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I was listening to a podcast the other day where a guy was complaining that he had overdone it drinking the night before. And at the end, he said, “Man, the freaking Liquid I.V. didn’t even help me this time!”
I had to look up what he was talking about, and it turns out that in recent years, a product named Liquid I.V. has come along that promises to help you hydrate during dehydrating events, such as excessive drinking. It is a powder that you mix into water that supposedly helps avoid a hangover. I don’t think the company produced it specifically for drunks, but drunks seem to have drafted it into their drinking plans.
I was dying laughing thinking about if I had had Liquid I.V. during my drinking days because I know I would have needed a lab coat and beakers and test tubes for all the experimentation I would have done with it. I was Stephen Hawking trying to find that perfect blend of substance abuse that I could have participated in. I’d have been in these dive bars, or in my basement, shooting down vodka and pills, then stirring powder into water to try to offset all the substances I put into my body. As if hydration was the biggest issue I had to contend with.
I used to do this with different foods, too. I had a theory that if I ate pieces of bread throughout a night of drinking, it would absorb the alcohol and I could drink more. Then, when that was a laughable failure, I remember I adopted a new hypothesis that if I mixed in bread plus a bunch of Diet Coke, I would have a perfect balance of bread and caffeine to power me through overdoing it for the night.
But guess what? If you drink 10 beers and take 15 painkillers and an Ambien, you can mainline Diet Mountain Dew directly into your veins and you won’t be able to balance out the amount of drugs and alcohol I would consume.
It’s just yet another reminder of two things for me. One, the ridiculousness of where my active addiction used to go, and where it would go again if I ever picked up again. And secondly, it reminds me that I went to any lengths to get drunk and now I need to go to any lengths to not drink. It’s something that trips me up all the time. Lately I have been struggling a bit to have a higher power present in my life. If I’m struggling to connect with a higher power, I can’t just say I prayed last week and nothing happened. I didn’t drink something once and then wait a month; I was in my lab coat experimenting, mixing pills and liquor, liquor before beer, all sorts of things.
If I had the same hustle aimed at connecting with a higher power, I’d be praying multiple times a day. I’d be trying out some churches. I’d be reading spiritual literature. I’d be hanging out with people who have strong connections with a higher power. And hell, maybe I would be looking around for God-flavored Liquid I.V. to mix in my water.
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:
Two drunks are talking.
First drunk: “You want to go for a walk?”
Second drunk: “Isn’t it windy?”
First drunk: “No, it’s Thursday.”
Second drunk: “Me too. Let’s get a beer.”
(Credit: AA Grapevine, January 2003, Buck R. from Silver Spring, Maryland)
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