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I was talking to a friend recently who has a few years sober, and he’s about 60 years old. He is a die-hard Patriots fan, so he spent January in a very excited mood. I didn’t probe too deep because I thought this was just a sports fan getting amped up about a playoff run by a team that has had about as much success as any pro sports team has had in the past 50 years.

But eventually he dropped a truth bomb on me: In his lifetime, the Patriots had gone to 11 Super Bowls and won six of them. This was going to be the 12th… but the first one he would ever experience as a sober person.

I had to pause for a moment and work through the math. The Patriots got to the 1986 Super Bowl and got crushed by the Bears. They lost another one in the 1990s. Then in the 2000s, the team went on an incredible run where Tom Brady and Bill Belichick were a nonstop playoff presence, often making it deep into the playoffs. That, of course, included six Super Bowl wins. It had been a dynasty that is almost impossible to achieve, and my friend had missed pretty much all of it.

OK, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. He was there, technically, but not really enjoying any part of it because life was miserable every day—it’s hard to get revved up about sports if you think you might die every day because of your addictions. I have a similar experience with some of my favorite sports teams having success during my active addiction days—I was present (sort of) and remember them. But there was no actual joy. It’s hard to feel joy if you are also feeling pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization every day.

It was a great reminder about what addiction does—it takes away entire chapters, not pages, from the books of our lives. I have to stay sober today because if I don’t, I have no idea when I get sober again, or if I even am able to. I am not someone who would have one weekend bender and stop, and based on my experience with people who have relapsed, I am not alone. I would disappear for months, or more likely, years.

So I ended up rooting for the Patriots on Sunday because I wanted my friend to actually experience a Super Bowl win despite being alive for many of them. It didn’t work out for the Patriots, obviously, but the future looks bright for that team—and my friend.

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:

One drunk says to another: “How many moons do you see tonight?”

And she replies, “In which row?”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, January 2002, Dave S. from Ithaca, New York)

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