LOL Sober

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces but I am hoping to generate a few bucks to pay for my web site and some other costs. Paid subscribers do have access to frequent premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

Let’s play a fun little game.

Think of someone who you are irritated with right now. Now consider these questions.

Is this person self-centered?

Does this person have an inflated sense of self-worth?

Are they preoccupied with themselves ahead of anything else going on around them?

Are they manipulative and/or controlling?

Does this person struggle to hear any sort of criticism?

OK, I bet when you think of someone on your s**t list right now, you probably answered yes to at least a few of these questions.

I’m doing this thought experiment because I recently had to sit with a double whammy about narcissism. First, I had a few people in my life that I thought were up their own asses about some things. Then I heard a podcast where a psychologist was talking about narcissism and what makes someone narcissistic. That didn’t help, because I immediately diagnosed the issues with my irritating friend as them being a narcissist. That was based on my expert opinion of listening to a podcast and thinking about it!

But look at those questions again. They all involve a core part of a narcissist’s personality… and they basically describe all of us at varying times, don’t they? I found it to be a helpful revelation that we’re basically all narcissists on some level, including me. And when you think about the traits attributed to narcissists—self-centeredness, thin skin, etc.—aren’t those traits part of every argument ever, regardless of whether someone is a narcissist or not?

That idea really crystallized for me recently when I was talking to a friend who’s in the middle of a divorce. He had decided that the cause of the divorce was that he was married to a narcissist. He had reached a semi-peaceful place by diagnosing her as the problem because of her self-centeredness, inability to accept any pushback, and so on. I was glad for him that he’d reached that serene mental headspace, but I couldn’t help but think maybe that diagnosis—done by a person with no experience in the mental health field—was kind of the easy way out. If you can tag a person with a negative label, that sure takes care of any part you may have played, right?

That helped me to be more forgiving of the person I was pissed at. Maybe they’re a narcissist. Maybe they’re not. It’s not really for me to say. Can I adjust my behavior to set up some boundaries with this person? Sure. But them being a narcissist has no real impact on my behavior in the relationship.

I ended up realizing we’re probably all on the narcissist spectrum somewhere. Maybe I’m a little lower on the spectrum than the person I am annoyed with. But I have to remember that I’m on that spectrum, too.

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 police officer sees an erratic driver plowing down the street, pulls her over, and gets out to investigate. Approaching the car, he notices that it has a flat tire.

“Did you know that one of your tires is flat?” the cop asks.

“Naw,” says the drunk behind the wheel. “The other three are just swollen.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, October 2003, Bob S. from East Hartford, Connecticut)

Please spread the word to a sober friend! Find me on Substack… or Twitter… or Facebook… or Instagram… or YouTube. And introducing my web site, LOLsober.com.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nelsonh.substack.com/subscribe

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces but I am hoping to generate a few bucks to pay for my web site and some other costs. Paid subscribers do have access to frequent premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I saw the movie “You Can See Everything” this past weekend, and I now think about it 10 times a day. It’s one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.

The movie is a documentary from Nathan Fielder about Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced inventor of Theranos. You may recall her rapid rise to magazine covers and international fame as the brains behind an incredible device that could do hundreds of tests on just one drop of blood.

Only problem: the machine didn’t work. Holmes was arrested and connected of defrauding investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars. She’s currently serving 11 years in prison for her crimes, and the premise of the documentary is that Fielder and his camera people were able to move in with Holmes, her boyfriend and two young kids for the final six weeks or so before she went off to prison. It ultimately becomes so much more than a simple fly-on-the-wall documentary.

I’m writing about this remarkable film on a sober blog because at the heart of the entire project is, what is the truth? What if you believe something to be true and I disagree with you? What if the world disagrees with you? What if the words you use to describe something come off as untrue to me, but not to you?

That’s ultimately how I felt at the end of the documentary. Is Elizabeth Holmes a liar? Are her words sometimes misconstrued? What if her belief is so blind to the truth that that becomes her truth? Can you be a liar if you believe what you are saying to be true?

That ultimately is a fundamental part of sobriety. On our anniversary coins, the phrase “To thine own self be true,” because at the end of the day, you have to be honest with yourself, and that’s so much harder than most people realize. I convince myself every day of things through the prism of my perspective, and my perspective can vary wildly from day to day.

For example, let’s say someone cuts you off on the road and you’re in a bad mood. It’s pretty easy to consider this an act of disrespect worthy of a middle finger or two. Who does this guy think he is? Nobody cuts me off and gets away with it!

Now, let’s say you’re in a good spiritual place and out for a drive when someone cuts you off. Your brain probably doesn’t go to the place where this is an act of great disrespect and must be answered. You probably shrug and move along with your day, realizing the truth of the matter is that one person sliding into the lane in front of you probably doesn’t mean anything.

That concept can get extra complicated in a serious way when it comes to close relationships, when words and behavior can suddenly help you create a truth that doesn’t really exist. When my wife and I went to marriage counseling, one of the most valuable tools she taught us is to never come at someone with “You always do x” or “You never do y.” Her point is that it’s almost never true that your partner never is nice to you, or always picks on you. It’s frustration in the moment that causes your brain to cement a moment into a constancy that doesn’t exist. Phrases like that can really sting your partner—or your brother, mother or best friend—because you throw a broad verdict about their behavior in their face and it hurts.

So the movie really got me thinking about my own version of truth, and how to make sure my truth is accurate. The biggest, most successful method for doing that is to welcome in sober friends to whatever situation is clouding my judgment. It helps to have other perspectives in the mix, especially people that don’t have a dog in the fight. They can often approach my situation with a detachment that allows them to be truthful and objective, and the truth is, when I am fired up about something, I often am neither truthful or objective.

If you get a chance, get to the theater to see “You Can See Everything.” It’s an unbelievable piece of film-making, and it will almost certainly fire up topics that all of us can identify with.

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 drunk with a 3-foot tall parrot on his shoulder stopped at a watering hole and took a seat. “My goodness!” exclaimed the bartender, when she looked up. “Where in heaven’s name did you find that?”

“Just stop at any bar around here and you’ll find dozens of them,” screeched the parrot.

(Credit: AA Grapevine, July 2003, Pat M.)

Please spread the word to a sober friend! Find me on Substack… or Twitter… or Facebook… or Instagram… or YouTube. And introducing my web site, LOLsober.com.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nelsonh.substack.com/subscribe

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces but I am hoping to generate a few bucks to pay for my web site and some other costs. Paid subscribers do have access to frequent premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

Over the years, I’ve met lots of people who get sober and end up not using 12-step programs as a part of their sobriety.

It is a tempting notion: Get sober, learn a bunch of tools to stay sober, then bounce from any sort of program. Believe me, there are nights where I have to drag myself to a meeting and would rather be watching a football game.

Let me say this up front: I am a 12-step person. I really believe in those programs as a way to get sober and stay sober. It’s mostly because I have tried other ways and find that I live a better life when I am participating in 12-step recovery. But I’m open-minded about how other people might find sobriety, and I definitely don’t get mad if somebody tries something else. Have at it.

But I have found that other sober methods don’t work as well for me—and for lots of my sober friends. That was hammered home for me when the pandemic began and meetings disappeared for a bit. Some people scrambled to set up Zoom meetings. Some people met at parks and wore masks. And some people just sort of drifted away. I kind of drifted away.

I had a period where I leaned into using speaker tapes (there are lots of sober speakers available on YouTube) as my main way to stay sober during the pandemic. For a few days, I felt like I had found a cheat code. I could avoid meetings and just listen to sober speakers and get my daily dose of serenity there!

That wore out pretty quick, though, because I think speaker tapes don’t do the main thing that I need in sobriety: connection. It’s hard to get connected to a faceless speaker on YouTube.

I also have met people who went to 12-step meetings for awhile, then drifted away and never came back. I’ve even met people who stayed sober despite having no real spiritual program as part of that sobriety. But those results seem like hit-or-miss to me—it’s been much more likely that those people are more dry, than sober, which means they behave the same way a junkie would, just without the drugs and alcohol. That’s not the way for me, either.

So I don’t condemn anybody who pursues sobriety a different way, and I wouldn’t pronounce my way as a better way. But it’s definitely better for this alcoholic!

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 true story: At a district meeting recently, a member made a motion that we donate a couple hundred dollars to outfit the hospitality room at the upcoming New Hampshire AA Convention with refreshments. His motion was seconded, and the chair asked if there was any discussion before the vote. To clarify the motion, I asked if “a couple hundred” meant “two hundred dollars”

“Does a couple mean ‘two’?” he quipped.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I used to stop for a couple of beers almost every night.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, July 2003, Andy H. from Portsmouth, New Hampshire)

Please spread the word to a sober friend! Find me on Substack… or Twitter… or Facebook… or Instagram… or YouTube. And introducing my web site, LOLsober.com.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nelsonh.substack.com/subscribe

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces but I am hoping to generate a few bucks to pay for my web site and some other costs. Paid subscribers do have access to frequent premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I was halfway through a two-minute story the other day when someone interrupted me and asked me several questions that all indicated they had not been paying attention to the first part of the story.

But my story was so funny, and timely, and well told… what kind of jerk loses track of that story halfway through?

Then the truth hit me hard, as it regularly does: Most people are up their own asses, and a surprising number are VERY far up there.

Now, that probably sounds like an insult. But it is the truth, and it’s also semi-understandable—we’re animals whose instincts are all built around our survival. So yeah, our brains tend to filter things through the lens of how it affects us.

I’m not mad about it any more. I used to be. I used to want everybody to be like so many of my sober friends, who have warm hearts and open ears, with very little selfishness filtering into conversation. That’s just not how it is.

And before any old-timers start talking about how it’s really bad because of this young generation, or cell phones, or anything else, I was born in 1977 and I’m pretty sure people have always had their heads up their own asses. I do not believe that self-absorption was invented by millennials. It’s all of us, from the beginning of time to the end of time.

The point of this newsletter entry is not about changing other people. It’s about changing yourself. I need to change my mentality so that if someone doesn’t ask how my day was, or a friend doesn’t call me on my birthday, or umpteen other things happen where I am not the center of others’ attention, I need to take on the job of not being upset about it. That’s my role in any resentment about somebody else being stuck on themselves… and it’s a little late in this blog to say this but I will anyway: As hard as it is to believe, I can sometimes crawl up my own ass of self-importance, too!

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: “We don’t seem to give up a life of failure without a fight.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, June 2003, Ms. Sam H. from Jacksonville, Florida)

Please spread the word to a sober friend! Find me on Substack… or Twitter… or Facebook… or Instagram… or YouTube. And introducing my web site, LOLsober.com.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nelsonh.substack.com/subscribe

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces but I am hoping to generate a few bucks to pay for my web site and some other costs. Paid subscribers do have access to frequent premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I was at a meeting recently where the topic of self-knowledge came up, and I noticed something surprising from what people shared.

Let me define self-knowledge first. In recovery circles, it generally means that thinking you know more than you do can really trip up the path to sobriety. It’s often cited as something to be very careful of. And with self-knowledge, there tends to be an over-reliance on your own thinking with a lack of other input being a part of the process.

What I noticed at the meeting was how often people were saying that issues with self-knowledge happened with other topics related tangentially to sobriety but not sobriety itself. Basically, a bunch of people shared that addiction brought them to their knees and they were willing to do anything, to listen to anybody, in order to quit drinking. They tapped out on an existential level when it came to drinking or drugging.

But then a lot of people shared about how they drifted into a version of recovery where they used the program for not drinking, and that was it. All of the other baggage we come in with—the resentments, the character defects, the harms we caused? Well, they hadn’t hit rock bottom with that, so they didn’t need the program or other voices to help them with that.

Think about what so many of us go through in Year One of sobriety. Divorces, dating, job changes, legal situations, health problems, and on and on… it’s significant stuff, and I certainly fell victim to thinking that my marriage and my job and my sleep issues didn’t have anything to do with sobriety, and that cost me. It wasn’t for a few months till I realized that my sobriety and my emotional sobriety are two sides of the same coin. I made all sorts of freelance decisions without checking with my sponsor, and I really caused some damage. Even in difficult conversations with my family, I would often be chippy and freewheeling with pointing fingers at them, of bickering about details rather than hearing their overall feelings, and then getting furious and resentful.

I think when I did my first Fifth Step and sifted through all the emotional issues that were affecting my spirituality that I finally realized this was a full service program. And it also dawned on me that if drinking and drugging stunted my growth as a person as much as I thought it did, how did I expect to be able to navigate high-level adult conversations and situations? It’s insane. I was a man with a boy’s tools.

The real problem has dawned on me over the years that if a person trying to get sober only tackles not drinking, all of the other conditions surrounding that sobriety is in trouble. It’s a little like if 10 conditions add up to create a tornado, so if you’re only paying attention to one condition, you’re missing that the tornado is gathering and about to wreck the neighborhood. That’s how sobriety can be. If everything stays the same except for my drinking, then how do I end up not caving in and eventually drinking?

So I guess the lesson is, me try be dumber. Me follow directions. Me be happier and healthier. Me like that.

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: “In his infinite wisdom, my Higher Power gave me one mouth that closes and two ears that don’t.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, June 2003, Larry L. from Fayetteville, Georgia)

Please spread the word to a sober friend! Find me on Substack… or Twitter… or Facebook… or Instagram… or YouTube. And introducing my web site, LOLsober.com.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nelsonh.substack.com/subscribe

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces but I am hoping to generate a few bucks to pay for my web site and some other costs. Paid subscribers do have access to frequent premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

There are things that will get you sober, and there are things that will help keep you sober. I needed rehab, meetings and a 12-step sponsor to get started on my sobriety journey—hardcore nuts and bolts stuff.

But once I got sober, I had to find the things in life that light me up. And one of those has been pets. Specifically, cats. I love cats!

I was reminded of this the other day because I saw a sign that said, “Be the person your dog thinks you are.” On the surface, that’s just a funny throwaway line. But I went deep with it, because I do think it captures something about me—and us, really—and what we are striving to be.

The thing I love about my cats is that I treat them well and they think I am the greatest person to ever live. They crawl up on my lap no matter what. I could have been a jerk to someone at the gym or a colleague on a work conference call, and they just see me as this wonderful saint who just walked through the door. That sounds silly, but some days, that’s as good as it gets.

Let me be clear, though: Getting a cat or dog was not the answer for my alcoholism. I actually think that that list of things to avoid the first year—getting into or out of a relationship, dating, making huge decisions—could maybe include pets, too, because it’s such a commitment for people who often aren’t great at making commitments yet.

But I do think a furry buddy is one of those things that bolsters sobriety, that reminds you of the good in the world, that makes you want to stay sober. At the end of the day, it was important for me in my first few years of sobriety to stockpile reasons to keep battling this incurable disease. So hobbies, pets, foods, etc. are all nice little reinforcement mechanisms for why a sober life is a better life.

All right, I have to go. My flock of three furry friends are all staring at me, the greatest person to ever live, and I think they might be hungry…

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 stopped drinking and got the monkey of my back, but the circus is still in town.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, May 2003, Chuck B. from Berea, Ohio)

Please spread the word to a sober friend! Find me on Substack… or Twitter… or Facebook… or Instagram… or YouTube. And introducing my web site, LOLsober.com.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nelsonh.substack.com/subscribe

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces but I am hoping to generate a few bucks to pay for my web site and some other costs. Paid subscribers do have access to frequent premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I saw a story recently in Esquire where Brad Pitt talks about trying out sobriety, attending 12-step meetings for awhile and putting together seven years without a drink. But he said he recently started drinking again, but is doing it in a more responsible, professional way.

This obviously became a big internet topic as people chimed in about the idea of going back to drinking in moderation. I don’t really have an opinion on that—I would imagine there are people out there who make the decision to drink again and figure out a way to do it within reason, or at least manage the harm from their drinking. Is that how it works for me? Absolutely not. That is a dangerous thought to let grow inside my head, and I would say most alcoholics that I know probably feel the same way.

So I don’t have much of an opinion about Brad Pitt drinking again, other than I always hope that someone who relapses finds a way to live a safe, happy life, whether that means coming back to 12-step recovery or not.

What I do have a strong opinion about is some of the coverage of Pitt’s relapse, especially this story from The Hollywood Reporter. The article starts out by referencing various quotes from Reddit, then has a few experts chime in. I think both of those sources are b******t. You cannot base any kind of journalism on finding five comments on Reddit. You can name any subject matter whatsoever and find a few nameless people out there agreeing with it. If you wanted to write something about how the moon landing was fake and the sun isn’t real, you can find some goober named ConspiracyBoy6969 writing about that in some corner of the internet. That doesn’t mean that you help shine a light on that opinion.

Secondly, I thought some of the so-called experts in the story were way off target. Here’s a quote from a guy named Joe Schrank, who is identified as a clinical social worker and policy advocate who has worked with addicts for 20 years.

“When he said he’s drinking moderately after seven years of abstinence, there’s a bunch of different things going on there,” Schrank says. “Typically speaking, alcoholics are just a horrible source of information about themselves. Matthew Perry walked around reeking like booze telling people he was sober. But maybe [Pitt] is [drinking moderately]. The World Health Organization says that this is possible—that with moderate drinking, even after long periods of abstinence, there are lots of people who find success of clinical significance and life improvement. The AA morality police take this stuff as red meat for their need to finger wag and shame. Not everybody needs to spend the rest of their life totally abstinent with a cup of shitty coffee in a Styrofoam cup regurgitating platitudes. Some do—I’m one of those people.”

OK, where do I even start? Did we need this level of aggressive commentary? Why the shots fired at Matthew Perry out of nowhere? And don’t get me going on his representation of AA… actually, yes, let me get going on that.

I hate when 12-step recovery is presented this way, as if we have a CEO and press spokesperson who will come out and condemn what Brad Pitt said. Like, what is the AA morality police? Did this guy meet someone over the years who was overly aggressive about abstinence being the answer? Probably. Those people exist. But that’s not what I see. Seeing someone relapse and using it as red meat to wag a finger at someone… come on. What a disservice to 12-step recovery. I don’t know Joe Schrank. I’m sure he has helped people quite a bit in his 20 years of working in the recovery field. And I do appreciate his open-mindedness about recovery—there are many different ways to get to whatever goal you have regarding your substance use.

But I also will say that if I had a friend who needed help, I would not be sending him or her to Joe Schrank. I don’t think the putdowns and bluster is a good way to connect with people and get them help toward sobriety. There is another expert in the story who hits a similar point, but I’m not going to dissect his comments the same way. It was mostly the same general opinion.

I did find the end of the story amusing, where Schrank acknowledges that the World Health Organization has shown more recent studies that demonstrate no alcohol is far better for you than even a little bit. It’s funny that got buried in the last paragraph of a story where the general point is, hey, relax all you non-drinkers, maybe it’s fine that Brad Pitt is drinking again.

Just my two cents, and most stores don’t even have pennies any more, so take those two cents for what they are worth!

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: “Drinking saved my marriage. We were always too drunk to finish the divorce paperwork.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, May 2003, Anonymous from New York, New York)

Please spread the word to a sober friend! Find me on Substack… or Twitter… or Facebook… or Instagram… or YouTube. And introducing my web site, LOLsober.com.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nelsonh.substack.com/subscribe

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces but I am hoping to generate a few bucks to pay for my web site and some other costs. Paid subscribers do have access to frequent premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I went to a meeting recently where a guy began his share by saying, “I brought a visual tool today that is the answer to all of your problems.” Then he unfolded a 4-foot banner spelling out the word, “Acceptance.”

Just one problem: It was spelled wrong. He had it spelled as “Accept-E-nce.” I noticed it right away and was aggravated by it. Who makes a banner for the meeting, then makes a proclamation about it to 25 other people, and the word is spelled wrong?

Well, the joke was on me. I spent the meeting ruminating on the misspelling, and I think at least five people shared and said thank you to the guy for the sign. It turns out, acceptance is the answer, no matter how it is spelled.

After the meeting, I was walking to the parking lot with a friend and I pointed out that it was misspelled. The guy I was with chuckled and said he didn’t notice. Then I said something like, “How did you miss that?”

He chuckled again and shrugged his shoulders, and just as I was about to open my mouth to marvel at how this guy could have botched the one word he had to print out, something hit me that still makes me smile: I wasn’t accepting of the misspelling of the word acceptance. I was completely distracted by the letters of the sign and was missing the point of the sign. I wasn’t being very accepting, was I?

It was a good reminder about acceptance… regardless of how it is spelled!

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 newcomer is struggling to get the ketchup out of the jar when the telephone rings. “Would you get that, Jenny?” she asks her 4-year-old.

The child eagerly obeys. “It’s your sponsor,” she informs her mom. Then she goes back to the phone.

“Mommy can’t talk to you right now. She’s hitting the bottle.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, April 2003, Richard Morris from Golden, Colorado)

Please spread the word to a sober friend! Find me on Substack… or Twitter… or Facebook… or Instagram… or YouTube. And introducing my web site, LOLsober.com.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nelsonh.substack.com/subscribe

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces but I am hoping to generate a few bucks to pay for my web site and some other costs. Paid subscribers do have access to frequent premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I was listening to a podcast recently where the hosts discussed who the worst person in the Game of Thrones universe was. That included the older tv show, Game of Thrones itself, but also subsequent parts of the GOT universe like House of the Dragon, which I am currently watching.

There were plenty of villain candidates, that’s for sure. But the thing that ultimately jumped out at me was that the true villain of the show ended up not being the White Walker demon zombies or whatever the f**k they were, or Joffrey, or any other actual living thing: It was the throne.

The throne was what caused so much anger, death, revenge, lust, moral decay and a slew of other horrific things. Everybody wanted to sit on that throne, in a giant, cold room, more than anything else. They wanted that power, and they usually wanted it because they wanted it, not because they had noble intentions for what to do with it.

Now is the throne from Game of Thrones the same as opioid or alcohol addiction? Not really. One is a piece of furniture and the other two are substances that will alter your mind.

But the general concept is interesting: I gave away my soul to get drugs and alcohol every day, and I knew I was doing it. I could feel myself sliding all the time. And that’s what happens in Game of Thrones, too. So many of the people who eventually get to sit in the Iron Throne end up with mixed feelings about it.

I will also say that I have seen people get sober but become enamored with someone or something powerful, then their addictive self just ends up chasing that the same way they did drugs and alcohol. I’ve seen it with people chasing romantic partners, people chasing job promotions, chasing money, you name it… power can be an addictive thing, too.

Thank God I found a rehab and went and got clean. I wish I could go back in time to sit with the Baratheons and Starks and Valyrians and encouraged them all to seek treatment… a few more million fictional people might be alive today!

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:

After a night of hard drinking, a drunk pulls out his cell phone and calls the police to report a robbery in his car. “They’ve stolen the dashboard, the steering wheel, the brake pedal, even the accelerator!” he cries.

But before the police can respond, they get another call, and the same voice comes on the line. “Never mind,” says the drunk. “I got into the back seat by mistake.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, March 2003, Anthony F.)

Please spread the word to a sober friend! Find me on Substack… or Twitter… or Facebook… or Instagram… or YouTube. And introducing my web site, LOLsober.com.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nelsonh.substack.com/subscribe

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces but I am hoping to generate a few bucks to pay for my web site and some other costs. Paid subscribers do have access to frequent premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I went to see Obsession recently, the remarkable new horror movie from a sketch comedy artist named Curry Barker. He is 26 years old and directed what has become one of the greatest box office success stories ever. Obsession cost about $750,000 to make, and has earned about $425 million at the box office. You don’t need to be an accountant at a drug cartel to realize that is a good return on investment.

I’ll summarize the movie without spoiling it. A young dude has strong feelings for a friend of his, and isn’t sure if she feels the same way. He ends up making a wish that she would love him more than anything else in the world.

The dream comes true, and it goes horribly awry (though I will say, Obsession is one of the funniest movies I have seen this year, too). She becomes obsessed with him, so every waking moment of every day is devoted to him, and only to him. There are moments when the old version of her sneaks through, but the auto-pilot zombie version of her eventually always take control again.

You can probably feel the parallels, right? This lovely young woman has been devoured from the inside by this obsession, and it has turned her into a shell of herself. Every action must support her addiction: him.

The part that hit me the hardest was the idea that the good, normal version of her was in there, trying to escape. But a monster had taken over her body, and fighting against it was hopeless.

I won’t spoil the ending for you, because I actually thought the ending was quite good. But needless to say, the obsession doesn’t just drift away in the wind—she needs help.

I loved the movie. I thought it did a beautiful job, intended or not, of capturing the craving of someone who needs that one thing to fix everything else. I’d give it 3.5 stars out of 4, with my only minor critique being that I think the lead dude is only an okay actor. I actually found him a little grating, otherwise this might be one of the better horror movies I’ve ever seen.

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:

Two drunks are talking.

First drunk: “You want to go for a walk?”

Second drunk: “Isn’t it windy?”

First drunk: “No, it’s Thursday.”

Second drunk: “Me too. Let’s get a beer.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, January 2003, Buck R. from Silver Spring, Maryland)

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