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I was at a meeting recently where some people were sharing about the glorious, insidious nature of self-pity—the idea that it can be such a warm bath to lay back and think of all the crappy things we didn’t deserve but got anyway. Self-pity is one of those things that if you make eye contact with it, it will start a longgg conversation with you.
But one guy shared a great anecdote that I am still thinking about. He was talking about that period about six months into sobriety that so many of us go through—we’ve put out enough of the big fires to realize how many small fires and hard work remain, and we also have just enough experience living a life without drugs and alcohol to numb out pain to realize that it’s very difficult to be sober. Life gets lifey, as many people say!
During that period, he said he told his sponsor, “I feel like I deserve better than I am getting right now.”
And his sponsor promptly said something so basic that it is incredibly profound: “If you had actually gotten what you deserved, you’d be dead or in jail.”
Damn. As the kids say these days, “Boom, roasted.” How do you come back from something so devastating because it’s true? When I think about it, even if I had lost my house, marriage, job and other stuff, it wouldn’t have added up to the price I probably should have paid for all those bad decisions and terrible behaviors. So anything bumpy at 6 months—or 5 years or 20 years—pales in comparison to me with a toe tag on, or me in a vegetative state because I ate 50 Vicodin and 10 beers.
I left that meeting really thinking about whether I need to even be using the word deserve. What do I deserve? I live a a good life now, with bumps in the road that have mostly been manageable, and I feel grateful every morning to be alive. What else could you ask for? Do I deserve more money? Fame? Kinder teenaged kids? Nah, I don’t DESERVE them. Would I like them? Yes. Yes, I would. But I got more than what I deserved, and it doesn’t involve a toe tag.
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:
OLDIE BUT GOODIE: The lush sat drinking at his kitchen table, complaining to his wife that his bartender didn't understand him.
(Credit: Grapevine, January 2008, by Anonymous)
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