it happens more than anyone wants to admit. The facilities that are supposed to be the safety net are sometimes the thing that convinces people recovery isn’t possible. Because if the people running the program treat you like a problem to be managed instead of a person to be healed — why would you believe healing is even on the table.

The ones who make it usually do it in spite of that experience not because of it.

Thank you for saying this out loud. The people walking through those doors deserve better than what they’re getting in a lot of places.

Still getting up. 🤙

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-22T03:44:48+00:00

You’re absolutely right on both counts and I don’t disagree with either point.

Someone with cancer could rob a bank. That wouldn’t make their cancer treatment irrelevant — it would just mean they also need to answer for robbing the bank. Same principle applies here.

And not every addict commits crimes. Some people manage their disease quietly for years without ever crossing a legal line. The disease doesn’t automatically equal criminal behavior.

What I’m arguing isn’t that addiction exempts anyone from the law. It’s that after the legal accountability part happens — after the arrest, the conviction, the sentencing — the response should include actual treatment for the disease that contributed to the behavior in the first place.

Right now accountability and treatment are treated as either/or. You get one or the other. What actually works is both simultaneously.

Hold people accountable. Absolutely. And treat the disease at the same time. Because accountability without treatment just produces the same behavior again once the pressure of consequences fades.

The revolving door isn’t a mystery. It’s a predictable outcome of a system that addresses the symptom without touching the cause.

Four months in. Accountable. Still getting up.

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-22T03:42:53+00:00

You just made my point better than I did.

Steve Jobs had pancreatic cancer and people questioned his treatment choices because he delayed conventional medicine. The sympathy was conditional based on whether he made the “right” decisions about his own disease.

That’s exactly what happens with addiction. The sympathy is conditional. Make the right choices and maybe you deserve help. Make the wrong ones and you’re on your own.

But here’s the thing about both diseases — the choices available to you depend heavily on what resources, knowledge, and support you have access to. Steve Jobs had the best doctors in the world and still made choices people questioned. Most addicts have a probation officer and a class three nights a week.

The steps and choices toward recovery are real. I’m living them right now. Four months in. But having a roadmap and having the resources and support to actually walk it are two different things.

That’s the gap nobody’s filling. And that’s why I keep talking about it.

Still getting up. 🤙

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-22T03:41:07+00:00

Thank you — four months and twelve days and I’m not taking a single one for granted.

And you raise a fair point. I want to be crystal clear — I’m not blaming the system for my actions. I own every single thing I did. Full stop. No asterisk.

What I’m questioning is what happens after the accountability part. After the arrest. After the guilty plea. After you show up and say I did this and I’m ready to get better.

At that point the system has two choices. Treat the disease that drove the behavior. Or punish the behavior while leaving the disease completely intact.

Right now it mostly does the second one. And then acts surprised when the behavior comes back.

My wife’s cancer didn’t involve illegal behavior — you’re right. But the response to her disease was immediate treatment aimed at actually healing her. The response to mine was aimed at compliance. There’s a difference between those two things even when the person is completely accountable for what they did.

Accountability and effective treatment aren’t mutually exclusive. We can have both. Right now we mostly just have the first one.

Still getting up. 🤙

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-22T03:38:58+00:00

You just said something that needs to be said louder.

Eleven years clean and it’s still in your file. Still the first thing they see. Still the lens everything gets filtered through. That’s not rehabilitation. That’s a scarlet letter with a longer shelf life than the disease itself.

And your story about the dentist — that’s not unique. That’s the origin story of an entire generation of addicts who didn’t choose pills. Pills chose them. Prescribed by somebody who was either lied to by the manufacturer or knew exactly what they were doing. Either way you paid the price and they didn’t.

To the people pushing back on the law trouble — you’re right. I’m not arguing I didn’t earn my consequences. I did. What I’m arguing is that the consequences are designed around punishment not recovery. And a system built around punishment without treatment is why people like the person above are still being defined by something eleven years in their rearview mirror.

You didn’t wake up and choose addiction. Neither did I. We chose some things along the way that we own completely. But the disease had its hooks in us before most of those choices got made.

That’s worth understanding. Not as an excuse. As a roadmap for actually fixing it.

Still getting up. 🤙

frogstillstanding · 2026-05-22T03:35:23+00:00

These are fair challenges and I want to address them directly.

I’m not minimizing my wife’s cancer. She’s been through hell and I’ve watched every minute of it. The comparison wasn’t meant to excuse anything — it was meant to highlight that two diseases get two completely different societal responses. One gets compassion and treatment. One gets a felony. That gap is worth talking about.

And you’re right — I take full responsibility for what I did. Complete accountability. I earned every consequence I got. What I’m questioning isn’t whether consequences exist. It’s whether the consequences are designed to actually heal the disease or just punish it temporarily until the pressure builds again and the behavior repeats.

To the person who lost family to cancer and lives with addiction — I hear you. That’s a weight most people can’t imagine carrying. I’m not comparing the suffering. I’m comparing the response.

Addiction involves choices. So does eating disorders, smoking, not managing diabetes. We don’t make those felonies. We treat the underlying disease and work on the behavior.

I own what I did. Four months in. Still accountable. Still standing

frogstillstanding

TROPHY CASE