LOL Sober

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I love the book “Drop the Rock.” It’s not official 12-step literature but it’s written by alcoholics and addicts, and I have found the book to be an essential part of working on character defects. It’s about 100 pages long and goes deep on the Sixth and Seventh Steps in a way that I find incredibly beneficial.

My favorite passage from the book is about cleanliness, from about page 20-25. I can’t really do it justice, but the essential point is that many of my character defects—selfishness, fear, judgmentalism—flare up when I am a mess. By mess, I mean, when I am disorganized, when I am racing around, when I am forgetting stuff, when I am doing a bad job managing my schedule, when my diet is a disaster, when my car is filled with trash, when my sink is full of dishes, and on and on. It’s so easy to sit on the couch and just wish that stuff took care of itself, or decide that “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

And here’s the thing: I am not someone who ever has a gross car but nothing else is a mess. The messiness and clutter seem to come in waves and feed off each other. I used to think that there is no relationship between a messy life and my sobriety. Why would a dusty house and sloppy backyard have anything to do with recovery?

But now I am of the opposite opinion—I think there is a direct relationship. I don’t really know anybody who I would consider a spiritual giant but also a disaster to make plans with. At the end of the day, the key to my recovery is living a spiritual life. And for me, a spiritual life has to be as serene and peaceful as possible. And for me, a serene and peaceful life doesn’t just happen because I want it to. I have to do lots and lots of things to keep myself focused on it. I roll out of bed wanting to do whatever I want, when I want to do it. I want to watch TV and eat Oreos and lie about being sick so I don’t have to go to work and skip paying bills for the month. I want to avoid all pain and instead find ways to make a good day great, and a great day into the best day that’s ever happened. I’m an addict, through and through, and that doesn’t mesh well with a spiritual, meditative life.

That’s why the cleanliness stuff in Drop the Rock always hits me so hard. I don’t know if this is true 100 percent of the time, but I bet on my toughest days, you could probably tell that I am struggling by looking at my car, my laundry pile, my sink, my room, etc. I think there is a direct link to the way that I take care of myself and the way that I take care of the other things in my life. I know that might sound silly. But think about your own life and how you feel right now, and then how you would feel if you made your bed, cleaned the sink, balanced your checkbook, cleared off your desk, mowed your grass and finally dropped off that pile of clothes you’ve been meaning to donate. I have found that there is something about feeling clean and free that connects with the spaces around me being clean and free.

So I just did the dishes and folded some laundry, and I am awaiting a lightning bolt to hit me with spirituality. It hasn’t happened yet… but fingers crossed as I go back to sitting on my couch and filling out my NCAA tournament brackets.

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:

OVERHEARD AT MEETINGS

AA sharing at his four-year anniversary: "I'm finally starting to like people!"

Thirty-year veteran: "Oh, you'll get over that."

(Credit: Grapevine, June 2008, by Stacy T. of Sacramento, 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!

I went to a giant men’s meeting the other night, and it was one of those meetings where everybody sat on their hands for most of the hour. There would be 30 seconds of awkward silence waiting for someone to raise their hand, and then finally somebody would.

That went on for the first 50 minutes of the meeting, and then I couldn’t handle the silence any more. So with about six minutes left in the meeting, a guy got done sharing and I raised my hand. But so did about five other guys. So I put my hand down and one or two more people shared, and then the meeting was over.

There was an older guy sitting beside me who I had never met. I’ll call him Doug (that’s not his real name). As soon as the meeting closes, he introduces himself to me and says, “Don’t go anywhere. I have something to say to you.” My first thought was, Uh-oh, is this dude going to bark at me about something?

He runs across the room and is talking to some friends, and I put a few chairs away and said hello to some friends. I thought about ducking out of there and avoiding whatever confrontation was looming. But I was curious enough to stick around, and he eventually pulled me aside and quietly said, “You didn’t get a chance to share. What were you going to say?”

I smiled at myself thinking that I was headed for a confrontation, because this was the opposite of confrontation. I waved him off. “Oh, it was nothing. I just threw my hand up because nobody else was.”

Well, this dude would not take no comment for an answer. He said. “No, seriously, what did you want to say?”

I again tried to say thank you and get out of there, so I said something vague about how I was going to mention how grateful I was for sponsorship because both sponsors I have had worked with me for many years with no money, no fame, no real tangible benefits other than doing service work.

The guy wouldn’t let up! He said, “Tell me more. Tell me everything you wanted to say.”

I felt two things at once. First, I felt annoyed and wanted to head home. Secondly, I felt really appreciative of this stranger wanting to give me an opportunity to share. He could have just headed for the door like I wanted to.

I proceeded to tell him for 30 seconds about how I have always felt like my sponsors were beautiful, warm, caring people that lived the life I wanted to live, and they let me follow along behind them to try to learn how they were doing it.

The guy hung on every word out of my mouth. He seemed to genuinely care. He gave me a look at the end that was like, “Is that it? You can keep going if you want. I’m here for you.”

I hugged him at the end and said thank you. As I walked out of the meeting, I was chuckling about how aggressive this guy had been… but then I was overcome by appreciation. Sober people are the absolute best. They care so much, and it’s not because there are cash and prizes for being nice. I guess you could say that they’re adding to their spiritual gas tank when they do stuff like that, and that’s true. But the dude didn’t have to stay after like that. I walked out into the parking lot shaking my head in joy at the idea that I could have been a newcomer who’d never been to a meeting before, and my life could have been falling apart and I needed help, and the meeting ran out of time. Luckily, that dude would have been there for the struggling alcoholic. What’s more beautiful than that?

Thanks, Doug! (That’s not his real name, but that’s his spirit.)

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

"Most of my great discoveries in sobriety have just been flashes of deep insight into the obvious."

(Credit: Grapevine, June 2008, by Jim F. of Tasmania)

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 THIScomedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I read a very interesting piece in Psychology Today recently, from a clinical psychologist who specializes in addiction treatment. I’ve included it HERE.

His basic point is that we often mistakenly think that motivation will cause action, and that it is actually the other way around—that you need to start an action and then the motivation will come. He spends a lot of time digging into the faulty idea that so many of us want to change something and then just sit around hoping that we will be overwhelmed by motivation to make that change.

The main application in my life is obviously addiction. I got to a point where I felt terrible every day and put myself in rehab. Even on the way to rehab, I didn’t really want to go. And a few days in, I wanted to stop. But I was already in the middle of the action, and I did find that the motivation tank filled up as I took the action.

But that’s not even the best example for me. I mean, with drugs and alcohol, I was going to die, so there was a big part of me that was motivated every single day to scream at myself to take action. The better examples are all those things that aren’t killing us but we wish we could get to change.

The list is endless: character defects that work for us sometimes and against us other times… a bad relationship… bad money habits… weight loss… annoying paperwork… and on and on. There are so many things that I tell myself I’ll do tomorrow or next week that I am hoping will magically involve motivation knocking on my door.

The writer of the Psychology Today piece makes the case that you should think about it in reverse, that you take committed action even if you’re not quite feeling much motivation yet. He talks about working with countless people who know what they want for a happier life but they sit on their hands and hope for a fire to be lit under their ass, and it doesn’t come.

I often share these days about the concept of meddling, which is a character defect of mine. On a regular basis, I catch myself walking into situations that I wasn’t invited to, responding to emails I don’t need to, trying to mediate arguments I’m not involved in, and then I get myself into trouble. That’s unnecessary meddling, and it basically amounts to me not accepting the world as it is, and believing that the world should be as I think it should be. I’ll often jump in with advice or suggestions that nobody was looking for, and dress it up in my head as trying to be helpful. Well… am I being helpful? Or meddling? It’s usually meddling, and in those situations, I am an example of someone who knows a behavior that would make for a happier life… but I keep doing it and hoping for motivation to arrive.

The truth is, the author of that story is probably right. Motivation will probably arrive once I start hustling and taking action and see the benefits. I’ve never once gone to the gym, decided not to do anything and drove home. I just to shut the f— up and hopefully the momentum will show up to continue to involve myself in things that I need to be involved in, not the things that I involve myself in for s***s and giggles.

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 construction worker—a rather large, menacing guy—enters a bar. He orders a beer, chugs it back, and bellows, "All you guys on this side of the bar are a bunch of idiots!"

A silence descends. "Anyone got a problem with that?" The silence lengthens.

He then chugs another beer and growls, "And you guys on the other side of the bar are all scum!" Once again, the bar is silent. He roars, "Anyone got a problem with that?"

One lone man gets up from his stool, and unsteadily starts to walk toward the man. "You got a problem, buddy?" the angry man says.

"Oh no," slurs the drunk. "I'm just on the wrong side of the bar."

(Credit: Grapevine, June 2008, by Anonymous)

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 THIScomedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I was at a meeting the other night where we read some recovery literature that talked about alcoholism as a progressive illness. I nodded my head and listened, but I was yawning a little bit.

Of course my alcoholism is a progressive illness—my drug and alcohol addiction got worse every day for about five years in a row. There wasn’t one stretch of time where I saw improvement. Zero months. Zero weeks. Zero days, even. It was a steep decline that went from two beers a day to 50 opioids, 10 beers and sleeping pills a few years later. If my drug and alcohol usage were a stock, you would have sold right away because there was no growth, only losses and losses and losses.

So I don’t need to be convinced about drinking and drugging getting progressively worse. If I ever started back up again, I would be back to where I was in 2008 within a month or so. I can either stay stopped or not be able to stop. It’s my choice at this point.

But then somebody shared a slightly different take that I hadn’t fully considered before. He shared about how it wasn’t just his alcohol and drug usage that progressively got worse before he got sober. He said he lied more, spent money frivolously, aggressively dated in an unhealthy way, abused nicotine and caffeine, ate too much one day and nothing the next… his list went on and on, and the key thing, he said, was that just like his drug and alcohol usage, none of those things went through any improvement at any time, either. So the progressive illness was bigger than alcohol and drugs. In fact, it sure seemed like the black hole that mood-altering substances had become for him was pulling almost every aspect of his life into it, and each one of those things got progressively worse, too.

The point of his share was what happened on Day One of sobriety. He stopped drinking and drugging. But he said he still had terrible relationships with food, money, caffeine, nicotine, sex, love, sleep and a bunch of other things that were still roaring out of control in his life. It’s not like stopping alcohol suddenly also automatically stops you from deteriorating in all of these other areas, he said.

I wasn’t yawning any more. In fact, I sat up. I had that same idea, that the only real problem was alcohol and drugs, and if I were able to stop drinking and drugging, then the other stuff would all begin to improve, too. There’s some truth to that… but I realized within a month of not drinking that the work had only begun. I found myself leaning on caffeine and nicotine more than I ever had, and I found myself sleeping 12 hours one night and none the next. I found myself struggling to process frustration, to put the kids to bed without blowing my stack and a slew of other bad attitudes and behaviors.

It was around that time that I heard someone say for the first time, “To get sober, the only thing you have to change is everything.” It began to dawn on me that the entire foundation of who I was had been rotting for 5-10 years, and it wasn’t just my substance abuse. I was getting worse as a friend, a husband, a dad, a son, a brother, a driver, a person walking around the grocery store, everything.

And let me tell you, when it came to nicotine, caffeine and food, I was shocked that I had been able to stop opioids and alcohol in the recent past… and I couldn’t just stop the other stuff. I had so much work to do, and that continues to this day. I still have a progressive disease that is relentless. Luckily for me, that doesn’t involve going from two beers a night to four beers a night and then eight beers a night and so on.

Now, it’s all the causes and conditions that led me to substances that still wake up with me every day. I still roll out of bed thinking I am very smart, and very entitled, and that the world should bend toward me. The old line you hear at meetings is that our disease is always out in the parking lot doing pushups, and I think that’s true beyond the booze and drugs. It wants me to be sick and suffering, and then turn back toward the addiction stuff to sooth myself.

That meeting was a good reminder that everything about addiction for me is a progressive illness, and that I need to do everything possible to make it… what would be the word? A regressive illness? Sure, let’s go with 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:

My wife, an Al-Anon, told me I was narcissistic and self-centered.

My reply was, "That's okay, as long as it doesn't affect me."

(Credit: Grapevine, June 2008, by Steven R. of Eureka Springs, Arkansas)

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 listen to a lot of podcasts, and I caught a new episode of a sports podcast that I like the other day where the three hosts—all of whom I am fond of—debated what to do about winning some money.

I’m going to change some details and not use the name of the podcast or the podcasters, just to be on the safe side. I don’t really need to be sued right now!

So here is the scenario: The podcast host says that a friend recently won a $10 parlay that paid out $12,000. His friend wanted to know if he should tell his wife that he had come into some money.

If you’re not familiar with sports betting, a parlay is when you pair up a bunch of bets at very long odds, then you have to nail every one in order to get a payout. So you could pick the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl, an NBA team to make the playoffs, an MLB team to win less than 80 games and a hockey player to win the MVP. Then you would need to hit every leg of the parlay.

That’s the problematic part. Parlays exist because they seem winnable and absolutely are not—most professional gamblers laugh at people who do parlays because they are like giving away money.

Before I get back to the podcast scenario, let me just say that I don’t gamble. I can’t. I’m an addict. The point of this story will not be about gambling or not gambling. I hesitated a bit to even write about this topic because I didn’t want to confuse anybody about sobriety and gambling…. I absolutely do not think they mesh well and would advise against putting down booze and drugs and picking up lottery tickets and sports betting and slot machines.

Back to the podcast example. The question the podcast host asks his two colleagues is, should the guy who won the money tell his wife about his winnings?

One guest said if you don’t tell your spouse about bets you lose, you don’t need to reveal your winnings. The other guest said he should tell her he won $5,000, and keep the rest to himself. The guy who presented the question said that his buddy told his wife about the winnings, and he said they ended up buying a new refrigerator and some other stuff with the money, and the guy was frustrated about that.

I couldn’t believe their answers. I thought the answer was obvious.

First of all, I don’t gamble and I can’t gamble. So I’m asking this question less about sports gambling and more about the general question if, if you stumbled into some money, do you need to tell your loved ones?

Secondly, the obvious answer to me is that I cannot live a life where I don’t tell my spouse about something like that. Forget the gambling. Forget the money. Forget the marriage part of this. I cannot live any kind of secret life. I am as sick as my secrets, and I’ve discovered that to stay sober, I can’t really have any secrets from people that I am close with. I definitely cannot start having a secret $10,000 laying around.

Now, does that mean that everybody I love needs to know everything at all times? No, not necessarily. Sometimes one of my kids will tell me a situation they are struggling with, and ask me to not share it with anybody, and I don’t. Sometimes I will have financial or professional insecurity of some kind, and I will delay telling my family about it or not tell them about it at all. I’ve had a few physical issues over the years where I was worried about an injury but wanted to wait and see if felt fine the next day. I’ve also had friends or coworkers ask me how I am doing, and the answer is that I am struggling because of something going on with me or my kids but I say, “I’m doing ok. How about you?” That’s not the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But it’s not really hiding secrets that could harm my sobriety. It’s just being a little more private.

I hope I don’t sound judgmental at all about gambling, or keeping some money off to the side. It just doesn’t work for me. I won’t be winning $10,000 on any kind of gambling in the near future. And if I did have someone mail me $5,000, or even $500, I absolutely cannot have my final opinion be, “I better hide this somewhere.” I don’t have a bad opinion of anybody who might do that. I just know it doesn’t work for me. My addictions began as my little secret, and they ended with me in rehab. I don’t intend to let any parlays put me back there.

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 still-functioning alcoholic went for her annual physical.

"Well, Doc, how do I stand?" she asked.

"That's what puzzles me," the doctor replied.

(Credit: Grapevine, June 2008, 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 THIScomedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I love going to recovery meetings more than ever, and I often wonder why. After all this time being sober, I thought for sure I would burn out a little. I always used to worry that I would start to do the bare minimum to stay sober, which is probably about one meeting a week. Instead, I’m at about six meetings per week and I love it.

I’ll catch myself sitting at a meeting, asking myself, “Why do I like this so much? I’m in a church basement with a bunch of drunks and drug addicts, seeing many of the same people saying the same things, reading a passage from sober literature that I have read 50 times already, saying prayers that I sometimes don’t like very much.”

One potential answer hit me the other day. We read from the Big Book and got to the passage where it describes reaching your alcoholic bottom as feeling “pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.” That might be my favorite phrase in all of sobriety. I think it perfectly summarizes what it’s like during the worst days of active addiction—pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. What a strong set of words.

What hit me the other day, though, is how that phrase comes to life for me with other alcoholics. Think about what the word “incomprehensible” means. It means you cannot comprehend what I went through! It is incomprehensible to anybody else.

But it IS comprehensible to us. I don’t know all of your story, and it is probably very different than mine. But I know you, somehow. I’ve met people who made it through extremely difficult circumstances to get to the rooms of recovery, stuff that I have no experience with. And yet… on some level, when you were at the pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization stage of your life, I get it. I was there, too.

The more I thought about it, the more brilliant that phrase is, because it is about a feeling, not details. As our program often says, recovery is more about the exact nature than exact details. I don’t need to have ever lived where you lived, be the same gender as you, have the same number of arrests or bankruptcies or car accidents as you. I probably know what it felt like for you, and you probably know what it felt like for me. What a beautiful shared human experience.

Sorry, this is probably one of my least funny entries. But hey, sometimes I can be serious!

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 alcoholic’s idea of financial planning is to use credit cards to pay off his credit cards. When he runs out of credit cards, that's called a geographic.

(Credit: Grapevine, June 2008, 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 THIScomedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I am chairing a Traditions meeting for the next six weeks, so I am knee-deep in reading about the 12 traditions that 12-step founding mothers and fathers set up as a guardrails for recovery. I almost can’t believe I am saying that, because I used to get the hell out of the room when I heard a meeting was a traditions meeting.

Not any more. The longer I have been sober, the more I have seen the way wise sober people keep the rooms of recovery open. I’m so glad the traditions exist as a starting point, and I am so glad that the traditions emphasize that they are suggestions, and every group is autonomous and can do their own thing. They’re both firm and flexible at the same time. Firm, as in, they’ve worked for about 80 years and been tried and true for millions of people to get sober. Flexible, as in, every group is its own entity and can pretty much decide how it will operate. I’ve seen meetings where the majority vote to not do the Lord’s Prayer. I’ve seen meetings where the group conscience is to make sure the chairperson has at least six months of sobriety. I’ve seen meetings where the group conscience is to let anybody with a desire to stop drinking step into service commitments.

I wanted to just throw out an interesting example from about 12 years ago that I ran into in New York City. I’m changing some details to just be on the safe side of protecting identities and even the identity of the church. Please feel free to comment on how you would have reacted.

Let me set the scene. We had a church that was integral to recovery in the area. There were about 10 meetings a week at this church. The church was fantastic. I always felt like they provided meeting spaces truly to do a good deed, not to rake in money. I found the rent to be ridiculously low, and the church tended to work with groups that were smaller in size to make sure the rent was doable.

At a business meeting for a group that met on Monday mornings, the treasurer said that the church was raising rent from $50 to $60 a month. She said the church mentioned it was struggling mightily with its finances and had to increase rent for meeting space. That group routinely had about 30-40 people per meeting, four times a month, and we always ended up pulling in $100 or more. The $10 rent was no problem as far as the funds we had.

Someone made a motion to discuss increasing the rent by $10. Everybody was nodding along, so I assumed it would be an easy yes vote.

Then someone else raised their hand and said, “I will be voting to increase the rent to what the church asked. But I would actually float the idea that we offer to increase the rent a little more, to $75 per month. We have the money, and this church has been so critical to the recovery of so many people.”

A few other people chimed in and said they agreed with that, that we could easily pay the amount. Somebody even mentioned that $50 was way too low for a weekly space like this. I nodded the entire time and got ready to support the idea of paying the church even more than they’d asked for.

There were about 15 people at that business meeting, and I think at that moment, 14 people were ready to vote in favor. Then one guy put his hand up and said, “I agree with everything that was said about this church. And I would vote to pay the rent increase. But I also would vote against going to $75 per month.”

He paused for a moment because some people started murmuring in surprise. I remember thinking to myself, “Damn, this dude is a real turd in the punchbowl. Who doesn’t want to help out a struggling church when we have the money to do it?”

Then he continued. “I think that the church’s struggles should be considered an outside issue. It’s an outside issue to this meeting how the church does financially, and it sets up a slippery slope for supporting businesses, charities, fundraisers, and all sorts of other things. My suggestion would be that we pay the amount that the church asked, and that anybody concerned about the overall wellbeing of the church should contribute on their own. I’m going to mail $50 myself as soon as I get home, and I’d be happy to help organize more contributions outside of this meeting.”

Nobody said anything for a minute. But you could see on their faces that they knew he was right. I still would have probably voted to increase the amount to $75 in the moment because I have such gratitude for that church.

But ultimately, that principle was right and I would bring up that guy’s exact point today if something similar came up. On that day, they put up a motion and it was 15-0 in favor of paying the $60. I loved that the guy volunteered himself to actually chip in money, but that the principles of 12-step recovery made him feel like a group donating money is probably not wise.

I’ll never forget that business meeting. I thought it was a fantastic example of how a dissenting idea can be discussed and even reconsidered. I’ll leave you with a question: What would you have voted if you had been at that business meeting?

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…

At a meeting where the topic was "guilt":

"Guilt is getting caught with your mind in the cookie jar."

"Each day we're faced with a thousand opportunities to feel guilty. Serenity is not taking any of them."

(Credit: Grapevine, July 2008, by Ed L. of Wrightwood, 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 THIScomedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I was at a meeting recently where a newly sober guy mentioned that he can’t believe how much the juice has been worth the squeeze early on in his recovery. As he kept talking, I found myself nodding along. Sometimes I forget how much easier sober life is than active addiction. That’s because sober life is pretty damn hard sometimes, and I don’t always want to feel what life on life’s terms is causing me to feel.

But holy s**t, I had a moment listening to the guy talk about the contrast between how brutal it had gotten to maintain his drug and alcohol habit, versus staying sober. He was saying that he used to spend all morning every trying to recover from the night before, then he’d sneak in some work and life stuff, then he’d start planning and executing on how to get loaded for the rest of the day. Now he goes to a meeting once a day and calls his sponsor, and he is sober.

I get that. I think I used to spend something like half my day securing substances and then consuming them, and then planning to try to figure out how to get away with it the next day. It was an impossible chore for my body to just not fall apart every day, and it was an impossible chore for my soul to be living such a lie while trying to maintain a job, a marriage and a family. I once heard a guy say, “Drugs and alcohol became a full-time job, and I already had a job.” That was me.

So the juice being worth the squeeze part of this is that I don’t have to spend 10 hours a day to stay sober. I don’t know what the exact amount is for the typical alcoholic, because I think it’s probably different for everybody. But I know for me that when I average an hour a day on recovery stuff, my life is good. When I average an hour-and-a-half every day, my life is even better. That’s a small squeeze and a lot of juice.

For me, that hour-and-a-half tracks out to a meeting every day, plus some phone calls and some get-togethers with sponsees and/or my sponsor. Lately I have been car-pooling to meetings with other alcoholics, and I consider that an awesome 20- or 30-minute bonus of sober living time.

So when I tally up the time and effort required to stay sober, it’s ridiculous in comparison to how much time, money and spiritual energy I needed to keep drinking. Even when I was still a few years from being a full-blown alcoholic, I wasn’t drinking every day. But when I did, I would go from 5 pm to midnight, then throw up three times during the night, then need some caffeinated concoction in the morning to try to balance out the damage from the night before. Even then, as a heavy drinker, it was a lot of squeeze for a little bit of juice.

As I type this, I am sitting at home and wondering if I really need the meeting that I was planning to go to tonight. I have that voice in my head saying, “You got to a meeting yesterday and the day before. You’re good! Plus, it’s cold out. Put on some college hoops and lay on the couch.”

But guess what? I think there’s no juice in that squeeze. So I am headed for the meeting.

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 was in Al-Anon for nineteen-and-a-half years before I came to AA. If there were a denial countdown, I'd still be standing."

(Credit: Grapevine, July 2008, by Anonymous)

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!

When I told my wife I had to go to rehab in 2008, she seemed genuinely surprised. I had done a pretty good job of covering up how bad my addictions had gotten. She knew I had been prescribed some painkillers, and that I drank sometimes in addition to the opioids, and we both knew mixing those two things was probably a bad idea. But she didn’t know I was drinking and drugging every single day, and at about 10 times the amounts she knew about.

A few weeks into rehab, she asked me about my itching. Before I’d gone to rehab, I had gotten to the point where I was itching the skin off my arms and legs most nights. I would itch and itch and itch, even when I was passed out, to the point where I took lots of Benadryl to try to counteract the itching. I was taking Benadryl pills and also going through copious amounts of Benadryl cream on my arms and legs. My side of the bed was a disgusting slip-and-slide of allergy cream.

I’m not sure exactly what was going on with the itching. It’s possible that I had a mild allergy and taking 50-60 painkillers a day accentuated that. Or, it’s possible that most people would start itching if they took 50-60 painkillers a day because, you know, THAT’S BAD FOR A HUMAN BODY. I never investigated it very much.

I’m bringing this up now for two reasons. One is I spent last week very grateful that I don’t have to live like that any more. I don’t know what exactly happened early in the week, but I ended up itching my leg like crazy one night, to the point where I had long scratches on my left leg. They were pretty painful, too. I think I just got too aggressive in the middle of the night and itched my leg too much.

When I woke up in the morning, I was looking at my leg and my wife noticed. She asked what happened, and I said I didn’t really know. She got a look of concern on her face, and I could tell we were both having similar flashbacks to many years ago. I could see it in her eyes how vivid over-itching (is that actually a word?) was as a sign of my active addiction.

The other reason I was thinking about itching last week is that I went to a meeting on Wednesday where we read several passages from sober literature about how alcoholism is a disease and that we alcoholics have an allergy to it. I don’t think about that too much any more, but the idea that I have a disease and need treatment every day really helped me early on in recovery. I connected with the idea that if I had a peanut allergy, I wasn’t going to be able to think really hard about it and then be able to manage it and eat peanut butter.

Same with my allergy to alcohol and drugs. At first, when I thought about it being a disease that I will have forever, it felt daunting and overwhelming. But then I thought about how many people have diseases that aren’t fun… but they adjust and live awesome lives. I had to do the same, and I mostly have. I have an awesome life that I am proud of. Yes, it involves over-itching once in a while. But it beats passing out in a pool of sweat and Benadryl every night!

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 once heard of a songwriter who tried to compose a drinking song. But she could never get past the first three bars.

(Credit: Grapevine, July 2008, by VRM of Brooklyn, NY)

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 THIScomedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I wrote about the Super Bowl earlier this week, and I wanted to say one more thing about it.

I often beat myself up a bit for getting frustrated with people driving, or with a long line at the grocery store, or with inconsiderate people at the gym. It’s often a very silly, very self-centered moment where I feel like I should be more patient, more kind, more forgiving, more able to live and let live.

But on Super Bowl Sunday every year, I always have a moment where I watch the commercials and realize, “Wow, the world these days isn’t trying to help me with those character defects.”

By that, I mean that our brains get pounded with the next thing that is going to make our life easier and faster and more fun and happier and sexier and…. on and on and on. Buy this, buy that. Lots and lots of alcohol ads. The Super Bowl was in Las Vegas, so there was a vibe to the whole thing that reminded me of “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” Everything about the whole game and the whole production was preying on my worst impulses as an impulsive addict.

That’s certainly not limited to the Super Bowl. The world moves faster than ever, and if you want to get into trouble, it’s easier than ever—with smartphones these days, trouble is literally in the palm of your hand if you go looking for it.

Actually, you don’t have to look very hard to find trouble. I’m on a bunch of social media platforms, and I get bombarded with ads for sports gambling. They always offer you a few hundred bucks for just opening up an account, and that feels quite a bit like a drug dealer giving the first taste for free. I always realize I am about 60 seconds and one bad decision away from starting down a path toward having a gambling problem, too.

I know this post probably seems like an old man yelling at the clouds, and that’s not far from the truth. But the biggest point I wanted to make was to be gentle with yourself if you struggle with bad behaviors that get thrown in your face all the time. Maybe cut yourself a break today because it ain’t easy out there!

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 OLD MAN WHO LIVED ALONE wanted to hoe his potato garden, but the work was getting too hard on his aging body. His only son used to help, but had gotten into trouble while drinking and was now in prison. The old man wrote to his son.

"Dear Son, It looks like I won't be able to plant my potato garden this year; I'm getting too old to be digging. If you were here, I know you would help hoe the plot for me. Love, Dad."

A few days later, he received a letter from his son: "Dear Dad, For Heaven's sake, don't dig up the garden! That's where I buried the guns!"

At 4 A.M. the next day, a dozen FBI agents and local police showed up and dug up the area. They didn't find any guns, so they apologized and left.

The same day, the old man received another letter: "Dear Dad, Go ahead and plant the potatoes now. It was the best I could do under the circumstances."

(Credit: Grapevine, by Norman H., July 2008)

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