If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m not putting anything behind the paywall for a little while longer, so if you choose the free option, you’ll receive everything without paying. If you’d like to contribute anyway, many thanks.
Nov. 10, 2008 is my sobriety date. So yesterday was 13 years clean and sober.
(Long pause to allow for lots of clapping…)
Man, I can’t get over that number—13 years! That’s a longgggg ass time.
I always get a little funky right before and right after an anniversary and this year was no different. I ended up wondering, Why?
I think it’s because that day has such messy strings attached to it. It’s like a funeral and a birth at the same time—the days leading up to it were the worst of my life, and the days afterward are the start of the most important comeback story in my life. So yeah, it can feel like I am alternating between the salt shaker and sugar packets.
But ultimately that date is like a beam of light shooting up from the ground. That’s the day I found a new way of life. In the beginning, that new way of life was just freedom from not being plastered all the time. I try to never forget that it was really freaking hard to get drugs and alcohol… consume the drugs and alcohol… hide the drugs and alcohol… try not to throw up the drugs and alcohol… get rid of the evidence of drugs and alcohol… attempt to function so that people didn’t know I had consumed so many drugs and alcohol… and then, start plotting to do it again the next day.
Whew. I have a friend who says, “Being an active addict was a full time job—and I already had a freaking full time job.” That was my life, too.
So not having to do that seven days a week was very nice early on.
But recovery is like one of those infomercials for spatulas—"But there’s more.” In this case, the “more” was what happens when the cravings calmed down. It took about three months, maybe a little longer, but I started to look around and realize that I had stripped away a lot of the bad parts of me—the lying, the stealing, the hours of drinking and drugging. That was all gone.
But what was left? I was 31 years old but I found myself asking, What do I want to be when I grow up?
That’s about when I got to the Fifth Step, and it happened at the perfect time. I shared a very intimate Fourth Step with my sponsor, and at the end he said, “Great job. I love you.”
I was caught off guard and awkwardly blurted out “I love you, too.”
But then I said, “Uh, I feel like if we’re going to love each other, I should know your last name.”
He laughed, told me his last name and made a joke about how this wasn’t a one-night stand.
Something clicked that day about recovery: I had a choice. I could go to a few meetings every week, make a call or two and probably not drink or do drugs. That would probably keep me physically sober.
But what about emotional and spiritual sobriety? What would my life look like with that?
Here’s the thing I figured out about that: It wasn't that hard to make sobriety a lifestyle rather than a side hobby. I didn’t need to become a monk, or even go to a meeting every single day.
I started spending time outside of meetings with sober people. On weekends, I’d read recovery literature even though nobody told me I had to. I started looking at hitting recovery picnics and other gatherings. I started making more phone calls to sober people.
And that’s when things really began to turn for me—because I loved it. There’s the old joke about how there are two parts to sobriety, getting your marbles back and then getting to play with them… well, I felt like I was finally getting to the place where I could play with my marbles.
I’ve heard some people say that recovery programs are like joining a cult or something like that. Hey, I get it, we all stand around at the end of meetings and hold hands and say prayers, so… sure?
It reminds of one time, early in recovery, after a meeting. I had a guy many years ago say, “I don’t think 12-step programs are for me. It feels like brainwashing.”
Another sober friend was standing there and didn’t say it directly to the guy. But later, he chuckled a bit and said, “I don’t know about anybody else, but I think my brain could use a little washing.”
So on this glorious day for me, a day that really is the first day of a new chapter in my life, I am still thinking about that. Recovery didn’t brainwash me—that’s a little strong.
But sobriety has scrubbed my mind a bit, made the bed, emptied the trash can, sprayed a little air freshener. Let’s call it a brainscrubbing instead of brainwashing. So with that in mind, I have never been happier to be brainscrubbed than I am right now!
ALCOHOLIC/ADDICT JOKE OF THE DAY
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....
"I don't know what I want, but I want a lot of it."
(Credit: AA Grapevine, December 2005)
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.
