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Navigating Grace: A Solo Voyage of Survival and Redemption
Jeff Jay’s recent life was full of his marriage had ended, his father had passed away, his brother had committed suicide, and Jeff’s own alcoholism had taken him to the edge of death.
In his desire for a fresh start, Jeff set out on a solo adventure by sea on an old sloop named Lifeboat. It ultimately became a journey of personal transformation. He cast off in Annapolis, Maryland with an eye toward the Caribbean. Finally able to breathe, Jeff relaxed into his first day sailing the Atlantic when a dark winter storm descended, tossing him into a week-long fight for survival on the open sea. As he faced the realization that only divine intervention could deliver him from certain death, Jeff desperately called on the deity that had intervened in the darkest hours of his addiction years earlier.
An intensely personal testimony to calling on the power of grace in our darkest hours, Jeff’s is a beautifully written tale of far-fetched dreams, desperate prayers, and those miraculous moments that change our lives forever.
In his desire for a fresh start, Jeff set out on a solo adventure by sea on an old sloop named Lifeboat. It ultimately became a journey of personal transformation. He cast off in Annapolis, Maryland with an eye toward the Caribbean. Finally able to breathe, Jeff relaxed into his first day sailing the Atlantic when a dark winter storm descended, tossing him into a week-long fight for survival on the open sea. As he faced the realization that only divine intervention could deliver him from certain death, Jeff desperately called on the deity that had intervened in the darkest hours of his addiction years earlier.
An intensely personal testimony to calling on the power of grace in our darkest hours, Jeff’s is a beautifully written tale of far-fetched dreams, desperate prayers, and those miraculous moments that change our lives forever.
208 pages, Paperback
First published August 11, 2015
2 people are currently reading
18 people want to read
About the author
Jeff Jay
11 books4 followersJeff Jay is a clinical interventionist and addiction specialist. He has been guiding families into recovery for more than 30 years. His work has appeared on CNN, the Jane Pauley Show, PBS, Forbes Online, and many professional journals.
Jeff is the coauthor (with Debra Jay) of the best-selling book Love First: A Family’s Guide to Intervention, (3rd edition, 2021, Hazelden). His recovery memoir from Hazelden is Navigating Grace, a solo voyage of survival and redemption. He is also the co-author of At Wit’s End: What You Need to Know When a Loved One Is Diagnosed with Addiction and Mental Illness, (with Jerry A. Boriskin Ph.D., Hazelden).
Jeff Jay is a graduate of the University of Minnesota, and a certified alcohol and drug counselor, and a certified intervention professional (CIP). Jeff currently serves as a board member of the Association of Intervention Specialists; the editorial board of Human Development magazine; and on the advisory board of Jefferson House, in Detroit, MI. He has previously served as president of the Terry McGovern Foundation in Washington, DC, and on the board of directors of the Michigan Association of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselors, Dawn Farm Treatment Center, and the Employee Assistance Professionals Association of Greater Detroit.
He heads a national private practice that provides intervention and recovery mentoring services. He served as a clinician with Hazelden and also Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Center. His personal recovery dates from October 4, 1981.
Jeff is the coauthor (with Debra Jay) of the best-selling book Love First: A Family’s Guide to Intervention, (3rd edition, 2021, Hazelden). His recovery memoir from Hazelden is Navigating Grace, a solo voyage of survival and redemption. He is also the co-author of At Wit’s End: What You Need to Know When a Loved One Is Diagnosed with Addiction and Mental Illness, (with Jerry A. Boriskin Ph.D., Hazelden).
Jeff Jay is a graduate of the University of Minnesota, and a certified alcohol and drug counselor, and a certified intervention professional (CIP). Jeff currently serves as a board member of the Association of Intervention Specialists; the editorial board of Human Development magazine; and on the advisory board of Jefferson House, in Detroit, MI. He has previously served as president of the Terry McGovern Foundation in Washington, DC, and on the board of directors of the Michigan Association of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselors, Dawn Farm Treatment Center, and the Employee Assistance Professionals Association of Greater Detroit.
He heads a national private practice that provides intervention and recovery mentoring services. He served as a clinician with Hazelden and also Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Center. His personal recovery dates from October 4, 1981.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 19, 2015
Masterfully Crafted.
I did not want this book to end. Jeff Jay begins his memoir as a young man struggling with family tragedy, addiction and self-doubt. Navigating Grace takes the reader on a personal true-life, soul-searching, hair-raising narrative.
The story weaves Jeff’s intense struggle with addiction together with the drama that unfolds during his epic solo sailing adventure. He writes, “I walked the grounds of the treatment center, thinking about the options, when I was abruptly confronted by a stark fact: I was going to drink again. It wasn’t a stray thought or a vague possibility; it was a certainty, as thought I’d just caught sight of an approaching storm, with thunderheads that spanned the horizon, too big to avoid and pointless to deny.”
I found certain descriptions particularly moving such as, “I could feel the world alive with power, beyond wind and waves, beyond gravity and light, beyond life and death. And riding that spirit like an ancient gull, I moved beyond life and death too, fully awakening from the dream and glimpsing the Eternal.”
Jeff’s writing is masterfully crafted. Not only are the events of this memoir incredible, his intensely personal observations and encounters connect the reader to the wonder of nature and the magnificence and reality of the living God.
- Judy Herzanek/Changing Lives Foundation
Co-author of Why Don't They Just Quit? What families and friends need to know about addiction and recovery.
I did not want this book to end. Jeff Jay begins his memoir as a young man struggling with family tragedy, addiction and self-doubt. Navigating Grace takes the reader on a personal true-life, soul-searching, hair-raising narrative.
The story weaves Jeff’s intense struggle with addiction together with the drama that unfolds during his epic solo sailing adventure. He writes, “I walked the grounds of the treatment center, thinking about the options, when I was abruptly confronted by a stark fact: I was going to drink again. It wasn’t a stray thought or a vague possibility; it was a certainty, as thought I’d just caught sight of an approaching storm, with thunderheads that spanned the horizon, too big to avoid and pointless to deny.”
I found certain descriptions particularly moving such as, “I could feel the world alive with power, beyond wind and waves, beyond gravity and light, beyond life and death. And riding that spirit like an ancient gull, I moved beyond life and death too, fully awakening from the dream and glimpsing the Eternal.”
Jeff’s writing is masterfully crafted. Not only are the events of this memoir incredible, his intensely personal observations and encounters connect the reader to the wonder of nature and the magnificence and reality of the living God.
- Judy Herzanek/Changing Lives Foundation
Co-author of Why Don't They Just Quit? What families and friends need to know about addiction and recovery.
February 11, 2018
Navigating Grace is about a wild, what-were-you-possibly-thinking ... oh-you-weren't adventure in a ramshackle sailboat and inside a man.
As Jeff Jay battles the elements alone during a wicked storm off the east coast, he's transported to all of the other times he could have died during years of past addiction. The people and spirits who helped him then come to him as the wind and waves have their way with Lifeboat, his 40-foot-long, 20-year-old possible deathtrap.
Jeff Jay's life has been saved many times. In turn, he has saved, and continues to save, the lives of many others. I couldn't be more grateful for that.
As Jeff Jay battles the elements alone during a wicked storm off the east coast, he's transported to all of the other times he could have died during years of past addiction. The people and spirits who helped him then come to him as the wind and waves have their way with Lifeboat, his 40-foot-long, 20-year-old possible deathtrap.
Jeff Jay's life has been saved many times. In turn, he has saved, and continues to save, the lives of many others. I couldn't be more grateful for that.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews