LOL Sober

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I went to a meeting a few days ago where I like to sit in the far corner of the room. I got to the meeting 10 minutes early, walked in the front door and almost didn’t make it to my seat.

As I walked into the room, one person after another darted over to give me a hug and say hello. At first, my ego told me that I obviously was the mayor of sobriety and that I of course would be shaking hands and giving out hugs because of how awesome I am. The only thing missing was holding babies and doing the pageant wave to my adoring crowd.

But then I noticed that all those same people were running over to lots of people as they came in. It wasn’t just me; it was all of us, propping each other up.

And that got me thinking about the unique warmth of sober people. I don’t quite get it. I think it has something to do with so many of us having reached the absolute depths of hell that we bring back some of that heat when we get sober because we are so grateful to not be at the bottom any more.

But we all have bad days. Some of us have shitty jobs. Some of us are going through divorces. Some of us have ankle bracelets on from previous indiscretions. We don’t have lives that are all unicorns and rose gardens. We’re just regular schmoes.

Yet somehow recovery meetings are the happiest, warmest places I go. And it’s not just the hugs and handshakes. I noticed that with good recovery comes good, warm vibes. There’s a look in sober peoples’ eyes where you really think they’re rooting for you, that they really care.

It’s one of the most beautiful things in my life, to be honest, and I often wonder why I have migrated in recent years toward evening meetings. One reason is sheer laziness—with my sports viewing schedule, rolling out of bed to get to a meeting by 7 am ain’t so appealing. But I think the biggest reason is that it is so nice to end every day with an hour of warmth. And with it getting dark now at, oh, 3:30 in the afternoon, I will take any evening warmth I can get!

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 NEIGHBOR was sympathizing with the wife of a heavy drinker as she complained that her back was sore from moving furniture.

"Why didn't you wait till your husband got home?" the neighbor asked.

"I could have," said the wife, "but the couch is easier to move if he's not passed out on it."

(Credit: Grapevine, February 2009, by Richard M. of 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 right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

Warning: I am going to change some details within this post just to be vague and protect some identities.

I was thinking the other day about the value of curiosity in life, of asking questions, of relying upon people who know more than me. And it reminded me of two things: one, it made me think of someone I worked with and two, that apes don’t ask questions.

Let me start with my work anecdote. I remember a young former coworker from years ago who I thought was immensely talented. Very driven. Smart—super smart. Reliable. He was awesome to have on your team.

But he never asked any questions. Not once. I was probably 10 years his senior, with much more experience in our profession. But he had no curiosity. I didn’t even notice it for awhile; somebody else pointed out to me that he seemed to have all the answers, all the time, even though there were enough periodic blunders that should have indicated maybe he should ask for advice sometimes.

But that never happened. As far as I know, it still hasn’t happened. That eventually rubbed coworkers the wrong way, because nobody wants to be around people who have no interest in the world around them. Those people often times come off as know-it-alls who are self-centered to the extreme. They only care about themselves, and people see through it.

The other thing that came to mind was that I recently saw a tweet about how apes have learned sign language at astonishing levels—truly incredible. But the tweet said researchers mostly agree that they’ve never seen an ape ask a question. They can communicate. They express emotions. They can do the entire alphabet. But no questions.

That really blew my mind. I want apes asking questions. I want us to tell them stuff about the world. But apparently there isn’t yet a lot of curiosity. So I have a new mission for my future: I am going to teach apes how to ask questions.

That is, of course, a silly proposition, and it’s even sillier that I am about to relate everything I just wrote to sobriety.

Curiosity is one of the cornerstones of my life when I have good recovery. It means I am asking for others’ opinions, that I am asking loved ones how they feel about things, that I am not unilaterally figuring out everything on my own. That’s how I got a seat at a rehab hospital in 2008! I had all the answers—just ask me!

One of the biggest sinkholes I still fall into on occasion is just being an island unto myself. It’s easy to do because I have been sober since 2008 and I think I have led a mostly successful, spiritual life since then. But I catch myself sliding back into being an ape with no questions. I don’t ask my sponsor for guidance. I don’t ask my boss for his thoughts. I don’t ask my wife or kids their thoughts on things. I start to get the mentality that I know stuff, and now I am going to do stuff with all of that knowledge in my back pocket.

So I need to do better with that, and I also need to be the kind of person who asks questions in front of newcomers. Part of my sober message should be that no matter how long you’ve been sober, you still need to be curious.

And in the meantime, I’m already plotting out all the nearby zoos that have apes, and I’m going to spend the summer trying to pique their curiosity, 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:

EARLY IN RECOVERY, a mother took her 6-year-old son to visit a friend at work. As one of the employees went to make coffee, her son followed her and asked, "What are you doing?"

"I'm making your mom's favorite drink," she answered.

"Wow!" said the son. "You know how to make beer?"

(Credit: Grapevine, February 2009, by Terry B.)

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 right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

The other day, my wife opened a conversation with a vague question and I immediately could tell she had an underlying story.

“How long do you think it takes the average person to respond to a text?” she asked.

I gave a nothingburger answer that I actually believe, which is that it depends on the person, the time of day, whether it’s a Saturday or a Monday morning, etc. I basically shrugged my shoulders.

She proceeded to air out an agitation she was feeling about a friend who hadn’t responded to a text since yesterday. I know the person in question, and yes, she can be a little flaky on communication.

My wife eventually said, “Who doesn’t respond to texts?”

This is where I messed up and gave a recovery answer.

“Well, honey, earlier today I texted you and you didn’t respond for two hours, so I texted you again, and then you said, ‘Sorry, I missed your text.’ So it can pop up for all of us. You know, in sobriety, we always try to identify with people who hurt us or do us wrong, because chances are, we have done the same thing at some point in our lives.”

She didn’t like that answer. She told me she was just venting and didn’t need any kind of lesson. I, of course, immediately felt my back go up in annoyance. But my second thought was that she was right. I try to carry the message of recovery in all of my affairs, and sometimes I slip up a little and start trying to carry it into your affairs, too. That goes for people who are alcoholics and people who aren’t—even with fellow sober people, I really aim to only give suggestions and advice if I am directly asked about it. I just haven’t seen any benefit to being aggressive with my opinions. In fact, I have found myself gravitating toward people who seem to feel either very little or no obligation to inject their thoughts into situations where they weren’t asked to. That’s a pretty lovely way to cruise through life, in my humble opinion.

That brings me around to my specific point for this post, which is that I am better off when I keep my recovery stuff in my recovery world. It’s fine if I live by the principles of recovery in all aspects of my life. But I don’t need to be on work Zooms or at my family Thanksgiving dinner telling people they ought to do a Fourth Step on their resentments, or else I am going to end up with lots more resentments aimed in my direction.

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:

WE WERE HAVING LUNCH on Friday the thirteenth and talking about being superstitious. One of the young men eating with us said, "I really believe in that sort of thing. Two months ago, I walked under a ladder at work. That night I got a drunk driving ticket."

Once I stopped laughing, I said, "Think it had anything to do with the drinking?"

(Credit: Grapevine, February 2009, by Jack B. of Santa Cruz, California)

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 right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

On page 30 of the Big Book, there is a sentence that has been sticking with me recently. It goes like this: The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.

I keep thinking about that last word: smashed.

First of all, I fully acknowledge that the word “smashed” has taken on new meaning the past few years. Go to Urban Dictionary or open up TikTok for five seconds, and you’ll hear how the kids have corrupted use of that word. I’ll give you a hint: It relates to sexy time.

Secondly, I find it funny that I used to get smashed every night, and now you’re telling me I need to smash the idea that I can get smashed any more.

Thirdly, think about the aggressiveness of that statement. It doesn’t say that we need to patiently discard the idea that we can drink like normal people. It doesn’t say to gently put that idea down on your bedside table. It says we have to smash that idea.

I’d go one step further—I needed to smash the idea that I could drink like a normal person and also the idea that I could go to rehab and stop on my own. In my 15-plus years in the rooms of recovery, that second part is such an insidious concept that floats back into most of our brains.

It’s the idea that we absolutely cannot drink any more… but that it’s not going to take a lot of work to get out of the same behaviors and thought patterns that led us to a drink. You can’t keep going to the barber shop and just skip the haircut now. I haven’t seen that work out.

I’ve actually seen a lot of that delusion the past few years, including with myself. During the pandemic, I had a period where I stayed in contact with a few alcoholics but my meetings slowed way down. Pretty quickly, I saw some bad thought and action patterns creep back into my life.

And I’ve also had a few friends who came to 12-step recovery breathing out of their mouths, suffering and desperate, hitting a meeting every day and calling and texting multiple times per day. And then… things got better. The meetings slowed down. The calls disappeared, replaced by an occasional, “Hey, how are you?” text. When we’d talk, they’d say, “Oh, I haven’t been getting to many meetings because I got really busy at work lately, and also, I’m coaching my kid’s soccer team.”

I guess the lesson is that yes, I need to smash the delusion I can drink and I need to smash the delusion that it will take lots of work… but also that I need to smash it and then keep smashing it. In fact, I need to smash it every single day if I want to live the best life possible.

And here’s the thing: I’ve found that I can be really busy at work, coach my kid’s soccer team and get to a meeting almost every single day. They’re not mutually exclusive things. In fact, they’re the opposite—I’ve found that the more I smash the delusion that I can drink, the more I can have smashing success in life.

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:

IN AN EMAIL TO OUR DCM (district committee member), one of our friends told us of the passing of a long-time AA in our district. The notice concluded, "Pat was in the program twenty-five years. He was my first sponsor—but I don't think that is what killed him."

(Credit: Grapevine, February 2009, by John C. of Antioch, Illinois)

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 right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I’ve been away from the newsletter for a few weeks due to some medical issues, and I wanted to reveal more about that today. Long story short: I found out in April I had Stage 4 cancer.

I went in for a routine colonoscopy in the spring because I was 46 years old and my doctor said 45 is now the suggested age at which to begin getting colonoscopies. I went in for it, and within five minutes of waking up, the colonoscopy doctor came in and said he’d found a rectal tumor. A few weeks later, scans showed the cancer had already spread to my liver.

Those were some dark days, because my oncologist ended up putting my chances of survival somewhere in the 60-70 percent range. Now, 70 percent is a pretty good chance… but it ain’t 100.

I had a few days where I wallowed in my situation. I wasn’t so much worried about dying—I was worried mostly about how unpleasant the next year of my life was going to be. I was supposed to start six rounds of chemo in May, and then they thought I’d need a rough surgery to remove both tumors, and then I’d need six more rounds of chemo in the fall. Perhaps the most jarring detail was that after the surgery, they assumed they’d need to reroute my entire digestive track into an ostomy bag. I don’t know why, but that detail single-handedly haunted the entire diagnosis. I felt like I could deal with anything but a porta-potty bag coming out of my body.

During those weeks where I wallowed in it, I had occasional thoughts about picking up drugs or alcohol again. Not significant thoughts. I never came close. But I would catch myself once or twice a week saying to myself, “Hey, if you’re going to be doing chemotherapy and whittling away and then getting an ostomy bag, why not pick up something to boost your spirits and ease the physical pain?”

Luckily, I had much louder voices in my head telling me to double down on getting to meetings and staying connected with sober people. I started getting to about five meetings a week, including chairing a few. I’m so glad I did. I found myself leaning into the dark humor of the situation, and I made a lot of hay out of the joke that if you knew anything about how immature I am as a person, you had to find it hilarious that I might die because my ass fell off.

During chemo, I found my spirits rising every day without any kind of mood-altering substance. People rallied around me, both in and out of my recovery circles, and I found myself ready to rumble every day. Chemo had unpleasant moments, but I made it through six rounds without much drama. I’d even get to meetings sometimes with a pack injecting me with chemo every few minutes.

On Sept. 25, I had surgery to remove both tumors, which had shrunk quite a bit from the chemo. The surgery went well, but it was very painful and I spent eight days in the hospital. Those were some of the darkest days of my life—I had some complications and the pain was really breaking my spirit, especially at night. It’s hard to describe exactly why nights at a hospital are so debilitating, but it’s a combination of weird lighting, bad sleep environment, significant pain and a lack of support staff. I just felt alone with my pain, and that’s never good.

Luckily, though, I had amazing loved ones supporting me, and as much as I wanted to just lay in my hospital bed, some sober friends insisted on visiting me and hosting several meetings for me. Like I said, I would have rather just silently sat in my room, but my recovery friends wouldn’t allow it.

And here was the thing that again jumped out at me: Sober people who have a good recovery program do not sulk, complain, whine or shake their fist at tough situations. They show empathy. They’ll cry with you. And there’s a lot of laughter, a lot of optimism and energy devoted to what the next right action might be. And that is contagious. That’s who I want to be.

Recovery from the surgery has been tough. I’m in quite a bit of pain, and it’s taking longer than I had hoped. I wanted to be back running around within a week or two, and that just hasn’t been possible. It’s been a grind, with ups and downs every week, sometimes every day. But it’s also one day at a time, which I have some familiarity with, obviously.

I start chemo again on Oct. 30, which feels too soon. But it’s the next right thing to eliminate any cancer cells left—and my doctors are saying they can’t see any right now. That’s great news, of course, but the chemo will be tough. My midsection still feels like 50 UFC fighters took turns giving me body shots, so if I sneeze or cough, I am in agony. Hell, if I laugh really hard, it hurts, physically. But spiritually? The laughter is getting me through. So as much as it hurts, I’m going to do it anyway.

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…

"Sobriety is no laughing matter, but laughing matters when you're sober."

(CREDIT: Grapevine, February 2009, by Denny C. of Atoka, Tennessee)

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 right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I was at a meeting the other day where we read the first few paragraphs from the chapter of the Big Book called “A Vision for You.” The first page, page 151, is worth a read or a reread if you haven’t looked at it in awhile.

I was struck by the idea that that first paragraph kind of summarizes all of our stories, which I think you could boil down to this: In the beginning, drinking was a solution to a problem. At the end, it was THE problem on top of every other problem.

I especially lingered on the first two sentences of that reading where it says: For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship and colorful imagination. It means release from care, boredom and worry.

When I thought back to my early drinking days, alcohol and drugs did those exact things for me. It meant partying with friends, laughing all night, and not feeling any worries in the world.

That, of course, didn’t last very long before the laughs died down a bit and the blackouts began. I’d say anything after my college years was lonely, quiet, sad highs by myself. So it definitely could be simplified down to conviviality at the start and, as the Big Book says, “pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization” at the finish.

My big takeaway from reading that section of “A Vision for You” is how important it is for me to replicate very similar things in recovery as I did with what drinking used to do for me. I need conviviality, companionship and colorful imagination, and I need to find a way to deal with boredom and worry.

For me, that means a strong 12-step program that isn’t just a solution to drinking. I need recovery to be all the things that drinking was in the beginning, with laughter, companionship and connection. Drinking gave me a lot of that, and I need sobriety to, too.

I know some people just need recovery to keep them from the bar. I need it to be a new way of living, and I have found that it can be that. I laugh harder than ever and feel more connected than ever, even more than those early days of partying. And it’s nice to be able to find that place without every night ending with me barfing in a dive bar men’s room!

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:

"I had a really good reason for working Step Nine and making amends to my family and friends: I didn't want a parade of people at my funeral singing, 'Ding, dong, the wicked witch is dead!"

(Credit: Grapevine, February 2009, by Carol K. of Sarasota, 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 right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I was at a meeting recently that is a closed meeting, which is defined as a meeting intended for people who are alcoholics trying to stay sober. So technically, closed meetings aren’t for spouses, kids, nursing students, or people with alcohol problems who don’t really want to stop.

At this meeting, the dad of a guy was there and introduced himself as just being there to support his son. As far as I know, nobody approached the guy during or after the meeting to let him know it’s a closed meeting. By letter of the law, I think a real sobriety stickler might have raised their hand and announced that this was a closed meeting intended only for alcoholics interested in recovery. Nobody did that here, to my knowledge.

And personally, I’m glad. The thought crossed my mind that this meeting was a closed meeting, not open, and I wrestled with whether it was worth bringing up throughout the meeting, because rules are rules. I respect things that have been handed down over many decades, such as defining meetings publicly as open or closed. There are scenarios where people choose meetings because they know there will only be men or women there, or that the meeting will be closed or open, or that a meeting doesn’t let people share if they were late. The last thing 12-step programs need is alcoholics and addicts who toss out group conscience and do whatever they feel like. So I respect those rules.

However, I often feel a little grace is necessary with outsiders showing up. I’ve been at men’s meetings where a woman shows up and doesn’t realize it’s a men’s meeting. My feeling is that you ask the person to step outside and then take a group conscience on allowing the person to stay. I’ve seen that happen about five times, and all five times, the group voted overwhelmingly to ask the woman to stay for the meeting. I feel like that open door policy is one of the core values of recovery.

I’ve also been at meetings where a group of college students show up and say that part of their curriculum requires them to attend a 12-step meeting. I’ve seen that about 10 times, and I believe every one of those meetings was an open meeting, which allows for anybody to show up. I mention the nursing students because in those meetings, I did feel a slightly different vibe for myself, where I wasn’t sure I wanted to share as openly as if it were all alcoholics. In those moments, I usually spend a minute thinking about how there is value in closed meetings.

Which brings me back to the dad showing up. It did cross my mind to pull the guy aside after the meeting and let him know he should consider looking up open meetings if he planned to attend. But ultimately I didn’t. When in doubt, I usually tend to keep my pie hole shut rather than confront somebody. You never know how they could take something like that.

My overall opinion is live and let live. I actually don’t mind at a closed meeting if a loved one shows up. I can’t imagine booting that person out. I could live with taking a group conscience and putting it to a vote—I wouldn’t be angry about that. And I wouldn’t be bothered if every meeting was open. I think if I ever got to a point where I didn’t feel comfortable sharing at a meeting because students or parents were there, I might just leave and find another meeting.

My last thought on this topic was one time I went to a morning meeting where about five nursing students showed up. They were all young women, probably in their early 20s. They all seemed like very nice people. But it was a rough meeting, with a few people who’d just gotten out of rehab. So they were sharing some tough newcomer stories of some of the things they had been up to a month or two earlier, before rehab, and I watched as these nursing students’ eyes started to bulge out of their head. It actually got pretty amusing because it really showed the difference between non-alcoholics and alcoholics—half of the people at the meeting were chuckling and laughing along because they had done some of the same horrific behaviors. I remember leaving that day and saying god bless open meetings… but that I thought we might have just had five future nurses change their majors.

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:

THE TIPSY TEENAGER calls her mom:

"I got into a little wreck, but I'm okay."

"Can't you do anything right?" the frustrated mom says.

Daughter: "I was wearing clean underwear!"

(Credit: Grapevine, January 2009, by Lilia M. of Sunrise, 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 right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I saw that September is National Recovery Month, which I seem to forget every year. So… Happy Recovery Month!

I really am not a fan of the monthly and daily celebrations because they’ve gotten so out of hand. September is National Recovery Month, National Suicide Prevention Month and a slew of other important things to contemplate.

But it’s also National Square Dance Month, National Whole Grains Month, National Piano Month, National Mortgage Professional Month and National Rice Month. And hey, if you’re reading this on September 10, make sure you celebrate National TV Dinner Day with a delicious frozen platter! Those days seem really silly and driven by capitalism, which I think waters down the meaning of actual celebrations to consider.

And in all seriousness, I would consider recovery to be a topic worth celebrating. I don’t bake myself a cake or anything, but I do try to spend this month feeling grateful for all the sober people that came before me. Think about what we have in 2024 because of the people that have gotten sober years before us.

A few examples:

We have sober literature that has been vetted and reconsidered for decades. We have laws about work leave for substance abuse issues. We have churches and other places that trust us to have 12-step meetings there. We have rehabs that have tried and true methods of detoxing people and steering them toward a new life.

I try to always spend a few minutes thinking about what it would look like right now if none of that stuff existed and a bunch of newcomers had to try to band together and come up with everything we have. I’ve been to business meetings in the last five years where people couldn’t agree on a $5 rent increase, so I cannot fathom 100 drunks sitting down and writing a book together.

Yet that’s what our elders did. They wrote books. They came up with the steps. They paid their rent on time. They made mistakes and corrected them so I didn’t have to make the same mistakes. Many of them succeeded so that decades later, when people come into sobriety, their loved ones can have optimism in the recovery process. Imagine the difference between finding out your son or daughter is an alcoholic in 1935 versus now—we all have sober role models we can point to and aspire to become.

My elders really did clear a path that is pretty much a paved road at this point. So I try to honor their memories and sacrifices this month by drinking a non-alcoholic beverage of some sort and toasting what they accomplished.

Then I go back to celebrating National Square Dance month!

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:

"I WENT AND SAW my psychiatrist today and he told me there was good news and bad news," the speaker at the AA meeting said. "The good news is that I have brain cells left. The bad news is that there are only two left, and they are waving goodbye to each other."

(Credit: Grapevine, January 2009, by Tommy H. of Baton Rouge, La)

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 right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I do two men’s meetings a week. One is small and intimate, and the other is big and rowdy. I love them both, but I like the rowdy one because the overall vibe is joyous and free. Sometimes it feels like a pep rally for sobriety, and who doesn’t enjoy a good pep rally?

That meeting also does a group meditation, which is very cool at such a large men’s meeting. The meditation is about two minutes long, and it’s nice for a newcomer to see the contrast of rowdiness and serenity—I think it sets them up for the idea that recovery involves lots of happy, joyous and free… but also plenty of contemplative moments, too.

The other night was a particularly interesting meditation. The room had about 60 guys in it, and the temperature outside was 70 degrees so the air conditioning wasn’t on. So as soon as the chairperson said we were now going to do a meditation, I had a momentary thought of, “Oh no.”

And sure enough, the room was a little too hot already, and now dudes were breathing in and out pretty heavy all around me. I kept feeling like I was catching a whiff of some manly body odor and definitely plenty of coffee breath, plus several other aromas that I won’t get into. So I spent the first 60 seconds or so feeling like I was huffing in a bunch of bro breath and it grossed me out.

But I opened my eyes for a few seconds to try to clear my head a bit, and the sight of 60 dudes with their eyes closed, trying to find a common ground in meditation was so beautiful. The rest of the meeting, as it always is, consisted of lots of belly laughs and aggressive hugging and cheering for people celebrating sober anniversaries. But in that moment, we were all joined in quietness, listening to a sober guy lead a guided meditation.

I ended up closing my eyes again and breathing through my mouth as much as possible, and it was awesome. It’s just so cool to be synced up with so many men I admire and hope to latch onto because of their recovery—even if it smells like Folgers decaf!

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:

SPEAKER AT AA MEETING: "I used to think that if I quit drinking I'd be incredibly boring and pompous."

Cross-talker: "At least you've come to grips with that."

(Credit: Grapevine, January 2009, by Anonymous)

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When was the last time you were very, very grateful and also very angry? Or very grateful and feeling road rage? Or very grateful and jealous?

I bet the answer is that you can’t remember a time like that. I know I can’t. The truth is, I’ve never been that combination of anything plus gratitude.

It’s hard to explain why that is. But I just know that when I am grateful, it crowds everything else out of the room. Gratitude is greedy, in the best possible way, because it hogs up all the oxygen in the room and I can’t feel resentful or gossipy or anything else I am trying to avoid. Gratitude is a one-trick pony.

I should clarify that I am talking about a specific kind of gratitude. There’s passing gratitude, where you are grateful for 10 seconds that a parking spot opened up in the mall parking lot at Christmastime. And then there is overall gratitude, where you feel grateful for the life that you have been given. That’s the type of gratitude that crowds out everything else, because I can definitely get a good parking spot and then want to choke out somebody in the food court 11 minutes later.

So why is gratitude about life such a powerful antidote to those other unwanted emotions? I think it’s because that kind of grateful is so all-encompassing. It factors in all of the elements of life that I am happy about, and it helps me realize the truth, which is that most of our lives are pretty awesome. I had an epiphany a few years ago when someone encouraged me to make a list of all the things that were bothering me, and then all the things I was grateful for. I’d encourage you to try that some time, especially on a day when you’re in a bad mood. What happened to me was, I wrote down three or four nagging problems in my life—and they were legitimate issues—and then I started writing down the things I was grateful for. I got to 10, then 12, then 15 things on that gratitude list, and seeing them side by side was quite jarring because it highlighted how much more good than bad there was in my life.

How long did that feeling of gratitude last? Well, it wasn’t permanent, that’s for sure. But I would say for the next few hours, when something negative popped up, I didn’t feel nearly as irritated as you would expect, and it’s because gratitude was still the overwhelming elephant in the room for me. It eventually wore off, for sure, but I always think about how that level of gratitude is available to me pretty much any time I want it… especially when I’m trying to find a parking spot at the mall around the holidays!

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:

OLDIE BUT GOODIE: "I told my sponsor I had a Jeckyll-and-Hyde personality. He said it was too bad that I'd sobered up the wrong one."

(Credit: Grapevine, January 2009, by Vic McM of 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