without nicotine (smoking, vaping, pouch, etc). I *still* get the urge, but I have made a commitment to quit, so I’m sticking to it, and posting about it on here to keep myself accountable.

Every day brings a chance to notice a win — not just the big moments, but the quiet steps forward too. Which of these feels like your kind of victory today? A. I set a boundary and stuck to it. 💪 B. I slowed down and gave myself permission to rest. 🌿 C. I reached out to someone I care about. ❤️ D. I showed up — even when I didn’t feel like it. ☀️ E. I caught myself mid-spiral and chose peace instead. 🌊 No wrong answers here — each choice is a form of growth.👉 Drop your letter (or share your own “win”) in the comments and celebrate the small steps that create big change. 🌈

The show at the MA convention went really well and I’m super proud of my set. Similar to recovery, I did way better than I thought. Having close friends in the audience who were sitting up front helped, but there were easily 100+ people there from out of town who I didn’t know. I did 4 open mics in the week leading up the show to practice (probably a personal record for most mics in a week), plus one more earlier in August. It was so much fun to be onstage again and feel how natural it is to me. I’ll attach the audio of my set here. My phone was far from the speakers, so crank the volume! Thank you all for the support this last year. Wouldn’t have pulled this off without you.

After a few days of mild to spicy sickliness, I got out of the house yesterday and went to an open mic. I don’t feel too confident in this new material yet but I did better than I thought, and it was a supportive group. Proud of myself that after a few days where I felt too sick to go, but wanted to go, I was able to actually employ that courage and willingness and go to one. I have kind of a big show on Friday so I’ll have some more time during the week to hit some more, and I’m going to try my best not to get down on myself for not doing more than I’ll be able to. When I zoom out, I wasn’t even willing to do one open mic for most of 2024! This song “Matter of Time” by Vulfpeck has been helping me a lot. Starts at 3:17 in this vid. Some lyrics here: The brighter the light, the Darker the shadows That'll follow you round But baby, truth will illuminate The only path you take So start climbing now 'Cause the wind blows the strongest At the top of the mountain Where the sun doesn't shine It's just a matter of time It's just a matter of time

Many of our members have made incredible progress since joining the Course. For many, these were breakthroughs that had been a long time coming. Here's just some of this unprecedented success. @Bradley Holroyd's dessert business is getting off the ground! He's got a kitchen and a first customer. Ending doom scrolling has helped his progress. @Jon Schoss has done his first comedy gig and has been drug and alcohol free for over a year. (Listen to his set on his post!) @Menelaos Fthenakis is back in college! He's signed up for his first class. Being off weed is helping. @Evan Seligman is getting deep into his music, practicing guitar every day for the first time ever. Being clean, sober, and off nicotine has changed his life. @Scott Cohen has his best body ever. Being off internet porn is an amazing accomplishment. @Jess Armine has had a scientific paper published on a treatment for long Covid, is traveling to Dublin to do a presentation on functional medicine, and has turned his life around by being clean and sober. He's helping the world get healthy. @Matthew Paneitz is making great progress on his dissertation to say nothing of continuing to do his great work in running a school for the poorest of the poor in Guatemala. He's doing his work to make the world a better place. @Naje Lataillade is keeping up with his weight loss plan and running his daily six miles, getting healthy in mind, body, and spirit. I'm sure I'm leaving some people's progress out! But this is incredible! This thing works. Now here's the thing: in order to keep up the progress, and make even more progress, these folks - in fact everyone - needs all the support they can get. If someone posts something like this on the community and only one or two people respond it's discouraging. (Watch @Jon Schoss 's latest comedy routine! See @Bradley Holroyd 's business card . . .