If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!
I have been reading a lot lately about the state of friendships in the U.S. these days and… It. Is. Not. Good. About 12 percent of American adults who are polled say they have zero close friends. In 1990, that number was 3 percent. If you add up the numbers for people who say they have two or fewer friends, it’s 32 percent now, which is twice what it was 30 years ago. That’s a lot of people out there on islands.
An important note, in case you’re wondering: That survey didn’t count spouses, brothers, sisters, moms, etc. It makes the case that friendships are great with loved ones, but most humans need other friends besides that category. I have a bunch of amazing loved ones in my life, but for the purposes of this newsletter, I am talking specifically about friends, not relatives.
So those numbers are alarming, and you can read the entire survey in THIS LINK. I don’t think I need to explain the impact of people not having very many close friends other than to say it is really bad. And for the purposes of this newsletter about addiction and recovery, I think it is extremely bad. Loneliness can be an absolute destructive force for so many of us addicts and alcoholics—even when we’re not drinking or drugging any more.
OK, so that was a lot of bad news. But I wanted to focus more on the good news here, which is that I have found recovery to be a beautiful antidote to such an ugly friendship crisis. If I had to answer that question, about the number of friends I have, I don’t even know what I would say. I think I would consider at least 10 sober people in my life to be close friends, and it’s possible that number would be like 25.
I almost can’t believe that number is real as I think about it, but it is. I have a double digit number of sober friends who I would trust to watch my kids, or take me to the hospital, or share something incredibly personal with. I know that sounds like a high number, but it’s true. Trust me, I went through my phone and counted, and I ended up with a number north of 25 but I felt sheepish saying that.
By no means do I think I am unique in that regard. But I do think one of the No. 1 things that has tripped me up before, and tripped lots of other people up, is that I didn’t develop significant relationships with people beyond seeing them at meetings. And I get it. When I got sober, I had zero people on earth who I had been telling the truth to. Nobody knew the real me and what I was up to every day. My life had been like that for about three years. So the idea that I would go to rehab and suddenly be an open book with lots of close friends is ridiculous. I didn’t even know how to be an actual friend, and even if I knew how to be a good friend, I had spent the past three years getting comfortable with no friends and lots of secrets. It was not like riding a bike, where it all came back to me, either. It was uncomfortable letting my guard down with people for a long time.
But eventually I started to open up and connect with people. I wouldn’t count some of those early relationships in sobriety as being close friends, by the survey’s standards. Like, if I never called you and didn’t have your number, I’m not sure that qualifies, and I had a stretch of sobriety where I was seeing sober people all the time at meetings, talking to them afterward, and maybe even grabbing a coffee once in a while. I would consider those types of people to be acquaintances, and those are crucial, too. I only figured out how to move beyond being acquaintances with people by being acquaintances with them first.
If you’re wondering what my point is… I’m not really sure it’s more than making close friends is very important for any human being, and I consider it essential for sobriety. I’m not sure I could stay sober if I had lots of people in my life who I keep at arm’s length. I’ve tried sobriety with no friends, then with one or two, then with lots of close friends… let me tell you, it’s no comparison. The more close relationships I have had, the happier I have been. So get yourself a close friend—or five!—as soon as you can!
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:
A drunk hated his wife’s cat and decided to get rid of it by driving it 20 blocks from his home and leaving it at the park. But as he was getting home, the cat was walking up the driveway.
The next day, he decided to drive the cat 40 blocks away. He let it out of the car and headed home. Driving back up his driveway, there was the cat!
He kept taking the cat further and further and the cat would always beat him home. At last, he decided to drive a few miles away, turn right, then left, past the bridge, then right again, and another right, until he reached what he thought was a safe distance from his home and left the cat there. Hours later the man called home to his wife: "Honey, is the cat there?"
"Yes," his wife answered. "Why do you ask?"
Frustrated, the man answered, "Put the cat on the phone. I'm drunk, I'm lost, and I need directions!"
(Credit: AA Grapevine, August 2008, by Terry B.)
Please spread the word to a sober friend! Find me on Substack… or Twitter… or Facebook… or Instagram… or YouTube. And introducing my web site, LOLsober.com.
