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October is rough for me. Not bad. Not good. Just rough.
Let me run through just a list of stuff I associate with October.
—I have two important birthdays, my wife’s and my oldest daughter’s. There’s always a little bit of stress and excitement around getting gifts, cakes, etc. But those are mostly joyous occasions.
—This is not a joyous occasion: I got sick in October of 1999 and ended up in a coma. When I woke up, I had to start having amputations that have affected me every day of my life since then. Every year around Halloween, I get some calls from friends and loved ones saying how hard it is for them, too.
—It’s my busiest time at work every year.
—Now that my kids are all in school, October usually is the month of the year when the s**t starts to hit the fan. The niceties and introductions of September are over, and now the tests and homework start to pile up. So my kids always seem a little edgier and busy around now.
—I love the holiday of Halloween, and trick-or-treating, and Halloween decorations. But I really don’t like horror movies or scary stuff. I’ve watched a lot of scary movies but the sensation of getting jump-scared or haunted by a doll that might murder you in the middle of the night… those kinds of thrills just don’t do anything for me and I actively avoid watching them. I also got extremely aggravated the other night because I was watching a baseball game at 8 p.m. and my 7-year-old wandered into the room just as a commercial for the new Halloween Kills movie. She was terrified for an hour at bedtime after that, and I really think at that moment I could have killed Michael Myers with my barehands, by myself.
—And last but not least, the item that impacts all of these other October things: I got sober in November of 2008, which means that October 2008 was the worst month of my life. Lots of overdoses. Puking almost every day. Vowing “I need help” every night and then not doing anything about it. Breaking my family’s hearts for yet another month. I remember that Halloween was the first one when I had two kids who were dressing up in costumes to go trick-or-treating, and we were excited to be going out as a family and… I decided to try muscle relaxers that evening and passed out and missed the entire night.
I’m telling you all of that because I do think recovery matters more than ever for me right now. And I’ve met lots of other sober people over the years who have that one that puts them on the edge. Often times it’s December because of the holidays, but I have sober friends who scuffle for a specific time period every year for a variety of other reasons, too.
What ends up happening for me is that there is a constant strong emotion lurking in the background at all times, which throws me off for large chunks of time. Sometimes it’s bad background music, like when I think about how much pain I am in every day because of my illness years ago.
Sometimes it’s deep gratitude because I always try to remember how bad it was at the bottom, in October 2008, before I went to rehab. But over-elation can be a bad thing, too. I don’t want to be in a work meeting crying and telling everybody I love them and blurt out “Every day is a gift, man, that’s why they call it the present” for 27 coworkers.
The solution for me is always more recovery—specifically, reaching out to others and seeing how they are doing. That always evens me out, and that is the goal. I don’t really want to try to be ecstatic 24 hours a day because I don’t think that is possible. I want to be even-keeled and measured… a steady presence.
Making phone calls really helps. I always encourage people in a rut, whether they’re new to recovery or have 20 years sober and are struggling, to try to connect with 14 different people in 14 days and talk to that person for at least 15 minutes (so no voicemails).
That has never not worked for me. I always end up strengthening a bond or creating one with a sober friend, and it 100 percent of the time gets me out of my own head and my own stuff.
And the good news about firing up my phone like that in October is that I have a bunch of strong connections just in case Michael Myers does show up at the house!
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:
A destitute drunk, wearing only one shoe, entered a bar and begged the bartender for a free drink.The understanding bartender poured him a drink and then remarked, "I see you lost a shoe.""Heck, no," answered the drunk. "I found one!"(Credit: AA Grapevine, October 2004)
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.
