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I saw a tweet from the New York Times the other day quoting a study that had been done on apes. Turns out, apes have this curious habit of hanging on tree branches and then swinging around and around till they are dizzy. The study said the apes on average spun about 1.5 revolutions per second, and they’d do it for 10-plus seconds and get deliriously dizzy.
When scientists studied this phenomenon, they came to a surpising answer to why apes did this. It’s that … they think apes just like the buzz of being dizzy.
My first thought was, welcome to the club, guys! I feel you! There are quite a few of us humans who love the buzz, and some of us who love it way too much and it ruins our lives. My one suggestion would be to do your spinning in moderation.
My second thought was slightly more serious, which is that maybe all species, from humans to apes and everything in between have the urge to find that feeling. I’m picturing grasshoppers and spotted owls and chinchillas just out there having tough weeks and spinning their asses off to unplug for the weekend.
My third thought was, in all honesty, a bummer. I can’t do stuff like that any more, and I think about that sometimes. I think about how I haven’t had any moments in many, many years where I could just do something or take something and have it wash over me and I forget about the world. That’s a daunting thought, isn’t it?
But here’s the positive to it. First of all, I can’t do that once a week or once a month. I do it every day, and it stops working in the way I described, as an occasional outlet.
Secondly, there’s something about never drinking or drugging away the world that is a really awesome achievement. I’m proud that I used to try to run from every problem in the world every single day, and now I run from nothing. I stand my ground, even when the ground is bumpy.
And I will say that I had a period of time, in a galaxy far far away from now, when I did drink moderately. And I would sometimes have a rough week and go to the bar and unwind. It was quite fun, actually. But even if I could sign up for that again, now that I have a fuller vision of that time in my life, I know that I’d choose my current life any day of the week. I didn’t grow at all during that time period. I didn’t power through anything in a way where I could do it again in the future. I didn’t learn anything. I was kind of just muddling along.
And that’s my ultimate takeaway on what is a pretty goofy story about apes spinning. I don’t want to muddle along. Yes, I have moments where I see guys drinking beer and watching football at Buffalo Wild Wings and think, Geez, that would be great. But I don’t want that any more. Muddling along means I punt all of my problems from today into tomorrow, and then I probably punt again tomorrow.
I did have one more thought about the apes as I finished up this one. I want to know if there are any apes like me, who learn how to spin and then start spinning too much on the weekends at first but then every night… and then during the day every day, and then eventually the elder apes get together and put him in spinning ape rehab. But the rehab works, so the ape gets a spin sponsor—a spinsor, you might call it—and he’s able to avoid spinning for a long period of time, one day at a time. Maybe on his anniversary they even give him an engraved banana to commemorate one year of spin-free living…
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 TRUE STORY
A newcomer and his sponsor are driving to a meeting when the sponsor stops and points to a sign in the window of a liquor store. "Good Buys!" the ad promises.
"You know what that means?" asks the sponsor. "It means, 'Good-bye job'. . . 'Good-bye car'. . . 'Good-bye health.' "
(Credit: AA Grapevine, December 2003, by John W. of Tucson, Arizona)
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