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At a meeting the other day, a guy mentioned that by the end of his drinking, he was DoorDashing food and alcohol to his door every single day. He said he thinks he barely left his apartment for six months or so, and that his interpersonal skills had basically disappeared. He was a recluse.
Then he talked about how he realized he had to get sober, and that meant he had to leave the house. So he started taking baby steps and going to meetings, where he said he was uncomfortable at first. But meetings force you to up your game—there are hugs, inquiries about how you’re doing, exchange of phone numbers, and public speaking.
As he was talking, I flashed back to my early days at rehab and then meetings. It was awkward for me, too. Very awkward. Start with the public speaking, which is a very human struggle—there aren’t many people who easily do public speaking and like it. But in rehab and meetings, public speaking also involves some very raw stuff that is hard to say out loud, especially in a crowd. That makes it twice as hard.
But I also thought back to some of the more nuanced tough things after I finally left the house and tried to get sober. My people skills had completely vanished. I’d always been a pretty jovial, comfortable guy around people. But I suddenly was sober and realized that I didn’t really remember how to make eye contact, give a firm handshake and a bunch of other stuff that normal people do every day. I hadn’t been doing it—I’d been locked in my guest bedroom for months, and those skills had definitely atrophied.
I remember some work meetings where I would get a little flustered and not know what to do with my hands, and I specifically recall having a hard time with my mouth. I would find my lips getting jumpy and my hands getting shaky during conversations that weren’t very confrontational. I just hadn’t been speaking to someone in lightly stressful situations in a long, long time, so it was awkward and weird. I bet people on the other side of things probably thought I was about to fall apart.
But I didn’t fall apart, and meetings are why. I forget sometimes that meetings were my re-acclimation to the world. I learned to talk to people, hug again, express love and accept it and the biggest of all, to talk in front of people.
I still think I am awkward sometimes in sobriety, because it’s hard to not be awkward in this world sometimes. But man, I can’t even imagine what a jerky-jerky dork I’d be without meetings as a place to practice being human 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:
"You guys wouldn't let me do it cold turkey. You slopped on the gravy, mashed potatoes, and stuffing, too!"
(Credit: Grapevine, April 2009, by Ed L. of Wrightwood, California)
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