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I traveled to Virginia this week, and I was driving in a small town one afternoon when I got to a red light. There was a sign clearly saying “No turn on red” but a big truck pulled up behind me. It was completely clear to turn if I wanted to.
I looked back and did the calculus where I somehow figured out that that guy would be annoyed if I just sat there and didn’t turn. I’m still a people-pleaser, even when it involves random unknown drivers I’ve never met and never will.
So I turned right on red, even though I’d seen the sign. As I drove down the narrow street, a guy had to wait to open the car door until I drove past. For 10 seconds as I drove up to and past him, the guy just glared at me, and then looked back at the intersection. I felt like it was clear he lived in the area and knew I’d just made an illegal turn.
He just kept staring at me as I got closer and closer, and that’s when I noticed a shiny policeman badge on his waist. He wasn’t getting into a squad car but it was clearly an unmarked cop car. I got some butterflies in my stomach as I drove past, because I felt like he was glaring at me, then looking at cars coming up and down the street, and he sure seemed to be assessing whether it’d be worth pulling me over.
As I passed him, I kept looking in my rearview mirror and I watched him gawking up and down the street for another 10 seconds. I thought it was a coin flip whether I’d see flashing lights in my near future.
But that didn’t happen. I kept driving and did not get ticketed for illegal people-pleasing or illegal turns or improper afternoon aggravation of a plainclothes officer. I chuckled a little bit for the rest of the drive because I really did get away with one.
I’m sharing this here today because I mostly do follow the rules, especially when I’m fully on the spiritual beam. But if I miss a few meetings, don’t catch up with other people in recovery, skip reading from our literature… it’s remarkable how much I start to think maybe some rules don’t apply to me.
The roads can be especially problematic. I do routinely bend the road rules a little bit toward whatever mood I’m in. If it’s late at night and not many cars on the road, maybe 65 MPH actually means 75. Maybe “no turn on red” actually means, “Hey man, you’re in a hurry. Look both ways and just go ahead and keep rolling.”
And there are other areas I need to watch out for, too.
I’ve been charged less than I should have been at the grocery store and started to think, “You know what? They make lots of money over here and I’m a good customer. Don’t they kind of owe me a free iced tea?”
I’ve also gone to the office supply closet before and seen a bunch of cool pens I didn’t really need… but my kids might love! I grab a few and chalk it up to one of the perks of the job.
I’ve had a few things with my kids where they didn’t land in a class or on a sports team that they wanted, and I’ve thought, “Let me see what angle I could work here to get what I want.”
Many of these things all sound relatively harmless, right? Lobbying for your kid to be with a friend on a team? Snagging a free pen or two? No big deal!
But here’s why that’s a problem for me: I rarely have ever been able to stop my brain from talking me into other things, too. Suddenly I am working against my own principles and I am starting to slide. I think about that word a lot, because I haven’t had that one moment where I’m cruising along and I start lying, stealing and drinking one day. No, it’s always a gradual erosion and I start to slide back into being the same person who used to do all sorts of things I don’t want to do any more.
So my close encounter with a $100 illegal turn fine really was a good nudge toward making sure my goal is to follow ALL appropriate rules that society puts in place, not the imaginary ones that might make a rando in the truck behind me happy, but is illegal.
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.
A man walks into a bar and orders a drink. He takes a sip of his drink when he hears a voice saying, “That’s a very nice tie you have on.”
He looks around but he doesn’t see anybody else in the bar except for the bartender, who is reading a newspaper at the other end.
The man takes another sip of his drink and he hears, “That shirt is a good color for you.” Again the man looks all around and sees nobody. He calls the bartender over.
“I must be cracking up,” he says. “Every time I take a sip of my drink, I hear voices.”
“It’s that bowl of peanuts,” the bartender says.
“The bowl of peanuts?”
“Yes,” says the bartender. “The peanuts are complimentary.”
(Credit: AA Grapevine, September 2000, Mick K.)
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