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When I first got sober, I went to a 12-step meeting in New York City four days a week that did not allow swearing. Pause for one moment, and reflect upon the mixture of New York City people who are alcoholics and addicts… and are not allowed to whip out any four-letter words.
Make no mistake, it happened every meeting, anyway. But the chairperson would always gently said, “No cursing, please,” and point to a laminated sign that said “No cursing, please.”
I adjusted pretty quickly because I liked the meeting more than I liked swearing, and I happen to like swearing quite a bit. I even had about a six-month stretch where I took that no-swearing rule and incorporated it into my life and I ended up not using much bad language for a long time.
And you know what? It helped. It really did. It helped my serenity just a bit. It helped me do a little less gossiping and bad-mouthing people, and when I did need to unload about something, I generally found my fastballs were being thrown about 10 mph slower.
I’ve been thinking about that meeting and the no cursing suggestion quite a bit lately because I’ve been swearing a lot. I don’t have anything against bad language. I personally don’t believe it’s on the list of most important things to avoid in this world.
But I’ve caught myself multiple times chucking around f-bombs and other R-rated words all day and then having a hard time shutting it off in the afternoon, when my kids get home. That’s a really bad sign. It means I’m just a tad adrift, just a bit off with my spiritual gas tank, if I am barely catching terrible words before my 7-year-old hears them. I don’t really want to be that dad.
I actually saw what that looks like the other day when I had my first-grader down at the school playground. There was a kid there who was maybe 8 or 9 years old, just walking around from the swings to the jungle gym to the slide yelling “What the hell is going on?!?!” over and over again. It was clear he’d heard that somewhere, knew it was something he shouldn’t be saying, and he just couldn’t stop saying it. I’ll never forget him just careening around, screaming at everything, “What the hell is going on?” I don’t really want to spawn any small humans doing that, or anything worse than “What the hell is going on?”
I noticed myself swearing at meetings a little more than usual over the past six months or so, and during that time period, I’ve again spotted how newly sober people take their cues from people who’ve been going to meetings for awhile. I forget sometimes that there is a good chance that somebody in a room of alcoholics and addicts might be pretty new and not know how meetings are supposed to look and feel. So when I rail about my kids or my boss and I am swearing like a pissed-off truck driver, well, that has an impact.
I say all of that and I am realizing that I am actually not quite ready to not swear. It’d probably be a healthy, fun challenge to at least try. So I am a little closer to trying to pull that off in my own life. But for now, I am just going to happy that I made it through this whole goddamn newsletter without swearing.
Oh s**t, maybe not.
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 drunk goes to the pub and orders, "A glass of the best 'less,' please."
'"Less?"' says the bartender. "I've never heard of it. What is it? Beer? Whiskey?"
"Well, I'm not sure," answers the drunk, "but the doctor recommended it—he said I should drink 'less'."
(Credit: AA Grapevine, by Paul J. of Henderson, Nevada, May 2007)
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