In the summer of 2023, my wife and I rented an amazing house right on the ocean—for us, our grown children and our grandchildren.

We were all going to be together. This was a big deal.

You’d think I’d be happy and grateful.

I was not.

The week was not what I hoped for.

All I wanted to do was hang out on the beach with my family—and drink.

Eat lobster and clams—and drink.

Watch the sunset with a cigar—and a drink.

But my family didn’t trust me! WHAT?!

So we fought and things were tense all week.

Poor Me!

So there I was, on a storybook vacation, and I found myself feeling alone, angry, caught up in self-pity, and lost.

While walking the beach, I reflected on when I was young.

As a twenty-something, I was in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. I had a personal relationship with Jesus.

Yet here I was, with so much to be grateful for, wondering: “Where is my joy? I used to be joyful. What happened?”

The vacation ended. I went home disappointed.

On my first night back, I dreamt that I was led into a dark room and the door shut and locked behind me.

In the room there was a chair, a table and a mic hanging from a boom stand.

The table faced an empty control room.

I took a seat—dead silence. No guidance—just silence—time passed.

Why was I there?

Was this a live broadcast? Was I being recorded?

Finally, I thought “Well, I’m a drummer,” so I put my head down on the table and tapped a rhythm.

A melody came to me and a one-word chorus: “You”.

That woke me up.

I wrote the dream down and fell back to sleep.

I had never written a song or a poem in my life, but the next morning I wrote these lyrics; they flowed out of me.

Five months later, I hit rock bottom, surrendered to God and started my sober journey.

Years after these lyrics came to me, I put them to music through AI. Then the Lord called me to write twelve songs about my sober journey and share them with as many people as possible.

This is the first of twelve songs, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and my sober journey.