Smart Bulbs & The Dogs' Water Dish (and a lesson from my Daughter)

I like to think of myself as the “techno guy” in our house.

Need something turned into a PDF?
Need a device to magically work again?
Need the Wi-Fi to stop acting possessed?

Text me. I’m your wizard.

So of course we have Wi-Fi smart bulbs in our living room—five of them. Color-changing. Phone-controlled. Voice-activated. The whole futuristic-1980s-movie thing.

And that’s where this story starts… and where recovery shows up in a place I didn’t expect.

The frustration that was already building

Right before Christmas, my wife mentioned something that had been bothering her:

“The lights in the morning frustrate me. The color is too harsh.”

She likes that warm, soft, “old school incandescent” feel. Not the bright, clinical daylight look.

And in the moment—because we were literally about to walk out the door—I reacted the way I’ve reacted before:

“Babe… what am I supposed to do about this right now?”

That’s when she hit me with the part that stung.

“I brought this up a year ago. You reacted the same way. Nothing happened. So I’m bringing it up again.”

And she was right.

So instead of staying defensive, I did something small—but important. I collected myself, owned it, and put a note in my system to actually handle it.

A few days after Christmas, I decided: Let’s do this.

The project from hell (aka: five light bulbs)

I open the app… and it’s outdated.

Which means: new app, re-pairing, re-syncing, re-everything.

And with these bulbs, “re-syncing” is not a simple click.

It’s ladder out of the garage.
Unscrew bulbs.
Flip switches in weird patterns.
Pairing mode.
2.4 GHz network (not 5).
Phone trying to connect to the wrong thing.
One bulb refusing to cooperate while I’m standing two feet from the router like an idiot.

I’m not exaggerating when I say I was at it for over an hour.

And here’s the thing about me: I don’t enjoy projects.

Projects are where I discover—halfway through—that there were ten steps I couldn’t possibly have predicted, and somehow I’m making my third trip to Home Depot in a single day.

So my frustration was already high. Like… “I can still breathe, but the water is right at my nose” high.

Enter: the empty dog bowl

While I’m battling the final bulb, I notice the dog’s water dish is empty.

We have three dogs. The water dish chore belongs to my youngest daughter, Eleanor (10).

So I call upstairs: “Hey sweetie, can you refill the dog water?”

No pushback. No attitude. “Yep, Dad.” She comes down.

And she fills it up the way she always does.

She holds the pitcher high—like waist level—and pours into an empty metal bowl from a couple feet up.

You know that sound—water hitting metal like rain on a tin roof—loud, sharp, splashing droplets everywhere.

Normally? That irritates me like a 2 out of 10.

But in that moment?

It hit my nervous system like a brick.

And I snapped.

“ELEANOR—can you PLEASE lower the pitcher when you pour?!”

She looked at me like, Dad… what is happening right now? This is how I always do it.

And I had zero bandwidth.

I grabbed the pitcher from her, stomped outside, tossed it onto the porch.

Then I grabbed the dog bowl, dumped the water out, and threw it too.

I was livid.

Not proud. Not calm. Not “emotionally intelligent recovered dad.”

Just… exploded.

The part that humbled me

Here’s where the grace of God shows up in the form of a 10-year-old girl.

Eleanor stayed calm.

She even texted me:

“Dad, I think you overreacted. I’m not mad, but that seemed unreasonable.”

And then—this is the line that hit me hardest:

“If you want to do my chore the way you want it done, that’s okay with me.”

That’s a level of emotional maturity I didn’t deserve in that moment.

What was really going on

After things cooled down, I sat with the question:

Why did I react like that?

And I realized the truth:

I wasn’t really angry at my daughter.

I was angry at the pressure underneath the surface.

• I was already maxed out from the project

• I was frustrated with myself because my wife had asked me a year ago

• I was overwhelmed because the “simple fix” turned into a complicated mess

• I was at a threat level I didn’t fully recognize in real time

My daughter didn’t cause the explosion.

She was the spark.

The kindling was already soaked in gasoline.

And that’s the connection to recovery that matters.

A lot of us think we have a pornography problem… but what we really have is a pain problem.

Porn is often just the outlet. The escape hatch. The “pressure release.”

The real battle is learning to recognize what’s building underneath the surface—before we hurt the people we love.

Repair matters more than perfection

So I went and found Eleanor.

I told her the truth:

“You’re right. I overreacted. That wasn’t fair. I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?”

And she did.

She said she still loved me.

And that moment—right there—is one of the reasons recovery is worth it.

Not because I never mess up.

But because I can return to the path.

That’s why the last line of the Noble Code matters so much to me:

“If I stray from my path, I vow to return.”

A few takeaways for the dads who saw themselves in this

If this story felt uncomfortably familiar, hear me clearly:

You’re not broken. You’re human. And you don’t have to do this alone.

Here are a few practical takeaways I’m walking away with:

• Triggers aren’t the root. They’re usually the spark, not the fire.

• Awareness is protection. A dad who doesn’t understand what’s really irritating him becomes unsafe—his family starts walking on eggshells.

• Use HALT as a quick check-in:

  • Am I Hungry?

  • Angry?

  • Lonely?

  • Tired?

• Repair is leadership. Apologizing to your kid doesn’t weaken you—it teaches them what strength looks like.

• Recovery tools apply everywhere. Pornography recovery isn’t just about “stopping.” It’s about becoming the kind of man who can carry emotional weight without spilling it onto everyone around him.

One last thing

That day wasn’t about a dog bowl.

And it wasn’t about smart bulbs.

It was about unrecognized pressure… and an old version of me trying to take the wheel.

Recovery is learning how to notice the pressure sooner.

And when we don’t?

We return to the path.

Peace. Power.
And one lesson at a time.