If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!
I had a topic in mind for today but changed my mind at the last minute, so this is a short one.
I saw a meme a few days ago that Bill Wilson, one of the originators of 12-step thinking, died on Jan. 24, 1971. The meme was commemorating the anniversary of his death and it said, “Thank God for the drunk who discovered only a drunk can help another drunk.”
I’m not sure I entirely co-sign on that specific line about how only a drunk can help another drunk. It’s certainly how I got sober and have stayed sober, and if any time I have ever met somebody struggling with active addiction and they ask me what to do, I recommend starting with 12-step recovery. I love it.
But if you told me you got sober by going to rehab and seeing a therapist and going to church and doing whatever else to avoid drinking, I’d say, “Hell yeah, congrats.” That’s not the recipe for me. But I have nothing against other ways people have gotten sober. You do you.
The point of the meme, though, was a great one for me. I still read 12-step literature sometimes and can’t believe some of it is 80 years old and written by a handful of people, with no real experience getting sober. Talk about innovators.
And Bill W. was obviously a critical component of that. I’ve read a lot about him in my time in recovery, and he was certainly a human being, with real human being struggles and mis-steps. But holy crap, what a legacy. I read the entire book “12 Steps and 12 Traditions” recently, and some of the concepts they cooked up in the early 1950s about how to get sober and clean up your life are so ahead-of-their-time that it is hard to fathom.
Then there is the actual sentiment in that meme, about the power of one drunk person helping another. What a basic, but huge, thought. It certainly has worked that way for me. The intimacy of working with another man on stopping drugs and alcohol and starting to make real change… it’s impossible to describe in words. I’ve seen it work miracles, over and over and over again.
When I step back at look at how the miracle of my sobriety is connected to the miracle of sobriety in a bunch of other men, whose sobriety is connected to a bunch of other men… it’s the most beautiful infectious disease in history. And Bill W. is a real groundbreaker in that.
So Bill, we miss you, and this drunk thanks you for being a drunk who worked with a drunk, who worked with another drunk, who worked with a drunk who worked with me. What a gift.
In case you missed it, I put together a fun mini comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes. Check it out HERE! (It’s behind a paywall)
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:
Each year, on my AA anniversary, my sponsor doesn’t give me a medallion. Instead, he hands me a get well card.
(Credit: AA Grapevine, October 2006, from Richael K. of Haverhill, Massachusetts)
Please spread the word to a sober friend! Find me on Substack… or Twitter… or Facebook… or Instagram… or YouTube. And introducing my web site, LOLsober.com.
