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On Sunday night, we started getting some snow where I live in Connecticut. My older kids all of a sudden turned into local meteorologists, charting the snowstorm’s path and analyzing projections of total accumulation. At first I thought it was cute to see them as teenagers still have that little kid excitement about snow.
Then I realized that it had nothing to do with childhood exuberance about possibly playing in the snow and making a snowman—they just didn’t want to go to school. And I get it. I spent my childhood looking forward to those beautiful moments when your school’s name came across the bottom of the TV screen and it said, “Closed.” And yes, back in my day, you did not get phone calls and emails from the school district—your ass had to sit in front of the TV and pray for 20 minutes as every school name in the area rolled across the bottom.
I also got a little giddy yesterday when I saw the first snowflakes because I had a meeting I was planning on getting to in the afternoon. I still occasionally have that first feeling of, “Oh cool, I can’t get to a meeting. I guess I will watch football in my sweatpants while I lay on my warm couch!”
Luckily, that feeling passed almost instantly yesterday, which I was glad about. I can always tell how my recovery is going by how many excuses I start coming up with to prevent me from doing anything recovery-related. And make no mistake, my brain usually tries some shenanigans almost every day. It could be the weather. It could be a kid activity. It could be that some work is piling up. That bad voice in my head can always come up with something.
These days, I usually have that second voice that says, “Nah, get to that meeting,” or “You can watch football later—call that sober guy back.” So that’s good. I think it’s because I now have a recovery community of meetings and people that doesn’t feel like school. I wouldn’t say it is necessarily fun in the way that a movie or a party might be. But most of the meetings I go to, I look forward to going there. I don’t have to beg myself to get up off the couch.
And I would encourage people to find the right mix for themselves. If you have a meeting that you don’t like, or a meeting that uses a piece of sober literature you despise, or a meeting that has a format you don’t like, there probably are some other options that might get you a little more amped up to go. I had a meeting a few years ago that read a step every week, but you weren’t allowed to share at the meeting unless you had worked the step with someone who called that meeting their home group. I thought it was so narrow and non-inclusive, especially for the struggling guy who’s coming back from a relapse, or that person who’s at their first meeting. I thought about going for awhile and raising some hell at the next business meeting.
But I talked to a few guys who go to that meeting every week, and they all said that was the group conscience for that group, over and over again. They wanted the meeting to be challenging and push people to work hard to get involved in the steps. I agree with that instinct, but it’s not for me. So I didn’t go back. I know for a fact if that meeting was a part of my weekly routine, I’d be waiting for a few raindrops to tell myself not to go. That’s not good. I don’t want that.
So I went to my meeting on Sunday and enjoyed the hell out of it. I needed a meeting, too. On the way there, I remember that first voice slipping into my head again saying, “Hey, at least it won’t be a long meeting. It’s snowing, so it’ll probably only be you and one or two other guys. So you can get done and get home and watch football!”
Well, the meeting was packed and it was great and I didn’t get home any earlier than usual. The topic was total acceptance—the idea that we control maybe 1 percent of our lives, and we need to accept the rest. And as I shoveled my driveway, on a day where I yet again had that voice in my head telling me maybe I don’t need a meeting, I couldn’t help but think that topic was quite fitting.
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:
HEARD AT MEETINGS
“Alcoholics are the only people I know who need a pole vault to get over an anthill.”
(Credit: AA Grapevine, October 2001, Chuck I.)
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