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I was driving the other day on a 35 MPH road in the town I live in. I got behind someone driving 25 MPH, which is slower than the speed limit, which is an absurd thing to do in this world.
Anyway, we were approaching an intersection and the light was green. But this guy was puttering along so slowly that I just KNEW we were going to miss the light by 1 second and I was going to be cursing this slow poke for adding two minutes to my day.
Sure enough, as we were getting near the intersection, the light turned yellow. But instead of slowing down from 25 MPH, this a*****e hit the gas hard. He shot forward like he’d just entered Indianapolis 500 qualifying and he went ripping through as the light turned red. I, of course, was stuck at the intersection, shaking my head and trying to voodoo curse the guy in front of me.
I was only pissy about it for 10 seconds because it is a very amusing phenomenon to observe, the person who meanders around and then suddenly finds the gas pedal when a yellow light appears.
I’m writing about this on a sober newsletter because as I sat at that red light, hoping Santa Claus delivered four flat tires to that guy’s house, I thought about how often I figuratively only hit the gas pedal when I really want something.
Feeling jittery about my sobriety? I hit three meetings in three days and call a bunch of guys.
Overdraw my checking account? Panic and swear up and down that now is the time to become financially responsible.
Uncomfortable conversation that will need to be had with someone at some point? Put it off until the last minute, then yell at somebody.
But why wait till it gets to the point where I have to hit the gas so hard?
This is particularly valuable this time of year because I have been one of those people who gets distracted from recovery stuff around the holidays, then gets squirrelly and tries to cram in two meetings in one day to get my spiritual fitness up. I can’t afford to do that too much, and I’m planning on doing the opposite of that this holiday season—I want to be slow and steady and methodical with sobriety stuff so that my spiritual fitness doesn’t take wild swings.
To take that road analogy to the end, that means I drive the speed limit or whatever the speed of the person in front of me is driving. No swings from 25 MPH to 65 MPH. I want to stay 35 MPH the whole way through the intersection!
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
HEARD AT MEETINGS
"By the time I got to AA, even my imaginary friends had stopped talking to me."
(Credit: Grapevine, July 2009, by Marbury W. of Greenbelt, MD)
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