I hope you’re having a beautiful day. ♡
We’re celebrating another ¤ JohnnyO Gratitude Day! ¤

The Newest Privilege

My 64th Gratitude Day is today, May 28, 2026; my Sobriety day is December 28, 2020, 1976 days in that period. I graduated from High School, Denver East in 1976. As I contemplate my growth and enjoyment of long-term recovery, the biggest takeaway is my newest privilege,

The PRIVILEGE OF COGNITIVE COLLABORATION.

I wouldn’t be here today without the many, many loving people who took a chance. They believed in me and encouraged me despite many setbacks. They offered respite, places to belong. They gave me enough time to regain my mental clarity and rebuild my considerable skillset. Day by day, step by step, proclamation by proclamation. Slowly, I lost my shame and began to rebuild my self-esteem and confidence.

There is a long list of entities and individuals who are in this category, but by far the most important person in my sustained recovery/wellness and journey to service of others is Coach 

Matt Salis. His facilitation of “The Story” Writing Group at Same Cafe. I have attended this group, WEEKLY on almost every Thursday morning for the 5 full years of my recovery.

An accountability partner, well-versed, emotionally vulnerable, and a leader amongst both Men and Women. Of course, Matt Salis would not have regained his own wellness and grown to such dynamic leadership capacity, were it not for his great wife and partner, Sheri Salis. She is a supporter and coach of many, both men and women, in multiple generations. 

Although my particular issue was dealing with alcoholism and regaining my mental clarity and wellness, the personal issues in my various Writing Groups are as diverse as the makeup of the groups themselves. This is a much larger story for another day soon.

For now, to myself and my writing. It is almost impossible to adequately describe the power of collaboratively sharing your joys and challenges with the same core group of diverse individuals over an extended period of time. The collective effervescence is indescribable until one has experienced it.

In addition to Morning pages, popularized by “The Artist’s Way” written some 30 years ago, which I do almost daily. I participate weekly in as many as five diverse groups, each with its own unique makeup/fabric, and by extension, IMPACT.

On a personal basis, I have always been pretty much an open book. An exponential extrovert to the Nth degree. But the newest privilege, the privilege of cognitive collaboration and the collective effervescence it evokes, is that even the shiest introverts, over time, sometimes lots of time, peek out of their shell. They, too, begin to reveal the wounds and express the hurt. They soon realize they may not have been the only ones wronged. They sometimes also realize that they were not the only ones who were wrong and sometimes injured others, even unwittingly. All of this growth and love happens vulnerably, collectively, and collaboratively.

Losing the shame and building upon the gains. 

We begin to understand each other better and to share both our setbacks and achievements. Because in the end, we realize that none of us knows as much as all of us. We are enjoying the newest privilege, the privilege of cognitive collaboration. Oh, the many, we the few.

Although we certainly could not have carried it off alone without the facilitation and leadership of Coach Salis.

-John Olander