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I turned 45 years old last week, which means I am basically dead. Just barely hanging on at this point.
My birthday is always an interesting experience for me, because my 31st birthday, in 2008, was right when I was at the very bottom. That means I had about 10 birthdays in a row where everybody was very nice to me and got me gifts… and I knew none of them knew the real truth about me. And honestly, if you had given them all lie detectors, they probably were putting on a one-day show of love and affection that dropped off a bit the next morning. I was pretty toxic for that decade.
Now contrast that with my past 14 birthdays. They’ve been fantastic, and my birthday always offers an interesting moment for introspection about how far I’ve come.
More specifically, I always think about how I got sober in 2008 right after my second daughter was born. So she turned 14 in April, and I’m about to turn 14 if I stay sober for a few more days. Throughout the duration of my sobriety, I have watched her learn to stand and then walk and then run and then talk and then learn how to read, and on and on… and it’s always struck me how much I basically had to learn all the same things at the exact same moments she did.
It’s not a perfect parallel, I know. I had a driver’s license and a job and all the trappings of what an adult looks like on paper. But figuring out how to actually adult? How to talk to people in a healthy way? How to process anger without blowing your stack? How to be sad and still be functional? How to show up for stuff you said you’d show up for on days when you just want to watch TV?
Yep, those are things young kids and teenagers battle with, and so do I. I have a very close-knit relationship with my 14-year-old, and I think it’s partly because we have similar personalities and partly because we basically grew up together. Whenever she has a blowout over a nothingburger, I totally get it. I am still trying to figure out that crap, too. When she moans and groans and sleeps in till lunchtime on Saturday, I get it.
It hit me hard on my birthday this year because she’s now on social media, and she posted a goofy picture of me and poked a little fun at me… but she also said I was her biggest supporter and her best friend. I guess somewhere in my heart and my head I felt that way and thought maybe she did, too, but I didn’t expect to see her verbalize it.
This is one of those posts that doesn’t exactly have sober suggestions or a lot of humor, but I do think hearing sober people tell stories like that is important. Long-term sobriety can be a slog, and you don’t see big results every single day after a certain point. There are plateaus where everything is fine—but just fine. But it’s a long game of chopping wood and carrying water, and it is worth it. I sometimes struggle with the idea that I think I get maybe .1 percent more spiritually fit every month, and I want it to be much higher.
It’s days like this most recent birthday where you see the dividends of getting .1 percent better every month, month after month, year after year, and you realize that the people around you are benefitting too. So I might be halfway dead, but at least I am getting a little healthier as I approach an eternity of living in the dirt.
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:
A guy goes into a bar, takes a seat and orders five pints. The bartender gives him an odd look since the guy’s all by himself, but he lines up five pints on the bar.
The guy downs them. One, two, three, four, five. He finishes the last one, and calls to the bartender. “Four pints, please, mate!” The bartender serves up four pints and lines them on the bar.
The guy downs them. One, two, three, four. Then he belches, sways on the barstool, and orders two more. He quickly knocks them back. One, two, three.
“Two pints, mate!” he calls, and when the bartender places two pints in front of him, down they go. One, two.
The guy slams the last one down, puts the empty glass on the bar, and says, “One pint, mate.” So the bartender fills the glass.
The guy sits there, staring at it for a moment, trying to focus. Then he looks at the bartender: “Y’know, it’sh a funny thing, but the less I drink, the drunker I get.”
(Credit: AA Grapevine, May 2001, Anonymous)
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