Please spread the word to a sober friend! Find me on Substack… or Twitter… or Facebook… or Instagram… or YouTube.
This is my fifth post of the week, so… sorry? I don’t anticipate being that active most weeks, but I got into a little bit of a spiritual groove the past few days and kept rolling. And here we are, with me blowing up your inbox again with a lot of extra posts.
I’ve been thinking about that word—“extra”—a lot because I heard it used recently in a different way and asked my kids about it. One of them had said, “Oh yeah, my teacher is a little extra.”
“He’s extra? What does that mean?” I asked.
They explained it to me that “extra” can be used to describe somebody who’s a little over the top, a little much to handle. A handful, in other words.
“For instance, dad, you can be a little extra sometimes,” I was told.
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? Me? No way. I am a picture of mental health. Serene. Peaceful. A joy to be around.
Okay, fine, I admit it… maybe I can be extra. I’m willing to own that. So in my case, what that means is taking small things and making them big things, hearing some constructive criticism that I somehow turn into a catastrophic insult that cuts to my soul, those kinds of extra behaviors. I can definitely blow things out of proportion.
The good news is, I have gotten a lot better about being calm and measured, even in trying moments. And I believe I’ve gotten a little better, week after week, ever since I first got sober in 2008. As we say in the rooms, it’s about progress, not perfection.
One thing that has helped me is an exercise I did a few years ago, where I picked out three states of being and tried to constantly be at least one of those at all times. My picks were (1) patient, (2) calm and (3) nice, so I would repeat that to myself over and over again throughout the day. “Patient, calm, nice,” I’d say.
In general, if I could just be one of those things, I was okay. So I do think I grew up a bit and could be a pretty steady person to be around. I’m proud of that—it’s real growth as a human being. I think when I was, say, 30 years old, I was someone you just didn’t want to include in any kind of adult situation. I was a big child with drug and alcohol issues. Oof. Who wants that guy involved in any decision-making?
Fast forward to 2021, and I haven’t had a lot of slammed doors or screaming matches. What a gift of the 12-step programs. I hope I can keep that momentum going.
Now let me address an area I could definitely use improvement in—when I interact with other “extra” people. The truth is, I ain’t the only one bringing extra-ness to the party.
I told you my goal already: patient, calm, nice. If somebody wants to blow their stack about something, I can usually just listen and be of service that way.
But it happens just enough to be a problem where someone brings their extra to the party, and I dust mine off, too, and suddenly we have dueling extras colliding. That. Is. Never. Good.
The truth is, there are plenty of extra people out there in the world other than me. I always have to remember, that’s their stuff, not mine. I have enough extra on my own, don’t you think?!
I have two things that I try to do in response (full disclosure: I’d probably give myself a C+ for actually practicing what I am about to preach).
One is, I do everything I can to not be extra myself. I have to fill up the spiritual gas tank as much as possible using meetings, meditation, prayer, literature and my biggest weapon—the phone. On days when I feel a little squirrelly, I try to call three program people who are usually more serene than me. Because I have found that as much as being extra can be an infectious disease, so can stoicism and calmness. If I call three people like that, it usually rubs off on me and I am better equipped to let stuff roll off my back. Funny how that works.
The other thing that I find very helpful on days where there is a lot of “extra” being lobbed my way is to simply shut the hell up. Like, don’t talk so much. Seriously. I just try to listen and limit my opinions/suggestion/hot takes to the moments when people specifically ask me to chime in. I’m always surprised how few times I am actually asked to provide an opinion, versus the times I just pipe mine in.
Hope everybody has a great weekend!
Correction: Hope everybody has an EXTRA great weekend!
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. Here goes:
A man in a hot air balloon waves frantically toward a man on the ground.
“Can you help me? I don’t know where I am!” he yelled.
The man replied, “Sure, you’re in a hot air balloon, 41 feet off the ground, 4.3 miles out of town, with 17 MPH out of the west pushing you toward the lake.”
“Wow, you must be an AA sponsor,” said the man in the balloon.
“I am. How did you know that?” the man on the ground said.
“Well, everything you told me sounds right,” he said. “But I’m still lost and you may have delayed my trip with all that information.”
The man on the ground smiled. “You must be a sponsee,” he said.
“I am, but how did you know that?” the guy in the balloon said.
“Well, you don’t know where you are, where you’re going or what to do about it. You have risen to where you are because of a lot of hot air. You’re expecting other people to solve your problems and your situation is getting worse and worse by the moment. Yet somehow, it’s my fault!”
If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m not putting anything behind the paywall for a little while longer, so if you choose the free option, you’ll receive everything without paying. If you’d like to contribute anyway, many thanks.
