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I saw a meme about recovery on Instagram the other day that really hit me at the perfect time. It said: “It takes as long to get out of the woods as it took to get in.”
I spent a lot of time as a kid wandering the woods, and I learned to track time that way. As in, if you walk for 14 minutes into a forest, you’re looking at 14 minutes out if you take the exact same path, and 28 minutes total for that adventure. A wrong turn or two means every added minute is actually two.
So I spent countless hours as a kid lost in the woods, losing track of my bearings and whipping my head around in frustration, trying to find my own trail to get back to where I came into the forest. I still remember the first time I saw the Blair Witch Project and had 37 flashbacks to various times as a kid when I got all turned around for hours in the woods.
I’m so glad that meme brought that all back for me. I’ve been sober for awhile and done a ton of recovery work, but I still have moments almost every day where I think, “Geez, shouldn’t I be further along than this? Shouldn’t I be more serene than I am? Shouldn’t I not be petty, or judgmental, or gossipy?”
I bring up this topic quite a bit because it’s where I’m at 12 years into sobriety. I think I have really come a long way, but I only got there because I relentlessly took hard looks at my attitudes and behaviors. I hold myself accountable, and that’s not always easy. I catch myself sometimes looking at people who screw up and just move on with no apology, no resentment chart, no prayer and meditation… and I think, “Oh man, that must be awesome.”
So it can be hard to hit the bar that my recovery program asks me to hit. But it’s worth it. I don’t want to go back to the verrrrrrrry relaxed standards I had 13 years ago.
To go back to that meme, I love that idea. I behaved one way for 30-plus years of life. The last 10 of that 30, I devolved every single day into a darker and darker place. So yeah, I was DEEP in the woods. It’s going to take that long, maybe longer, to get out of that forest. And that’s okay. I like that meme because it gives me a peaceful sense of where I’m at on the recovery highway. I am right where I should be, as the old recovery cliche goes.
And here’s the really cool tweak I would make on that meme. I don’t actually even want to return to the same place I set off into the woods. That would be a disaster. I cannot be the same person who went to rehab at age 32, even without the booze. That person couldn’t process any feelings (good or bad), held onto resentments, was a reckless danger to everybody around him, and didn’t know how to properly be accountable for bad behaviors.
I need to be grateful for the spot I’m currently in, because it may be deep into the forest, but it’s also headed for a clearing on the other side. I may never get there—recovery isn’t really one of those things where you get a masters degree and move on. It’s a ride I hope to be on for the rest of my life, one day at a time.
So it actually is a little bit like the Blair Witch Project, I guess. I can see daylight up ahead, but I’m okay with being on the journey more than finding the destination. And yeah, I think some ghosts and witches might shake my tent at night sometimes and terrify me and make me a little nuts. But as long as I keep walking in the right direction, even with a few missteps along the way, I know I will be okay.
My god, I think I got lost in the woods with that metaphor about getting lost in the woods…
ALCOHOLIC/ADDICT 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.
You know you’re a recovering alcoholic if:
--1: Emails from your friends say HALT in the subject header.
--2: Your idea of a smooth opening line is “I really liked what you shared.”
--3: You don’t know the last names of most of your friends.
(Credit: AA Grapevine, July 2001, Anonymous)
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.
