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I saw that September is National Recovery Month, which I seem to forget every year. So… Happy Recovery Month!
I really am not a fan of the monthly and daily celebrations because they’ve gotten so out of hand. September is National Recovery Month, National Suicide Prevention Month and a slew of other important things to contemplate.
But it’s also National Square Dance Month, National Whole Grains Month, National Piano Month, National Mortgage Professional Month and National Rice Month. And hey, if you’re reading this on September 10, make sure you celebrate National TV Dinner Day with a delicious frozen platter! Those days seem really silly and driven by capitalism, which I think waters down the meaning of actual celebrations to consider.
And in all seriousness, I would consider recovery to be a topic worth celebrating. I don’t bake myself a cake or anything, but I do try to spend this month feeling grateful for all the sober people that came before me. Think about what we have in 2024 because of the people that have gotten sober years before us.
A few examples:
We have sober literature that has been vetted and reconsidered for decades. We have laws about work leave for substance abuse issues. We have churches and other places that trust us to have 12-step meetings there. We have rehabs that have tried and true methods of detoxing people and steering them toward a new life.
I try to always spend a few minutes thinking about what it would look like right now if none of that stuff existed and a bunch of newcomers had to try to band together and come up with everything we have. I’ve been to business meetings in the last five years where people couldn’t agree on a $5 rent increase, so I cannot fathom 100 drunks sitting down and writing a book together.
Yet that’s what our elders did. They wrote books. They came up with the steps. They paid their rent on time. They made mistakes and corrected them so I didn’t have to make the same mistakes. Many of them succeeded so that decades later, when people come into sobriety, their loved ones can have optimism in the recovery process. Imagine the difference between finding out your son or daughter is an alcoholic in 1935 versus now—we all have sober role models we can point to and aspire to become.
My elders really did clear a path that is pretty much a paved road at this point. So I try to honor their memories and sacrifices this month by drinking a non-alcoholic beverage of some sort and toasting what they accomplished.
Then I go back to celebrating National Square Dance month!
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:
"I WENT AND SAW my psychiatrist today and he told me there was good news and bad news," the speaker at the AA meeting said. "The good news is that I have brain cells left. The bad news is that there are only two left, and they are waving goodbye to each other."
(Credit: Grapevine, January 2009, by Tommy H. of Baton Rouge, La)
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.
