Category Archives: Apps and Software

Sober Catholic Blog Discussion Group on MeWe

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As a companion to the Sober Catholic Page on Facebook, I am starting a similar thing on MeWe. MeWe is probably the largest and best known of the ‘alternative to Facebook’ social networks out there. I’ve been a member since early 2015 and am fairly active. 

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Matt talbot The Sober Catholic Blog Discussion Group is where readers of SoberCatholic.com can come together and discuss posts. Discussion will initially just center around posts, but hopefully within that framework people can expand and talk about the Matt Talbot Way of Sobriety and anything related to alcoholism and addiction recovery from a Catholic perspective.

Please click on this to join: CLICK ON ME TO JOIN THE SOBER CATHOLIC BLOG DISCUSSION GROUP ON MEWE.

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Although it is a Group, it will at first behave like a Brand Page. MeWe charges for Brand Pages and I’m not interested in paying $1.99 a month. Call me cheap, but Facebook and LinkedIn don’t charge. Of course, they advertise and harvest your data, and MeWe doesn’t. So, maybe someday I’ll fork over the loot, but not right now. At the moment, a Group will suffice, especially since the settings can be manipulated to make it act like a Page; that is, with posts and shares by the owner, and members just commenting on things. I may open up discussion to things as a whole, where people can create posts in the Group, but for now, I’m not yet willing to do that.

Thank you, and I hope to see you around! Click on this to connect with me there: Contact me on MeWe!

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Blog overhaul UPDATE! (new from yesterday’s post)

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UPDATE: (new from yesterday’s post) Due to some massive new updates to WordPress that are appearing next week (see embedded video if you care), some changes will be delayed, such as the new theme and the subscription thingy. I’ve asked a question in a MeWe WordPress Group about the latter, (admin is the same guy in the video, I think) so hopefully that’ll be resolved soon, too.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

And so I published something on Medium today!

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Medium is a publishing platform where anyone with writing aspirations can sign up, write stuff and publish it where no one or maybe lots of someones will read it. You can also earn money. The trick to the latter is that you have to join their partnership program and for that, you need at least 100 followers. There’s a lot to it, and some of the lotness means you have to shell out money, but following someone is free. 

This is what I published to Medium today: Two Theories on How the World Ends

If you would be so kind as to click on the ‘follow’ link at the article, that would make me really happy. What am I going to be writing there? General oddments, some Catholic, a lot not. Nothing injurious to your Faith, of course 😉 

Much of what I will publish there I’ve written elsewhere (like on Paul Sofranko Space).But any ‘old material’ will be edited and updated to meet the needs of a wider audience. I do have ideas for completely new stuff, so it won’t be just rehashed old stuff.

I will be uploading and publishing some old Paul Sofranko Space stuff over the next few days.

On another note: I’m still working out the details of the overhaul to SoberCatholic that I wrote about earlier. Change is hard and although it will be good, I usually struggle with carrying it through. All the basics have been done: the new Pages are written and ready to go, all I have to do is… do it. 

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

ATTENTION Subscribers…

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I am having issues with the new subscription thingy I installed the other day. I apparently have to manually add emails to the subscription list (I looked around and there was nothing in the settings to allow new subscribers to be automatically added.) I am trying a new option but I’m not how its is working, just yet. If you subscribed and aren’t getting anything, that’s why. Patience, please! 

I wish the old subscription thingy wasn’t deprecated by WordPress. It was working just fine; I forgot it was there!

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Subscribe option is back! And I may be looking into WordPress alternatives…

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Someone recently wrote me (and donated $10!!!) and asked me to add her to the subscription list. I had thought there was a subscribe option, but apparently the old subscribe widget was obsoleted and legacied by WordPress. (Nice going, WP. It worked perfectly well, there was no need to change things!) Anyway, I struggled through WordPress’s options and found a new plugin that should work as a subscription thingy. So, if you wish to subscribe, please do so, upper top left in the sidebar. Or, if on mobile, I think it’s at the begin Ning of all the stuff past the posts.

(I may be looking into an alternative to WordPress, the ‘under the hood stuff’ for this blog is getting more difficult with each passing year.)

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Sober Catholic Books UPDATE!

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Recently my wife got me an early birthday present, Publisher Rocket by Dave Chesson of Kindlepreneur. It’s a book marketing and research tool that comes highly recommended by pages and pages of Google and DuckDuckGo search results. I’ve only had it a couple of days and I am thinking I should have gotten it years ago. It helps you find a lot of things to aid your self-published books gain traction on Amazon along with a whole bunch of other useful tools for self-publishing. The Kindlepreneur site itself is a goldmine of things every self-publisher needs to know.

I have just used it to discover over a dozen categories in which to place my two books (see the signature that is at the bottom of every post for links to them.) I ust submitted a request to have Amazon place them in those categories. Right now just for the ebooks, I’ll try and add the paperback versions later today. 

That all being said, I’ve been inspired to dust off several of my Sober Catholic Books-in-progress. Although the Stations and Rosary books came out a decade ago, I’ve never given up on the idea of writing more. Things got in the way, including some nasty character defects (complacency and laziness) but I would occasionally piddle with a few ideas. 

Well, I have started work on two, maybe three books. One is on the Ten Commandments and the other is on the Litany of the Sacred Heart. The possible third is a prayer book. Not sure about that one. I have no idea when they will be finished, but I am enthused about self-publishing again. If something were to happen to me and SoberCatholic.com goes offline, then the books should be around as long as Amazon and the other publishers are online. So there’s that motivation. 

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

16th Bloggaversary of Sober Catholic: How I stayed sober for almost 21 years

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Today marks the 16th Bloggaversary of Sober Catholic. In honor of that, I’ve edited and cleaned up a messy note I wrote who-knows-when on “The Sober Catholic Way.” It is a summary of everything I’ve been doing since I became sober on May 22, 2002. Some I do better than others. 

This was originally a long, 2,000ish word post. There was the summary you see in the next paragraph followed by a longer version that fleshed out the details. But then I decided this morning during a feeling-sorry-for-myself pity party that the longer version is itself a summary of an even much longer version that’s been lurking in my head for 15 or so years. That being a book on the topic of “The Sober Catholic Way of Sobriety.” Or something like that. I shall begin working on that right away. I do not know when it will be finished.

The summary of the ‘Sober Catholic Method’ or ‘Way’ or ‘whatver’ is:

Wow, that’s a long list, Paulcoholic? Isn’t a Twelve-Step program simpler? Yeah, maybe. But doing the above has kept this sick puppy sober for over 20 years and I knew that AA couldn’t. Some people demand happiness in this life and they find it often by avoiding suffering all costs and more and more turn to things which can only be called ‘addictions.’ Whether it is the typical alcohol or drugs, or an inordinate attraction to the self, or to the Internet and social media, or  to fandoms (pop culture things like TV franchises, movies, comics or other entertainment stuff.) Someone may not be an alcoholic or a drug addict, but I betcha they’re ‘addicted’ to something. You need a lot of tools to crowd all that stuff out or at least keeping them in their proper perspective is an attribute of the Sober Catholic Method. Or Way. Or whatever… 😉 So this all could be a wholistic approach to dealing with life in general and addictions in particular.

There are probably books or devotions that should be on there, but this my list. Yours may be slightly different. Anyone who takes a look at the list will arrive at the conclusion that it is simply a decent Catholic lifestyle. We are all supposed to go to Mass, Confession, and live the Gospel life which is learned by studying the Bible, Catechism, lives of the Saints and their teachings along with a few particular devotions to assist us on our way – to help us ‘stay on the beam.’ So be it. What makes it a ‘Sober Catholic Way?’ Life hasn’t been perfect for me nor am I a serene, happy saint-to-be. Life sucks at times, and I am often cranky and melancholic. But God never promises happiness and peace in this life. Only in the life to come. This should help me get there.

If you’ve appreciated this blog as well as this post, you can PayPalMe a non-tax deductible donation (my real name is Paul Sofranko, like the destination link says.) I will greatly appreciate every donation. (I do have plans for the money; plans to buy software which will help out in the production and marketing of self-published books. I figure that if I can raise sufficient funds through the kindness of strangers, then I’ll feel responsible and actually start working on the planned books. More on that later. )

 Or, you can just buy a lot of my books I’ve already done:

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Announcing the 31 Day Rosary Challenge!!! Join the Militia of the Immaculata!!!

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I received an email from the Militia of the Immaculata this morning announcing a new apostolic initiative of theirs! Here’s the email (I copied it.)     
Join the Militia of the Immaculata for a 31 Day Rosary Challenge set to begin on October 1st!!!

The idea is to pray the Rosary at different hours and different places, doing what you do in your everyday life, whether that is walking, hiking or climbing, whatever outdoor or indoor event(s) you participate in.

Post your selfies on social media, using the hashtag #31dayrosarychallenge
or #31DRC and please tag us so we can use your videos
when updating our social media.

Let us pray for Our Lady’s intentions
and peace and unity in our country and the world.

 

SIGN UP HERE: THE 31 DAY ROSARY CHALLENGE SIGN UP SHEET

“The Rosary is the ‘weapon’ for these times.” –St. Padre Pio

We need Families as well as Men and Women in all walks of life to join us during these 31 Days!

Show your support this October,
begin whenever you can, and let’s keep this going for 31 days.
Invite your friends and neighbors to join in the challenge.

(Copy and Share)

“Give me an army saying the Rosary and I will conquer the world.” –Bl. Pius IX

At the end of the #31DRC, we invite You to make (or renew) your total consecration to Our Lady and to consider joining her MI Family!
Find out how (Click Here).

Join the Militia of the Immaculata as we begin
our 31 Day Rosary Challenge!

Let us “win the entire world for the Immaculata and, through her, for the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus,” as St. Maximilian Kolbe stated.

 

About the Militia of the Immaculata (MI):

OK, Paulcoholic again! The MI was founded  in 1917 by St. Maximilian Kolbe and aims to win the whole world for Christ through the Immaculata, Mother of God and of the Church. He did it in response to anti-Catholic and anti-Papal Freemason demonstrations in Rome earlier that year. St. Maximilian was inspired by the conversion story of Alphonse Ratisbonne, who had experienced a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Church of St. Andrea della Fratte in Rome in 1842. The Miraculous Medal played a crucial role in that. Kolbe reasoned that if Our Lady can work the conversion of an atheistic Jewish person by virtue of the Miraculous Medal, then it can be a ’spiritual bullet’ targeting souls of other unbelievers and so forth. The MI was founded on October 16th of 1917, and approved by Pope Pius XI as a “Pious Union” a few years later (and is now termed a Universal and International Public Association of the Faithful.)

In essence, the MI is an evangelical organization dedicated to spreading Catholicism to everyone by whatever means is best suited to the individual and their state in life. The Miraculous Medal is worn outwardly by members as a public witness.

Members must have made a ‘total consecration’ to Our Blessed Mother by a formula written by St. Maximilian so that she can use us in any manner that she wishes. St. Maximilian likens it to being used as a “pen or paintbrush in the Immaculata’s hands.” The consecration as laid out by St. Maximilian is very similar to that established by St. Louis Grignon de Monfort, except in one detail: there is an evangelical aspect to it that de Monfort’s lacks. We pick a Marian feast day to do our Consecration (mine was on the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, October 7, 2002.)

I may actually begin using my TikTok account for this. So, start warming up these hashtags! #31dayrosarychallenge #31DRC, #mi #militiaoftheimmaculata

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

The Probably Not Gonna Be Happening Sober Catholic Podcast

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If you are a subscriber to either the Sober Catholic Facebook Page, the Sober Catholic SP3RN Page, or even the Sober Catholic Telegram Channel, then you know that I was exploring the possibility of starting a Sober Catholic Podcast. This is something I’ve thought and prayed about ever since I began this blog in 2007. “All the cool Catholics” have podcasts and so I should too, even though I’m not cool.

I had seen in my WordPress subscriptions a post regarding “Turning your WordPress blog into a podcast with Anchor.” It seemed interesting: you connect your blog to Anchor.fm, your blogpost archive gets uploaded and you can then use these as scripts to record a podcast, with either your own voice or a text-to-speech robovoice (which actually didn’t sound bad.) They provide incidental music and sound that can be used as background effects, and there you go: a podcast which they even distribute to numerous podcasting services.

So I signed up. Unfortunately, not all of the posts got uploaded. I submitted a Help Ticket and they replied a day later stating that they can only upload the most recent 250 posts. Nice, but I have nearly 1,200 posts and my intent was to resurrect the oldest ones and gradually continue forward. I even thought of a schedule, every Friday I’d release a podcast of a “Classic” Sober Catholic post, with current posts that I thought are podcast worthy would be done on other days.

But the 250 post limit wipes out the advantage. So I figured that I can just manually upload classic posts as scripts (to perhaps take advantage of the text-to-speech,) but today I found that I can’t do that. So, that eliminates another advantage to using Anchor as a podcast service.

Therefore, as a result, I am leaning strongly against podcasting. Like I said, I had thought about it for years, never did it, and quite probably if I was ever going to I would have done it by now. Anchor.fm provided a relatively easy way to overcome my reticence, but their tech limitations of upload limit/no upload of text to be used as scripts essentially brings me back to the proverbial ‘Square one’ of podcasting: Do most everything myself. Anchor promised a virtually ‘pain-‘ and ‘hassle-free’ approach to podcasting; utilize already existing work with the rest being fairly automated (I know laying additional audio tracks requires some effort, but if most everything else is done for me, I can manage that.) But the above cited tech limitations or lack of functions pull me way out of my comfort zone.

I can still use old posts and record them on my MacBookAir. I can upload them to Anchor.fm and use some of their stock audio to spruce up the episode. So why am I disinclined to podcast, when it’s just a little more work for me to do?

If you are reading this and answering that it’s because I’m a lazy bum for seeing all these issues as obstacles, then you aren’t aware of two things: I HATE THE SOUND OF MY VOICE almost as much as I HATE SPEAKING!!! This is why I prefer the printed word of blogging over podcasting and why I always shied away from the latter. Anchor.fm’s easy-peasy system had the virtue of helping me to overcome my inherent personal issues to podcasting; but not enough, for now.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

33 Reasons NOT to walk the Camino

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If you have been reading this blog for the past several years and retain a good memory for certain oddities, then you would know that I hold an obsession regarding the film “The Way.” It is a film directed by Emilio Estevez and starred his father, Martin Sheen. It is about a man (Sheen) who’s son (Estevez) died one day into his 500-mile pilgrimage and how he went to Spain to retrieve his son’s body. While there, the father impulsively decided to walk the Camino himself, carrying his son’s ashes, so that the son could ‘complete’ the Camino. It has lead me to watching untold hours of You Tube videos on the Camino. Ideally, I will walk the Camino someday; practically, it ain’t gonna happen, so until then I will do it vicariously. (Incidentally, there are ‘virtual Caminos;’ once in a while in my Facebook feed I see ads for such things. It’s like an exercise app where you enroll and walk so many miles a day wherever you live, either in your home or around the neighborhood and town. You keep track of how far you walk. I think it’s a smartphone app or Apple Watch thing; I’m not sure because I haven’t done that, either. But it looks interesting.)

Now, on to the point of this post. Recently I subscribed to a You Tube channel that is about this couple doing their third Camino. What I just love about it is that it is one of the few Camino channels that is unabashedly Catholic and approaches the Camino from its origins and purposes as a CATHOLIC RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL PILGRIMAGE. Almost all of the others focus on a non-denominational/quasi-pagan spiritual development, or its historical and cultural importance, or that it’s a fun and worthwhile thing to do. Mostly backpackers for whom it is ‘just another’ hiking thing like the Appalachian Trail or whatever.

The channel is here: Los Peregrinos. The pilgrims are a Filipino couple from Dallas, Texas (although originally from the Philippines.) The series of videos are subtitled “33 reason why Catholics should not walk the Camino.” It is a funny use of ‘reverse psychology’ as each reason is a good lesson on faith and growing closer to Jesus, using Camino metaphors and examples.

I have not finished the series yet, currently I’m on Day 25. Each day they relate what happened, where they went and how it was; and at some point within the video he gives that day’s “reason not to walk” it, along with a “Camino Saint of the Day,” typically a saint from the area they were in on that day who is tied to the Camino in some manner.

I am loving these videos (although sometimes I do get dizzy as the camera is moved much too fast when a site is shot. But a small price for such an edifying series of videos.)

There is another You Tube Channel created by Catholics who also walked the Camino; although they visit churches along the way and their Faith is important, their videos aren’t as religious (but still worthwhile!) The St. Max Media YouTube Channel is run by a Polish lady who went on Camino with her daughter. Their playlist is here:  Camino de Santiago – The Way of Saint James

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)