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I’ve been thinking a lot recently about my motives. Am I doing the right thing because it’s the right thing? Or am I doing the right thing because I want something in return? The answers to those questions are usually a good window into my recovery.
I’ve made so much progress, for sure. When I think back to my drinking and drugging days, I had one motive ever: Get me what I want, when I want it. Nothing else mattered. That was the motivation for every thought, action and reaction, for every minute of every day.
Everything in my life was built to feed my addiction, including my personal relationships with people. If you weren’t willing to enable me, I found a way to shove you aside. I talked lots of people into enabling me and I got really, really good at it. It makes me cringe just thinking back on those days.
But guess what?
That motive-based mentality didn’t just go away when I put down the beer and pills. It’s something that hung around with me for a longggg time. In fact, I’m still someone who lets his hand hover above the tip jar just a bit because I NEED TO KNOW THAT YOU KNOW I AM AN AMAZING CUSTOMER AND A GIFT TO HUMANKIND.
I’ll give you a more insidious example of what I mean, and I’m glad I can laugh about it now because I did learn something. Here goes:
Around 2014 or so, I had five or six years sober and I was doing pretty well. But I still felt sneaky sometimes—at rehab, they always called it “getting over” and I knew exactly what they meant. It’s that skill addicts like me develop to figure out what your buttons are, how to push them, what makes you laugh, what makes you feel generous toward me. Then I’d weaponize that information.
I was like a freaking FBI profiler, even with some clean time.
So back to the story… I drove through a busy intersection and saw what looked like somebody’s wallet that exploded all over the street. There were credit cards everywhere.
My first thought as I drove past was, “Geez, that sucks for that guy.”
But then that good angel voice that you sober people taught me announced inside my brain, “What would you want somebody to do if that was your driver’s license and credit cards laying on the road?”
Damn it, I thought. So I pulled over and went back and ran out between red lights to gather up the stuff. The wallet was from a woman who lived in the area—her whole identity was laying in that intersection.
I made some calls and eventually tracked her down, and she said she’d meet me at a nearby gas station. When I got there, she was incredibly grateful. Her and her husband profusely thanked me over and over again.
I found myself saying stuff like, “No big deal!” and “Happy to help out.”
Before she left, I’ll never forget she shook my hand one more time and said, “You deserve for something really good to happen to you.”
My first thought was, “Yeah, how ‘bout you give me 50 bucks, lady?”
So as you can see, my motive wasn’t being of service… I wanted some good s**t out of this good deed!
I caught myself, though. I reached out to some program friends and told them what happened. The good news is, I called myself out on it. The fundamental thing about motives for me is, to thine own self be true—I’d say 90 percent of the exaggerating, lying, overhyping and rationalization happens inside my own head. A friend of mine always says, “My brain is a b******t factory. One half manufactures it, and the other half buys it.” So my b******t factory can fire up at a minute’s notice.
The kicker to this story? About a week later, I found a letter in my mailbox. It was from the lady whose wallet I returned. It was a beautiful handwritten note to me, plus a copy of a typed-up letter sent to the CEO of my company. She told him she knows the company will always be successful because they hire people like me.
And… there was a $50 gift card!
I had a good laugh about that, and I used the $50 to take my kids out to eat at a very classy establishment (Moe’s Southwest Grill). Before we ate our food, I took a minute and told them the story, and I told them the moral of the story, which is that I gotta do the right thing because it’s the right thing, not because it will get me stuff.
Then we devoured some burritos and I didn’t feel like such a scam artist.
Well, for one day, anyway.
ALCOHOLIC 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. And I’ll warn you, this one is definitely rated R…
An alcoholic is sitting on the couch one afternoon, half plastered, when his wife says, “Somebody needs to take the dog for a walk.”
The man quickly volunteers and walks two blocks to the nearest bar, where he ties the dog outside and goes inside for a drink (or five). After a few minutes, a police officer walks in and announces, “Hey, whose big dog is tied up outside?”
The drunk raises his hand.
“Did you know your dog is in heat?” the cop asks.
“What? No, I tied her up in the shade,” the alcoholic says.
“No, no, no, I mean, the dog wants bred,” the cop replies.
“Bread? I just fed her before we left the house!” the drunk exclaims.
The irritated cop leans in close to the alcoholic’s face. “I’ll say it very plainly: Your dog wants to have sex!”
The drunk thinks for a second and finally says, “Well, ok then, go for it. I always wanted a police dog.”
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