Tom Gentry, ICADC

04/24/2025

Awhile back, one of my favorite writers, Dave Holmes, was a guest on this podcast. It’s called Detoxicity. I listened, and eventually reached out to the host, Mike Joseph.

Mike has become a friend. He is a force for good in this world. I was honored to be a guest one his show. Please give a listen.

Podcast Episode · Detoxicity: By Men, About Men, For Everyone · 04/23/2025 · 1h 5m

04/20/2025

https://open.substack.com/pub/tgentry/p/the-manifest-tom-gentry-the-sober-path-the-book-that-helped-me-most-when-i-stopped-drinking?r=724hg&utm_medium=ios

There is no Close Second

03/29/2025

If you are in living in long-term recovery, and struggling to stay sober, something needs to change.

10/16/2024

Our stories are sacred. Not everyone should hear them. Some people would rather not know.

How I Learned the Hard Way

09/30/2024

I created this group as an alternative to individual recovery coaching.

My plan was to bookend the weekends, being the time when new people in recovery are most susceptible to relapse. So, the group will meet on Monday evenings, and I’ll host a virtual check-in for group members on Friday afternoons.

It might be a good fit for that client who bristles at the idea of going to meetings.

I’ll kick it off as soon as the first person enrolls. Feel free to call me with any questions.

As some of you may know, I’ve hosted a weekly virtual men’s group since 2018. It consists mostly of guys in long-term recovery, and we focus on the issues that come up for guys who meet that description.

Occasionally, I’ll get a call or an email from a colleague working at a treatment facility who is trying find a group for a client to attend post discharge. So, if you’re one of those people, now I can help.

*Please share this with anyone who might value the resource.

09/27/2024

Avoiding our emotions is like going through life with two perfectly good legs, and choosing to hop around on one of them, rather than using both of them to walk.

09/21/2024

The Resistance is Exhausting

09/09/2024

People often say, when discussing someone’s need for help with an alcohol or drug problem, “I know it won’t work unless they want it.”

Whenever I hear that, I wonder how many lives we are losing to addiction because the people who love them think they have to “want it” first, before getting help.

Lots of People Do it Anyway

09/06/2024

On this day, 28 years ago, after being arrested for public intoxication, I spent the night in jail. I took my last drink in the early evening. Straight from a bottle of bourbon. Jack Daniels. I was 23 years old.

I’ve been writing since high school, and even before. I’ve written for newspapers, about people and about sports. I’ve written about high school basketball in Indiana and about high school football in Florida. I’ve written brochure copy and website copy and ad copy and radio spots and press releases. I’ve written remarks for CEO's to deliver and I’ve written remarks to deliver myself. I’ve written about childhood and boyhood and manhood and fatherhood. I’ve written notes and letters to give thanks and to express my love and admiration. I’ve written about my relationship with myself and my relationships with others. I’ve written about dating and love and marriage and divorce and loneliness. I’ve written blog posts and Facebook posts and LinkedIn posts and Medium posts and Substack posts and Instagram captions and I’ve written profile descriptions for all of these and more. I’ve journaled and journaled and journaled. I’ve copied the work of other writers, novelists, onto yellow legal pads, in the interest of learning; of becoming a better writer; to experience the rhythm of their words and the cadence of their sentences, in a corporeal sense. I’ve written Shakespearean sonnets and I've written free verse. I’ve written in meter, both iambic and trochaic. I have written a single page in a diary, each day this year, and will carry that habit into next year and beyond.

But, as I approached this day, the 28th anniversary of my reckoning with alcohol, I realized, in all these years of continuous abstinence, I’d written almost nothing about my own sobriety. It's time I do something about that.

So, I created a new section of my publication, The Manifest, called The Sober Path, and this is the first installment. It's about something I witnessed on another anniversary like this. I hope you read it, and you enjoy it.

If you're another member of this army of people like me, who've found a better way, please give me a follow, and subscribe if you're interested.

And, please let me know if there is a topic you'd like to see me write about, be it about finding recovery, living in recovery, or helping other people on their path to recovery.

Best,

Tom

Keeping on Nodding Terms with the Man I Used to Be