C. Michael Byrne

I wish to thank those who have praised my first novel, personally and in reviews on my Amazon page. I’m grateful for every bit of feedback I’ve gotten since self-publishing earlier this year, including the valuable constructive criticism from writer friends with helpful suggestions about plot and characters. I’m especially grateful for the response from someone very close to me who was inspired to get sober, embracing the story at the heart of The Return Trip.

This was a novel I was driven to write, based on my life and times, and my particular appreciation for internal energy work as a solution and guide for health and happiness. The story is dark, stark and maybe a bit too real for some. That’s fine. The Return Trip is not for everyone. I wouldn’t recommend it for school libraries, for example, especially not in Florida.

My research included personal journeys into various recovery programs, from Alcoholics Anonymous to Smart Recovery, which relies on the camaraderie of sober, rational friends without religious trappings. I’ve studied behavioral psychology and considered how holistic health practices for mind and body – such as taiji and qigong moving meditations – can heal addictions and other mental health issues.

I’ve also experimented with psychedelic substances now prescribed for PTSD, depression and addiction, part of my substance use and abuse that has continued even when I’ve managed to toss off the yoke of addiction for periods of time. Alcohol, in particular, has been an especially intrusive aspect of my life – and for the family Byrne, with a long history of alcohol addiction. I’ve dabbled in a wide range of illegal, legal and decriminalized drugs over my lifetime, experiences that helped inform the story and characters of The Return Trip – and my own life trajectory.

I’ve also relied on drugs prescribed to control blood pressure, cholesterol and uric acid levels, as well as daily multiple vitamins with extra boosts for B12 and magnesium. You can “take drugs to cure your drug addiction,” as the protagonist in The Return Trip chooses, or you can take a more effective, alternative approach found within your own mind. That’s an important message in my novel, hopefully not lost under the weight of drug use that saturates the story from the beginning chapter to the end.

With this new blog, “Off the Road,” I offer a few vignettes of my own struggles with addiction as I highlight the drug culture that bubbles up from common lived experiences today. I plan to promote mind-body meditative practices as a solution to navigating modern life, and improving health, but I’m still looking for answers. Tell me what works for you.

And looking ahead, I also want to tell you about my second novel, a story I’ve been trying to tell for nearly 50 years. I will take you back in time, to 1976, when America was celebrating its bicentennial. There was hoopla galore, along with an undercurrent of deep foreboding in many parts of the United States, including in the little river town where I returned after the Vietnam War.

“Hard Times on Canoe Creek,” the original title, was both a seminal, autobiographical tale and an unfinished rock opera before I threw up my hands years ago and put it on a shelf, not sure what to do with it. Marrying the story I wanted to tell with the music proved to be less than the sum of the parts, so I’m turning to recreate the novel I originally intended.

But I don’t want to shelve the music – a rocking-good mix with a big heart and hot licks, thanks to my brother, David, and his musical interpretation of lyrics I crafted over the years, or songs he wrote that I helped extend to the dance floor. Eventually, the multimedia take on Canoe Creek will evolve, the stage play and the screenplay, but getting the story right is the first step.

I’m going “Off the Road,” counting on sobriety and a little help from my friends, dear readers. I hope you will accompany me on this literary excursion to create a new novel. You are my contributors. Please keep up with me, and give me your take.