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A few years ago, I got to know a newly sober guy who was a big Green Bay Packers fan. I lived in New York City at the time, so you didn’t see a lot of Packers fans.
He was young, probably 25 years old, and new to recovery. I’ll call him Hank (that’s not his real name). But he was hustling. He did 90 meetings in 90 days, started on the steps and didn’t let up, and made phone calls constantly. He was going for it, and it was a beautiful thing to see. I like to sometimes draft off those people like a NASCAR driver, letting that energy pull me along a little bit. It was great.
One night in January of that year, the Packers had a big playoff game, and it was a back-and-forth game that came down to the last few minutes. It was pretty late at night and I started to text Hank, then I decided against it, then I reconsidered, then I reconsidered again… I ultimately texted him, he texted me back, and we had a long exchange down the stretch of the game and the Packers won. He was so happy, and his joy was my joy.
I love those moments outside the rooms where you see sober people succeed for the first time without drugs and alcohol dogging them every minute of every day. And as much as I like to say that I got sober to carry the message of recovery and do service and help the newcomer… I have to admit that I need to see my recovery work show up in joyous stuff outside of meetings.
Sometimes that’s seeing my kids get a great report card or my wife accomplish a life goal. But other times, it’s just enjoying a football game or a movie or a sandwich. I never try to diminish those things as small, because they’re not. Small things used to make me drink, which wrecked my entire life and the lives of everybody around me. So I am damn sure going to enjoy little things like sports and TV shows and whatever else can be a fun activity.
I didn’t think much of that text exchange until a meeting a week or so later, when the guy shared. He started out by saying how grateful he was toward his Higher Power that the Packers had won their playoff game, and I started to groan a little bit. But he clarified what he meant quickly, saying that he wasn’t grateful that his favorite team had won. He was grateful that he had been sitting in the first apartment he’d ever paid the rent on time for, eating takeout food he didn’t have to put on a maxed-out credit card, watching his first sober football game. And he freaking loved every second of it.
But then he loved it even more. Because his phone started to buzz around halftime, and it didn’t stop buzzing for two hours. It was one new recovery friend after another, me included, checking in on him, cheering him on, celebrating with him. And he said it was a spiritual experience. It wasn’t quite one of those moments where God throws a lightning bolt and hits you in the head.
But it was close. He said that moment reinforced for him that he was taking the right path with his life, that in six months of sobriety he had built a network of people so invested in him that they thought to hit him up over and over again to celebrate a football game. He said he felt like he was a part of a sober army that would support him through big things and small things, good things and bad things. It brought a tear to my eye.
I thought of it a few months ago because I had an almost identical situation on a Saturday night with a new guy whose favorite team was playing in a big sports event. I watched the entire game, even though I don’t particularly like the sport or the team. But I wanted to be there with my friend, in spirit anyway, and either support him or console him. The game went late into the night and I again hesitated to text him… but I knew he was up, biting his nails, so I reached out. We proceeded to text back and forth as his team had a remarkable comeback, forced overtime, then won in overtime. It was freaking awesome.
He said something to me later similar to the Packers fan, that that night he’d been bombarded by a bunch of people who he knows really well despite not knowing their last names. It warmed his heart and it warmed mine.
So I wanted to throw that out there for the main purpose of encouraging everybody to send that extra text. Yeah, maybe you don’t need to. Maybe you’re like me and still like to isolate a little bit. Maybe you catch yourself saying “Ah, I’ll just call him tomorrow.” Or, “I’ll say something to him next time I see him at a meeting.” Maybe you’re old-school and don’t even like to text—I know I prefer to just talk on the phone.
But I think you can’t go wrong with an encouraging text… and hey, you could always call the guy tomorrow, too!
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:
OVERHEARD AT MEETINGS:
"AA has no fixed address. You can take it with you."
(Credit: AA Grapevine, by Joe A., January of 2007)
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.
