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 THIScomedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!
I was very amped up for the NFL playoffs this past weekend, partially because the games were exciting but also because I was in a fantasy pool where I had players from all four teams. I couldn’t wait for the games on Sunday, and I found myself mentally chewing on the two games in my head all week.
So on Friday, I did my usual 20 minutes of meditation (I’ve shared this before, but I do 20 minutes every day and have been doing that for about 8-10 years now). I also said a prayer where I simply asked God to walk with me for the day. One of the misconceptions I had about prayer was that I had to get down on my knees on a yoga mat for a half hour and have a long conversation with God. I could probably use that, and I bet that’s actually closer to the ideal way to remain open to what the universe would like for us than my 10-second drive-by prayers. But nonetheless, I consider my prayer to be a perfectly feasible brand of praying, at least for me. So I often will say, “God, please walk with me today.”
During my meditation, I kept finding my brain saying, “Deep breath in…. now deep breath out… deep breath in…. I wonder if Patrick Mahomes can do it again?… wait, stop, this is meditation time, deep breath in… I bet the Ravens have a good gameplan for shutting down Travis Kelce…. hey, quit it, it’s time to meditate.”
That went on and on for most of the 20 minutes. But I kept pulling myself back to a serene and quiet place that did not involve whether Dan Campbell would go for it on every single fourth down even when the Lions were in field goal range (answer: he would indeed do exactly that!). I finished up and felt a little bit like my meditation had flopped. Or that I had flopped at meditation.
That evening, I went to a meeting and the topic was, of course, Step 11—prayer and meditation. I listened to about 10 people share and got a lot out of everything they said. But my brain kept coming back to being forgiving about praying and meditating. I need to do it, but I don’t necessarily need to do it perfectly. I need to do it to the best of my ability, and the bottom line is, terrible prayer and meditation is still better than anything else I would have been doing. It’s not like reading my uncle’s 2024 election thoughts on Facebook or watching an Instagram reel of a cat and giraffe dancing at a zoo would be more spiritually nourishing, right?
I’ll keep saying my prayers, even if they’re short, and I will keep doing my meditation, even if the Super Bowl is right around the corner, and I really am wondering if Patrick Mahomes can pull it off again…
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 COUNSELOR ASKS A PROSPECT FOR DETOX: "Tell me, does alcoholism run in your family?"
The drunk slurs, "Run? Hell, most times my family is so drunk they can hardly walk!"
(Credit: Grapevine, by Donny B. of Wurtsboro, NY, August 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.
