Progress Over Perfection: Starting Recovery Guitar and Embracing the Messy Beginning

This is my very first blog post. The site just went live! Everything is brand new.

Honestly, it’s a little scary to put this out into the world for a whole host of reasons—but it’s also more rewarding than I imagined. Starting this project is a big step for me. It's definitely a bit messy right now, or maybe a little “wobbly” is a better way to describe it. I'm okay with that, and I know it’ll continue to wobble and sway for a while as the plan comes together and I learn how to steer this ship. Then I’ll take more steps forward to get better. 

Recovery Guitar exists because I believe in the power of music—specifically, the guitar and bass—as a tool for healing. It helped me, and I’ve seen it help others. But this whole project, this whole thing, is a work in progress. I’m learning as I go. I’m writing this in real time, not from the other side of success, but from the middle of the process.

And that’s kind of the point.

In recovery, one of the most powerful things we learn is to focus on progress, not perfection. You don’t have to know how it’s all going to unfold. You don’t have to have the most clean routine or polished plan. You just need a starting point—and the willingness to keep going, even when it’s uncomfortable. Especially when it’s uncomfortable.

Starting something new, whether it's a recovery journey, a creative project, or a daily practice like picking up your guitar, always feels wobbly and uncomfortable at first. That’s totally fine. In fact it’s supposed to. There’s so much growth that happens in the uncomfortable steps forward, in the figuring-out-how-to-get-better part. For music, the beauty is in the doing—not in how perfect it sounds right away, but in the fact that you showed up and are moving yourself to a new place beyond where you were yesterday.

So think of this post like striking the first chord of a punk tune—it might be raw and uneven, but it’s 100% honest.

If you're sitting there with something waiting inside you—whether it’s a song, a story, or a new way of living—consider this your nudge.

Anyway, I thank you for taking this wobbly ride with me, and I can’t wait to see what happens when we play the next chord—together!