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I’ve moved about 10 times in my life, and I do the same thing every time. I pack up all the boxes, get all the couches and chairs and tables ready for the movers… then look around and realize there are 193 small things still hiding in corners of the house or apartment.
The last time we moved, we had three cats, and I spent two unexpected hours just sweeping up cat hair and cat toys and bowls and a bunch of other cat stuff. We had three living cats, and at least two more cats-worth of extra fur lurking under beds and radiators.
That reminded me of one of my favorite sayings I have heard in sobriety, which is: You can take the alcohol out of the alcoholic, but that still leaves a lot of “ick.”
That is sooooooo true for me. My first year of sobriety, I went to rehab, started doing 12-step meetings and I didn’t drink or do drugs. Boom, 90 percent of my problems improved immensely, and quickly.
But after a year or so, I noticed some other bad habits, bad attitudes and bad thinking that were a lot like that cat hair hiding under the bed. That was the “ick” left over after active alcoholism.
Let me tell you, that stuff has been hard to get rid of! I have spent a good chunk of my most recent years in sobriety wrestling with my factory settings, which I think fall under the general umbrella of character defects. I have a bunch of things about me that are problematic… but not THAT problematic.
For instance, I have spoken here a lot about how I am energized by arguing. I like debating the best quarterback in NFL history, or what they should do with that abandoned property on the other side of town, or who should be president of the United States, or who should be president of my house… if there is a president of something, I will argue with you about it!
I will say that I avoid roughly 90-95 percent of all arguments that are available to me every day. But it’s hard. I have quite a few argumentative texts, emails, Slacks, SnapChats and tweets that were halfway toward initiating a disagreement with you but ended up in the delete pile. As an old sober friend of mine once told me, “You’re someone who needs a drafts folder.”
I replied, “Oh, like for emails?”
He said, “No, like, for EVERYTHING.”
So yeah, that’s one of those parts of the “ick.” I think the reason some of the “ick” is so hard to truly get rid of is that sometimes it causes us pain but sometimes it serves us well. Go back to that argumentative thing I described earlier… sometimes I will debate my family about what restaurant we should order from, and I end up winning. Guess what? I like that. I wanted Buffalo Wild Wings and verbally wore you down until you said you wanted Buffalo Wild Wings, too. Yay!
Or in the case of something getting screwed up, if I make the case for why it’s your fault, not mine, and that’s what we settle on… I like that, too!
But I don’t REALLY like that because it’s a short-term hit, just like drugs and alcohol used to be. Sure, I feel good about it for a few minutes, maybe even an hour or two. But that person I just bulldozed to get my way? I probably have to deal with that person again, and it usually is the case that that person now approaches me like I am an enormous a*****e. So it’s not a sustainable way to behave.
Here’s the good news about the “ick” that I sometimes forget. Sobriety is a journey—a long journey, comprised of one day followed by another day and then another day. The 12-step programs don’t say anything about ultimatums or expiration dates on recovery—there’s no “You have 90 days to stop bickering or else YOU’RE OUT!” My experience in recovery has been that I have to keep trying, keep pushing hard, keep asking for a higher power’s guidance, keep asking for other sober men to hold me accountable for my behaviors, and to keep being open-minded and willing.
So I do think I have an obligation to keep working on my “ick,” especially the arguing thing. Just, like, maybe don’t ask me about the NFL playoffs for awhile till I get this sorted out!
In case you missed it, I put together a fun mini comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes. Check it out HERE! (It’s behind a paywall)
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
"I’ve put my drinking career so far behind me that it’s just around the corner.”
(Credit: AA Grapevine, August 2006, from Jim of Minnesota)
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