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I was at a meeting a few weeks ago, and a guy mentioned he had been going through some significant life difficulties that didn’t involve alcohol but affected his alcoholism. And the point he wanted to make was that he was startled by how much more productive his conversations were with sober friends rather than his family and non-alcoholic friends.
He said he shared his struggles with about five from each group, and he said the conversations were very, very different with sober people, and he couldn’t figure out why.
I found myself nodding along because I had a similar situation about 10 years ago, and I actually arrived at an answer to why that is.
My situation was when I moved from New Jersey to Connecticut, and I kind of went off the rails in every aspect of life. The process of moving was a disaster because inspectors found an oil tank underneath the house we were selling, so the EPA was going to have to get involved, we had to take the house off the market and we had to drop our asking price from from $250,000 down under $200,000.
So I was renting a house with my family in Connecticut and trying to take care of and pay for a dumpster fire in New Jersey. My housing expenses alone were more than my income, so I was racking up debt, with no sober program in the place I had moved to, and the stress was making me a bad dad, husband, employee, neighbor… bad everything.
I eventually found a good recovery network in Connecticut and started getting more spiritually fit. That helped enormously—I began to realize that yes, this was a financial mess and there was so much uncertainty about how this was going to work out… but I knew I would be ok. I had been able to cobble together enough to pay for food, electricity, etc. and I had a roof over my head (two roofs, actually).
I found myself mostly keeping my situation quiet but sharing with two sets of people: sober people, and some friends from work. Both groups were wonderful friends who listened intently and offered solutions. But I found myself very aggravated about the whole thing, and I found my conversations with work friends to only make that worse. When I called contractors or the old owner of the New Jersey house an a*****e, they chimed in with even worse insults. When I moaned and groaned about having bad luck, they doubled down on how much I was getting screwed. I told myself that this was venting, and it was helpful and healthy. But I was lying to myself. I wanted to be mad, and these people were letting me be just that. Again, I think they were fantastic friends to validate my feelings and be there for me.
The sober people did some of the same stuff, but with about 80 percent less negativity and about 80 percent more, “So what’s the solution?” and “Well, let’s think about their side of this for a moment.” Any time I would rant about the dipshit we hired to replace our rotting steps on the old house and he charged us twice what he’d quoted us, they would steer the conversation away from insulting the guy and whining, and more toward, “What are next steps? What is going on with you right now? What actions will you take about the situation AND for yourself to be as spiritually fit as possible?” Other sober people just listened and nodded in a way where I felt both heard and also REALLY heard… as in, they hear me stark raving mad right now, and I don’t want to keep going like that. They were people I respected and admired, and they were choosing not to actively participate in talking bad about people, and that made me want to stop actively participating in it, too.
In case you’re wondering how the old house story ended, it didn’t end well… but it was fine. We sold the house for about a 40 percent loss. I ended up in financial hell for a few years. But we dug out, and everything ended up working out okay.
So when that guy was sharing, I got where he was coming from but was so glad I had stumbled into that same revelation earlier in my sober life. I still find great value in sharing stuff with friends and family, and I also find tremendous value in sharing with my sober network. I think both are essential and I would never advocate to only have people in your life who are in recovery because it’s like we are all perfect people, either. But I love the balance, and I hope I never again try to go through life without that balance.
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:
ROUGH CROWD
A young AA was visiting her father over the holidays, and told him she was stepping out for a while to go to a local meeting. "He gave me a big hug, and said in a fatherly tone, 'Well, just be careful, sweetie. There are alcoholics at those meetings, you know."
(Credit: Grapevine, June 2009, Kaitlyn J. of Washington DC)
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