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I remember when I went to rehab, I had a very specific thought about the reasons to get sober. First of all, to not die. And secondly, I wanted to be present for all the birthday parties, job promotions, Christmases, Easter egg hunts, wedding anniversaries, Super Bowl gatherings, and on and on.
If you notice a throughline between all of those things, they are happy events. Lots of laughter and love. And as I have said many times in this newsletter, I deeply believe in “We are not a glum lot” as a foundational part of my sobriety. I liked sobriety from Day One because life seemed beautiful and fun and funny again.
But here’s the thing: Life can be pretty sucky some days, some weeks, some months on occasion. And I recently realized that it’s just as important to be sober and present on those days as the fun ones.
I’m in a rocky stretch right now. I am not ready to share too much about it yet but my family lost a great friend recently. She was 31 years old. Just got married. Just had a daughter. It’s so freaking sad and inexplicable that I don’t know how to talk about it yet.
And last week, right in the middle of trying to figure out how to grieve such a loss, my 17-year-old got into a car accident in which my 15-year-old was in the car, and the car was totaled. It was among the worst phone calls you can get as a parent. I was told she’d gotten into an accident, that they were not injured but they are scared and alone 15 minutes away.
It’s those moments that you get sober for, too. I know that sounds weird. But life is life, and it involves scary, painful stuff, too. I don’t want to feel any of that… and yet I do. I want to be calm and patient and sober and serene on the worst days of my life and the best days, too.
So I rushed out to pick up my kids. I stood there on the side of the road with them as cops waved traffic through, and the tow truck lifted up her car and took it away to a junkyard. They were fine. I was fine. The car was not.
I have begun to have new appreciation for difficult stuff. I still hate it when something bad happens. I still would never be glad it happens. But I’ve reached a point where I know what to do to go through stuff—no fight, no flight. It sucks—big time. But it’s possible.
And the thing is, I have a life now where there are people around me who need me to help them work through it, too. So even in those really ugly minutes or hours, I always try to remember my obligation as a dad, a husband and a friend—I need to be as sober as possible for myself and for them. That usually helps me feel a sense of duty, which often motivates me to stay present.
And the bad days usually end up breaking, and the sun comes out again. I just had a quiet but beautiful Father’s Day with my family. We all felt grateful for each other, and my 8-year-old did some of the cutest, funniest crafts for me. She had asked me who my favorite character was from Shrek, which has been popular at my house recently. I told her that I thought Pinocchio was pretty amusing—especially his voice in the movie.
She disappeared for an hour and eventually came back with an elaborate cutout of a guy she said was Pinocchio. She had drawn facial features on him and a little hat, and then she had made a collapsible nose on his face. She handed it to me and then hit play on her phone, and it played the section of the movie where he tells a lie and there is a funny noise signifying his nose was growing. As it played, she extended her handmade Pinocchio so that his nose grew at the exact same time.
It made me laugh so hard that I had tears in my eyes, and I remembered that those same eyes had been crying in sadness for a week before. I guess in some ways sadness and laughter come from the same place, and I want to feel them both.
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:
AN AL-ANON AND AN AA MEMBER went on a camping trip together. Each had been active members of their programs for twenty-three years and were enjoying themselves tremendously.
Then night came, and they went to sleep in their tent. About three in the morning, the Al-Anon woke the alcoholic and asked, "What do you see?"
"Why, I see a sky full of brilliant stars and gorgeous moonlight," the alcoholic replied. "How great is our Higher Power for creating such a beautiful night. What do you see?"
The Al-Anon answered, "I see that somebody has stolen our tent."
(Credit: AA Grapevine, February 2004, by Joe M. of Honolulu, Hawaii)
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