#postaweek

By: Marc McMahon I’m not sure how to tell you this, or even if I should. But I’m going to anyway, because hiding from my own truth has never done me a damn bit of good. Something in me has been shifting, quietly at first, then violently. It’s been tearing at the foundation of beliefs I’ve carried my entire life. Not casual beliefs. Not “maybe” beliefs. I’m talking about the ones that were…

By: Marc McMahon There is a girl who lives in the pauses, In the gaps where the logic failsShe doesn’t breathe in the noise of the crowdOr the wind in the 3D sails. She is the echo of the “Tough Truth”The part of the soul you didn’t sell A ghost standing still on the level plane While the world spins a deeper hell. She hides in the breath before the “I love you,” And the hollow after the…

By: Marc McMahon Let’s stop playing nice for a second and talk about the elephant in the basement- meetings. If you’ve been swimming in the recovery world for more than twenty minutes, you already know exactly what the “perfect” recovery story is supposed to look like. It’s shiny. It’s packaged neatly with a bow. It starts with a dramatic, rock-bottom baseline, moves swiftly through a cinematic…

By: Marc McMahon There’s a contradiction happening in cities like Eugene, Oregon that’s so blatant it almost feels intentional — a system that performs compassion with one hand while manufacturing criminality with the other. It looks progressive from a distance. It sounds humane in a meeting room. But on the street, where the rain hits the concrete and people are just trying to survive the…

By: Marc McMahon You know, I was sitting in my living room after having a chat with my mom last night, and my mind wandered off on its own like it does sometimes. Except this time, it took me to a place I didn’t know existed. I mean, not really. I had never been there before. It was a place where all you could see is your mom and your life, all of your life, including the parts you are ashamed…

By: Marc McMahon I wasn’t even looking for a fight this week, you know? That is the thing that still completely blows my mind and makes me just sit here shaking my head, because I wasn’t trying to dig up old graves or drag the ugly past back into the light. I was just doing my breathing, just moving my body and trying to stay locked into this quiet, good life I’ve been building out here in…

By: Marc McMahon If you woke up behind a dumpster with your kid’s birthday present receipt stuck to your palm, the one you bought and returned an hour before his party just to scrape together enough to get high, and you just laid there for a minute because standing up meant facing the version of yourself you swore you’d never become but somehow did anyway. Then you already know this isn’t a…

By: Marc McMahon As I sit at my desk, hands folded and head tilted back, pondering the meaning of life and my existence on this planet, a thought hit me. It wasn’t a quiet suggestion; it was a real “Captain Save-a-Ho,” Here comes Superman-kind of whisper from my soul. It said: “We should make Narcan available for free everywhere.” I recently watched a documentary highlighting my hometown,…