Boy, 2018 was a challenging year. Gone was the glow of celebrating my son’s September 2017 wedding to his beautiful bride, Holly. As I faced another winter alone, the bouts of seasonal affective disorder prompted dark thoughts. While I love my chosen profession of a recovery counselor in private practice, I had symptoms of burnout. But in the summer of 2018, my 33-year-old son Matthew surprised me by saying he wanted to travel to Ireland on his February 2019 break from public school teaching in Maine.

I had looking forward to my third trip to Ireland to buttress my spirits.

One of my peccadillos is that I write postcards to myself (and others) whilst on vacation. During the Spring semester of 1979, I was a college junior studying British history and broadcasting in Hounslow, England. I corresponded with my parents and youngest sister in letters and postcards dispatched from throughout the United Kingdom and Europe. My parents saved my dispatches for posterity.

Forty years ago, this weekend, a number of us students decided to hitchhike to Fishguard, Wales to take the boat over to Rosslare Harbour in the Republic of Ireland. I treasure the journal I kept of that sojourn to my ancestral homeland. On March 17, 1979, I wrote in my journal that my hitchhiking partner and I “primed our thumbs” for the 150-mile trip from Cork to the Capitol.

“The trip north to Dublin was incredible with blizzard-like conditions prevailing most of the way…and we missed the parade,” I recorded.

What I learned is that St. Patrick’s Day is a religious holiday and experience on the Emerald Isle. In the U.S.A. (aka the United States of Alcohol), it’s yet another excuse to drink, get rowdy at a parade and otherwise carouse under the influence of the so-called “Irish Curse.” I know the curse well as I am a man in recovery since Dec. 28, 1991 from alcohol use.

A binge drinker for 17 years, a different man landed in Dublin 6:30 a.m. Feb. 18, 2019. Different even from the man of 2002. Taking the bus to City Centre, Matt, Holly and I walked 7 miles. I was exhilarated and exhausted by being on the “Old Sod” for the first time in 17 years.

What was the difference during my 2019 tour? In 1979, I was in the company of rowdy college students with nicknames such as Murph, Chang and my simple moniker, Greaney! Then in 2002, a female friend backed out of our planned 1,000-mile car tour last minute. I surprised myself with my independence and devil-may-care attitude and how well I took to driving on the “wrong” side of the road, something Matt also did very well.

Last month, each meal, museum visit, every car conversation and, yes, the few squabbles, were with people I deeply love. I got to do all of that with my first born, punctuating our last full day by shedding our shoes and socks and planting our feet in the mighty and freezing cold Atlantic along Slea Head. I was truly inspired by this second “baptism” and trodding the sod of my wise mothers and forefathers.

Since returning from Ireland Feb. 25, gone is the fear of planning for my “early” retirement, diminished is my sense of loneliness and absence of being in a committed relationship; abandoned is my concern of being fearlessly honest in my writing and conference presentations on creative approaches to group therapy.

After the soul-stirring experience of sitting on ruins dating back to 2000 B.C. and feeling grounded in my spirit, it’s no wonder that my internal guidance March 1 was, “Do the right thing by doing the write thing.”

So here I sit, eating Irish soda bread, listening to stirring renditions of “Moonshiner,” “The Weavers” and my childhood favorite, “Tim Finnegan’s Wake,” by the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.

With all the discord in Congress and partisanship creating animosity on Main Streets all over this country, Doc Greaney’s prescription (I’m not a doctor but I portrayed one on TV and stayed at a Holiday Inn last night!) for perspective is, “Dust off your passport and take a trip to your ancestor’s homeland. Breathe the air deeply, touch the soil, interact with your kith and kin and put your feet in a body of water.”

Thomas M. Greaney is a private practice clinician, an author, a national conference presenter and the proud father of Matt and Laura. Depending on the source, his Greaney clan hails from Dingle or Galway, Ireland. He is already planning a 2021 trip to Galway! He lives in Westerly.