Musings and Elucidations

NickSilly’s blog.

Why journal? For the reminders

Sunday, June 26th, 2022

My beautiful lifelong friend Katie got me this for my 1-year of sobriety and that’s as good a reason as any to impart this invaluable reason why I keep a daily journal. 

When you recount what happened in days past it forces you to remember people, places, and things that happened. At the time you may be thinking to yourself “I’m really enjoying this person or I don’t want to forget this place.” But we move on in life and new people and places come fast. Unless you make a concerted effort to go back in your mind to that day, you’ll probably forget all about it. 

Numerous times when I’m writing about a day it will trigger me to follow-up on something or someone that I’d totally forgotten about. It’s so cool!

Of all the enjoyment I derive from journaling, those triggers are my favorite. 

Have a great week and happy journaling!

Love your enemies

Wednesday, June 22, 2022

I don’t like to believe I have any enemies. I’m a pretty laid back dude. The last thing I’m doing is going out in the world looking for fights. 

So what I choose to focus on and practice from this Bible verse is the last part about praying for those who mistreat and persecute you. 

Unfortunately we live in a world where no matter how beautiful you are as a person, someone will persecute or mistreat you at some point along the way. Maybe even someone very close to you. 

You may be the most innocent person God has ever created undeserving of any sort of condemnation. But that won’t stop people who are not in good places emotionally or spiritually. They will project their hurt onto you and maybe for no other reason than you are the only one around. 

You have the power deep within you to choose whether to strike back at that individual in a harmful and resentful way or just pray for them, understanding that they’re a flawed individual. 

It’s easy to say but challenging to put into practice. I believe it’s worth working on, though. 

Have a great day and Godspeed!

2 responses

Mark Watson doesn’t spend enough time at Crewe Station

Friday, June 17, 2022

Crewe Station is a lovely place. People enjoy spending hours upon hours there. 

But you know who does NOT enjoy spending time there? One Mark Watson. 

Now this is not to say Mark has never spent ANY time there. Hell, it could even be argued he spends more time there than most. But in this humble writer’s opinion he could be spending much MORE time there. Let’s face it, the guy just doesn’t spend enough time at Crewe Station. 

Look, I’m not some crazy person that spends his entire life at Crewe Station. But I’m certainly there more than Mark Watson. If Mr. Watson would just give “the Crewe” (as us aficionados aka Crewbies call it) a fighting chance he may be pleasantly surprised. Crewbies grow on you, mate!

My sincere hope is Mark himself reads this and reconsiders his future Crewe Station plans including The Crewe and Crewbies in them much more than he currently does. He won’t regret it. 

Have a wonderful weekend and I’ll see you at the station! 

Sincerely,
Nick - lifelong Crewbie 

Friday ups and downs

Saturday, June 11, 2022

What I like about this screenshot of the weather yesterday afternoon is that it says today is forecast to be WARMER. lol. That’s Texas for ya. Not for the faint of heart. 

But I’m not writing another blog post today just to bitch about the Texas heat. I’m writing one because when was the last time I wrote back-to-back posts on consecutive days? You’d have to go WAY back. Hell, maybe never in this Posthaven platform. So I’m doing it just to do something I haven’t done in a minute. 

I entitled this post “Ups and downs” because that describes yesterday pretty well. The day started out beautifully because I completed one full year of sobriety and being “off the bet” as one of the members of my Gambler’s Anonymous group likes to put it. That was a nice feeing. 

But then I had to go to work. I wouldn’t really classify that as a “down” but the day would be more fun if I didn’t have to do that. Especially since it’s getting up close to 100 today. So we’ll say it’s a semi-down. 

Another “up” came when I was informed my eye surgery had been confirmed to happen next Monday. Nice!

That was closely followed by another up when I called my AA sponsor and he said my making it a year made his day. That was really heartwarming. 

Later the hospital called and said the laser broke again. Doh! So no surgery after all next Monday. That was a definite down. Methinks the hospital should invest in a backup laser. 

Getting home from work, taking a shower, and relaxing was the up I needed to end a long day. 

I hope you have a super-fantastic Saturday today and don’t get too sunburned. Godspeed, my friend!

Coming out as clean and sober

Friday, June 10, 2022

One year ago I turned my life around with God’s help. I put an end to the madness of gambling and drinking all day and all night. I was depressed and suicidal. I surrendered control of my life to God and he “restored me to a normal way of thinking and living.”

Since then I’ve been “coming out” to friends and family as a clean and sober person living every day in faith and prayer. 

I lived SO LONG under the influence of gambling, alcohol, and drugs. I was living a lie. I was in hiding. Drowning myself in vices from which there was seemingly no escape. 

That horrible existence was tolerated by society for years, however. In many cases even encouraged. Even though I was slowly killing myself I wasn’t really doing harm to others. In actuality I WAS doing immeasurable harm but I didn’t think I was. Drinking and gambling are perfectly legal activities and as an adult not only are we allowed to do these things we are celebrated in many circles if we do them well. 

This is why finally putting an end to those vices feels like a coming out party. I’m “different from my fellows” and that’s okay. Not only is it okay, it’s life-changing and a much more beautiful way to live. It’s where I’ve always longed to be. I’m finally free! 

Praise and glory be to God and all the beautiful souls he’s working through to get me to and keep me in a place of peace, love, and tranquility. God bless you all!

Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory. Forever and ever. Amen. 

Fabian is funny

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

My roommates and I were talking about Covid 2014 the other night and I said I didn’t think I’d ever had it. (Editor’s note: Nick knows it’s Covid 2019, not 14. Idk why he thinks it’s so funny to purposely make silly mistakes.)

Fabian said “If Nick gets Covid now, they say that with this new strain most people end up passing away.”

That STILL makes me cry laughing. 

Hopefully I’ll get Covid 1942 and die now because then I’d get the literal last laugh. (Editor’s note: There’s no such disease so Nick is safe.)

“I feel like” this is a good blog post

I love the psychology behind one of the most popular new things people love to lead off sentences with: “I feel like”. 

i feel like I hear it ALL the time. Lol. 

The reason it’s so fun for people is because it immediately discounts whatever thought comes after it. If “you feel like” something is so it may or may not be so. If it turns out NOT to be so it doesn’t matter because you just “felt like” it might be. 

You’ll never hear anyone say “I feel like milk is white.” But you might definitely hear someone say “I feel like milk is supposed to be white.”  They should just say “Milk is supposed to be white.” But because maybe there’s this 1% chance someone has come out with new milk that isn’t white they add “I feel like” to the beginning. 

Now I feel like I’ve ruined “I feel like” for you. Sorry. You can still use it if it makes you happy. I guarantee you’re going to hear it from a friend soon. I don’t “feel like” you’re going to. Lol. I know it for a fact. 

I feel like you’re gonna have a good laugh when you do and the person you’re taking to is going to wonder what’s so funny. Lol. Just say “I know, right?!?”

Environmentally-conscious balloon girl

Friday, April 22, 2022


There’s a girl who has a balloon business and regularly rents vans from our U-Haul location on lowest Greenville Avenue in Dallas, Texas. 

Tonight she brought her van back after another day of providing beautiful balloon arrangements for events all around the downtown Dallas area. Such a cute job. A cute girl doing a cute job. 

She was very apologetic tonight because the van was polluted with leftover popped and un-popped balloons. She always returns the vans in immaculate condition (because that’s just the kind of person she is) but this last event didn’t have any place where she could throw her trash away so she used the van. Lol. She asked if we had a broom so she could clean out the van. She insisted really. So I got her a broom and we both cleaned it out. It wasn’t hard. 

Something I learned while we were cleaning is that all the balloons she uses now are biodegradable. Not harmful to the environment in the least. They’re thicker than normal balloons because they’re made from environmentally-friendly material. Too cool!

Helping environmentally-conscious balloon girl clean her van and learning a bit about her passion for balloons was such a sweet way to end my Friday-night shift. 

Peace, love, and balloons. 🎈 

A feel-good story about being rewarded for good works

Wednesday, April 13, 2022

A requirement when you move into Phase 3 of the Dallas 24-Hour Club recovery program is a weekly “service commitment.” 

What that means is doing something within the community to help others in need each week. Be that feeding the homeless, chairing 12-step recovery meetings, raising money for charitable organizations, etc. 

Sometimes it’s not easy to get that done every week even for the best of us because life gets in the way. But it’s always worth it and makes you feel really good when you just gut it up and do it. Sometimes you even get rewarded in the most amazing ways. 

For me, today was one of those days when I really didn’t feel like doing my service work, chairing a 12-step prayer/meditation meeting at the 24-Hour Club at 7 a.m. every Wednesday morning. I was tired and it was threatening rain and this was my first day off from work after working all weekend, Monday and Tuesday. 

But those are really not very good excuses and a commitment is a commitment so I got my tired ass out of bed and made my way over to the club to honor it. Luckily the rain held off during the short 10-minute walk over. 

The meeting went really well and I believe the addicts seeking help that were there got some good spiritual healing out of what was read and shared to start their days. It helped me personally as well because it reminded me (as it does every week) of where I could go back to if I don’t continue to do the work to stay clean, sober, and connected to God. 

When the meeting ended it was raining so I had to wait out the rain. I did a few housekeeping tasks I do after every meeting and then went and caught up a little with the 24-Hour Club staff. Then I hung out in the Hubcap Cafe the rest of the time while the rain passed. 

There was a man in there with a laptop that I didn’t recognize. It turns out he represents Parkland Hospital to help members of the club with health problems. I have an eye appointment to do a Pre-Op for cataract surgery through Parkland on May 19th and have had some anxiety and questions about it. He was happy to answer all the questions I had and even gave me some valuable information in terms of getting the financing I need to get the surgery done so I can see clearly again. YES! Talk about a Godsend! 

Had I decided to just blow off my service commitment today, or had it not started raining, or had I brought an umbrella… none of that would have transpired. Everything just fell into place and I was rewarded for doing the right thing by going over and chairing the meeting. God is so good! 

Peace and love. 🙏

Peaceful living

Friday, April 8, 2022

A pot of fresh-made coffee to start the day. 

A bunch of flowers on the kitchen table. 

The brisk morning air. 

The calm before the rigors of the day. 

The security blanket that is family. 

The warmth of a rising sun. 

The solace of friends. 

The smell of fresh banana bread. 

Peeling a fresh orange. 

A laughing baby. 

A smiling happy child. 

A peaceful tree. Still, yet full of life. 

The ever-presence of a loving God.  




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Nick Druga II
469-600-9448