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’ve met lots of sober people who mention specific dates as dreaded days because it triggers their addictions. By that, I mean, a day that makes us think, “I should get sober… but I don’t know how I would not drink on FILL IN THE BLANK.”

Some people mention specific days, like birthdays or the day a loved one died. Other people mention general time frames, like Christmas vacation or work trips. Other people mention vague events as worrisome, like weddings or work outings.

For me, the day I feared most was the Super Bowl. I knew for about the last three years of my drinking and drugging that I could not stop on my own and that I needed outside help. But I had a voice in my head telling me that I should keep going, that I will figure it out if I do this or that instead of what I was doing. And that voice always said, “And what will you do during the Super Bowl? Everybody drinks during the Super Bowl. How could you not?”

I honestly thought that. I know it sounds silly. But I do love sports, and I enjoy gathering to watch sporting events with friends and family. So in my active addiction, that was an effective thing for the rationalization part of my brain to whisper to me.

Except, it’s total b******t, and I eventually saw through that. When exactly was I enjoying some beers with buddies as I watched sporting events? Because that stopped years before. By 2005-08, I drank alone in secrecy, and I drank to the point where I didn’t even see the sporting event that I so cherished. It was a total delusion to keep the myth going that I would have days in my life where I simply couldn’t make it without drugs and alcohol. That’s really what the Super Bowl idea was doing—it’s a silly example of the broader fear that there are moments in life that are beyond my capabilities to handle, and that I could not possibly make it through without being numbed out by something.

I’m proud to say that I just wrapped up my 16th Super Bowl sober, and each one has been better than any of the ones before. I gathered with sober friends, along with my family, and we had a blast. It was rowdy and fun, and the only thing I abused was the cookie container. Somehow, four cookies and a piece of cake disappeared while in my presence. It was a great time.

It’s a good reminder about that rationalizing voice in our heads, and what a scam it is. I have now watched lots of Super Bowls sober, and made it through many difficult life situations that I would have never thought I could. And if you’re sober today, it’s probably worth thinking about those things that you never thought you’d get through… and you have.

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

Topic: Would you still go to AA if a pill was created that cured alcoholism?

Speaker: "Yes, I would. I have a feeling I'd want more of them."

(Credit: Grapevine, April 2009, by A.M. of Scottsdale, Arizona)

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!

At my gym, every trainer has a small bio on the wall with a photo of themselves. And each trainer has picked a favorite quote to put on that wall.

One really spoke to me the other day: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit.” That quote came from Aristotle.

As I worked out, I kept thinking about the meaning of that quote. What am I? What do I repeatedly do? Are those the same things?

Then it got very meta because I started to think about the difference between who I am and who I want to be, and how my actions don’t always add up to what I am or what I want to be.

I’ll give you one example from sobriety. I remember a coworker goofing on me a bit because he always saw me with fast food and soda, and I bristled at that idea. I said something along the lines of, “Nah, I’m not that guy. You just happen to see me with a Taco Bell cup in my hand a few times.”

The truth is, I bristled because I didn’t want to be tagged as a 40-year-old dad who is a fast food guy. It felt embarrassing to me, and not quite accurate.

Except: It was. I ate fast food a few times a week. I crushed soda every day. I was a fast food and soda guy not because I wanted to be, but because those were my actions.

I can take it back even further with drugs and alcohol. I didn’t want to be a drug addict and an alcoholic. But I drank all day and took drugs constantly. I was actually a drug addict and alcoholic. I only overcame that tag by owning it.

I got sober, of course, but there are so many other things that I don’t want to be but I repeatedly do. Do I want to be a whiner and a complainer? No. Do I sometimes complain and whine a lot? Yes, I do.

Do I want to be a vengeful resentment machine? Nope. Do I want to be a cesspool of self-pity? No. Do I want to procrastinate? Be a slob? No and no.

But if I repeatedly do them, I become them.

So what am I based on what I repeatedly do? First of all, I am a recovering alcoholic and addict because I do sober stuff almost every single day. I do a lot of family stuff that requires selflessness, so I think I repeatedly am unselfish as a husband and father. I think I work hard to do a good job professionally, so I think I repeatedly fulfill my responsibilities as an employee. I go to the gym pretty much every day and I see my doctor, my dentist and my therapist on a regular basis, so I think I can say that I repeatedly consider my health and wellbeing.

There are definitely not-great behaviors I do every day that I think I repeatedly do enough to contemplate. I get fired up at my kids for being a******s. I give big thumbs down to many drivers on the road along side me, and I have written before about my disdain when I see someone shove their shopping cart into the middle of the lot for the next guy to hit with his car.

But all in all, I repeatedly do more of the right stuff than the bad stuff. So the key is, I need to repeatedly keep doing the good stuff and own the bad behaviors when they start to flare up.

One last thing about that famous Aristotle quote: It wasn’t actually Aristotle, apparently. It comes from a writer named Will Durant, who wrote a famous philosophy book that interpreted and contemplated earlier writings from people like Aristotle. Oh well, it’s the thought that really counts, right?

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:

How do you set up a drunk in a nice, small business? Set him up in a nice, big business, and then wait.

(Credit: Grapevine)

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!

Did you watch the Grammys on Sunday? Me neither. But I did see 1.5 billion people post the video of Tracy Chapman singing “Fast Car” with Luke Combs. If you don’t know the back story, Tracy Chapman is a very reclusive musician who hit her peak popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Luke Combs is a successful country music star right now, and he covered Chapman’s legendary song, “Fast Car” this year and it became a huge hit.

I always liked Tracy Chapman. I only knew a few of her songs, and she wasn’t one of those people who went out looking for magazine covers and public appearances. She seemed to genuinely sing because she loved it, not because it would make her money. My main connection to her was “Fast Car,” and I found that I have always loved songs about cars.

It’s a weird thing to love for me, because I don’t particularly like cars. I don’t care what I drive. I don’t know the difference between a Ford and a Honda. I don’t even want to know. Cars is one of those blind spots that I know almost nothing about and I plan to stay that way.

But what drew me to that song is the idea of the car as an escape mechanism. Her song is about running from a terrible living situation, which I never had. But the car has always occupied a space in my head as a way to get a clean start, to just jump in your car and get on the open road and drive some place better. I remember thinking the minute I got my driver’s license, I would have more friends and be out on dates all the time. I remember when I went off to college, I packed up my car and started driving not to a university but to a new, exciting life. I remember graduating from college and getting in my car to move to New York City, where life was going to get so much better. I remember two years later moving out of the city and thinking life was about to get so much better. It all revolved around loading up that car and driving away.

Well… it never really worked. The songs are beautiful and inspiring and optimistic, but the truth of escaping in a car for me has always involved me being in the car too. And that has never really worked.

I didn’t really notice that pattern until I got sober and heard people use the noun “geographic.” People say stuff like, “I got my first DUI and I tried a geographic by moving back home to Ohio.” It’s usually used in the context of a desperate move to fix a substance abuse problem, but one that doesn’t work. I’m sure there are people out there who have pulled a geographic and it has helped them get sober, but I have yet to meet someone like that.

In my case, I kept thinking if I moved I would get a fresh start. I’d get in that car and go, and I’d find a new life in the new driveway I was about to park in. The problem, as we often say in sobriety, is that when I moved, I took me with me.

So I went about 0-for-5 in moving to stop drinking. I moved once in sobriety, from New Jersey to Connecticut, and it was about 50-50 on whether it aided my sobriety or not. My house in New Jersey was such a disastrous money pit that I was glad to be out of there, but we moved into a place in Connecticut that was a rental and was too small. We were cramped and the kids were little and the house was a bit of a dump and I felt that nagging feeling of flushing money into a rental rather than buying. I do think I continued to grow as a sober man during that time, but the move didn’t have a lot to do with it.

My overall point is that a fast car has never been the answer for me. Neither has a new place to live, or a new girlfriend when I was younger, or more money, or a new streaming service account. It’s an inside job.

However… let me say something positive about the idea of getting in your car and going. I have found it to be a useful tool at times. I have teenagers and find myself bickering with them and needing 30 minutes to just get in a cold car and drive to Target for no real reason other than to cool down. I have definitely done that and then spent the entire trip building up a resentment even more. But most of the time, I go and meditate in the parking lot, or make a phone call to a sober friend, or do something to NOT build up the resentment.

So all in all, when I am in a good spiritual place, getting into a fast car and getting out of a precarious situation can be beneficial. Well, I should clarify: By “fast car,” I mean a Honda CRV or a minivan.

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 ....

"Don't leave five minutes before the miracle and one day you'll discover that the miracle includes you."

(Credit: Grapevine, August 2006, by Kevin, of Miramichi, New Brunswick)

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 had to pick something up from the pharmacy the other day, and one of the workers said, “Give me one minute, okay?” I nodded my head and said sure… but it was not one minute. It was more like three minutes, and I found myself getting aggravated. I like things how I want them, when I want them.

It made me think about how much I fully accept the broader concept of this too shall pass… but man, can I get an ETA? Wouldn’t that be so nice?

I remember a few years back when I had a difficult situation with my kids fighting all the time, and I just kept telling myself to stay the course, that this kind of friction never lasts forever, that I needed to just keep loving them through it. I remember having countless recovery friends say that this is normal, that teenagers fight sometimes. I remember in my own life fighting with my brothers and thinking we’d never speak again… then it would be fine three days later. I kept telling myself, This too shall pass.

But I am an addict, so I want what I want, when I want it. So after about a week, I was getting frustrated. They were bickering every day and stomping around the house, and it was miserable for everybody in the house.

Then one evening I was in the living room and I heard them upstairs screaming at each other. My oldest daughter stomped up to her room and my middle daughter slammed her door shut. I stood in the hallway ready to yank my hair out after a week of this crap, and I kept thinking, This too shall NOT pass, apparently! What the hell?

Then I heard my middle daughter laughing in her room. I knocked on her door and asked if I could come in. She was laying on her bed smiling, looking at her phone. I asked her what she was laughing at, and she turned the phone around. It was a FaceTime call with my oldest daughter, who had been yelling at her roughly 30 seconds before.

I was perplexed. My middle daughter sensed that and said, “We were mad at each other. But it’s fine now. Is it ok if we run over to Target?”

I was completely befuddled and just shrugged my shoulders. I was very happy they were speaking in a civil way with each other, so I was glad to see them go somewhere together. This too shall pass almost instantly after weeks of not passing, apparently.

As I walked out of the room, I couldn’t help but laugh. This situation had not passed, and had not passed, and had not passed… and then it did. I would have loved to have gotten an email from God letting me know that this too shall pass after 13.5 days. But life doesn’t really work that way, does it?

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:

DRASTIC DIAGNOSIS

"The best thing for you," said the doctor to the dissipated young man, "is to give up smoking, drinking, and sex."

The patient thought for a minute, then asked, "What's the next best thing?"

(Credit: Grapevine, April 2009, 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 very amped up for the NFL playoffs this past weekend, partially because the games were exciting but also because I was in a fantasy pool where I had players from all four teams. I couldn’t wait for the games on Sunday, and I found myself mentally chewing on the two games in my head all week.

So on Friday, I did my usual 20 minutes of meditation (I’ve shared this before, but I do 20 minutes every day and have been doing that for about 8-10 years now). I also said a prayer where I simply asked God to walk with me for the day. One of the misconceptions I had about prayer was that I had to get down on my knees on a yoga mat for a half hour and have a long conversation with God. I could probably use that, and I bet that’s actually closer to the ideal way to remain open to what the universe would like for us than my 10-second drive-by prayers. But nonetheless, I consider my prayer to be a perfectly feasible brand of praying, at least for me. So I often will say, “God, please walk with me today.”

During my meditation, I kept finding my brain saying, “Deep breath in…. now deep breath out… deep breath in…. I wonder if Patrick Mahomes can do it again?… wait, stop, this is meditation time, deep breath in… I bet the Ravens have a good gameplan for shutting down Travis Kelce…. hey, quit it, it’s time to meditate.”

That went on and on for most of the 20 minutes. But I kept pulling myself back to a serene and quiet place that did not involve whether Dan Campbell would go for it on every single fourth down even when the Lions were in field goal range (answer: he would indeed do exactly that!). I finished up and felt a little bit like my meditation had flopped. Or that I had flopped at meditation.

That evening, I went to a meeting and the topic was, of course, Step 11—prayer and meditation. I listened to about 10 people share and got a lot out of everything they said. But my brain kept coming back to being forgiving about praying and meditating. I need to do it, but I don’t necessarily need to do it perfectly. I need to do it to the best of my ability, and the bottom line is, terrible prayer and meditation is still better than anything else I would have been doing. It’s not like reading my uncle’s 2024 election thoughts on Facebook or watching an Instagram reel of a cat and giraffe dancing at a zoo would be more spiritually nourishing, right?

I’ll keep saying my prayers, even if they’re short, and I will keep doing my meditation, even if the Super Bowl is right around the corner, and I really am wondering if Patrick Mahomes can pull it off again…

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 COUNSELOR ASKS A PROSPECT FOR DETOX: "Tell me, does alcoholism run in your family?"

The drunk slurs, "Run? Hell, most times my family is so drunk they can hardly walk!"

(Credit: Grapevine, by Donny B. of Wurtsboro, NY, August 2004)

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!

In 2017, I started having all sorts of cognitive issues. I couldn’t remember things. I felt hazy and tired all the time. It felt like the world was moving 65 MPH and I was in the right-hand lane going 35. It was scary as s**t.

So I went to my doctor, who eventually pinpointed a busy life as the likely main cause but also that concussions may play a part. I had had a nasty concussion in 2015 in a sledding accident—that is not a joke, I totally ate s**t sledding with my kids—and I think it was probably about my fifth concussion. I think I had had a few playing sports over the years, and then I got one in college during a drunken scuffle with a guy in the dorms.

My doctor sent me to a neurologist, who ran me through a bunch of tests and put me on some vitamins that are supposed to be good for brain health. The tests didn’t really show anything obvious, and in conversations with him, he definitely thought the concussions were bad for my brain health and a possible culprit in my issues. But he also mentioned to me that people who did as much drugs and alcohol sometimes fry parts of their circuit board.

I had about 10 years clean and sober, so that was perplexing to me. I remember having that fear on a regular basis during my drinking and drugging days, but I didn’t notice any cognitive decline during those days. And to get away with what I was doing every day, you kind of had to be a criminal mastermind. So I kept telling myself that the drug thing was really bad… but I was still a borderline genius.

But now when I think back on the cocktail of crap I was taking every day—something like 50 painkillers, about a six-pack of beer every night, Ambien before bed time, then a s**t-ton of caffeine in the morning to do it all over again—it’s pretty terrifying and I am convinced that I did actually sizzle some of the circuits. I definitely think if you could run one of those scary futuristic sci-fi movie scans on my brain, you’d find some of the screws got knocked a little loose by the constant flood of uppers and downers every day.

Is that actually true? I don’t know. Does it matter today on Jan. 25, 2024? Not really. It doesn’t matter in the sense of living a healthy, spiritual life today and going forward. But I do feel gratitude about it. I feel like I am in a good head space these days, and it didn’t have to be that way. I did an insane amount of drugs and alcohol in a short amount of time, and looking back, I could have died in my sleep or on the road many times, and I could have had some kind of health issue where I didn’t die but had a catastrophic brain event.

This came up for me recently in therapy, because my psychiatrist was talking about how delicate the brain can be. I couldn’t help but think that any issues I might have had before I started killing myself with substances probably were exacerbated by all the chemicals I poured in. I mentioned that to her, and she shrugged her shoulders. She’s not one of those people who likes to make sweeping conclusions, and I appreciated that. But she did say that the intake I was describing would definitely be a lot for any brain to handle.

So I left there feeling a sense of gratitude. I definitely think there are parts of my system that were damaged a bit—my impulsivity being the biggest one. But I also felt like I got out before they became impossible to repair those, or at least figure out solutions to work around the fried wiring. If you’re nodding along thinking about this, I’d encourage you to take a moment to feel grateful for the wires you didn’t sizzle, 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:

The young man was sharing at an AA meeting. "This hasn't been a good day for me. I wasn't centered, I wasn't in touch with my feelings, and my inner child felt deprived. I just wasn't comfortable in my own skin."

An old-timer leaned over and whispered to the woman next to him, "I'm hard of hearing. What did he say?"

The woman replied, "He says he's hungry, angry, lonely, and tired."

(Credit: Grapevine, April 2009, 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!

As I have mentioned a few times, I love the Instagram account Sarcastic AA memes. The person who runs it also has published a few books of memes about recovery, too, and I find them hilarious… but also very cutting and true. This person gets it. I’d highly recommend either buying a book or two or at least giving the account a follow on social media. I promise it will give you a few laughs.

I was particularly interested in a recent meme called “Ideas for meeting topics,” and then it lists seven possibilities. One, health status of pet. Two, things bothering me that will be irrelevant hours from now. Three, the program “explained properly.” Four, thoughts on the steps I’ve never done. Five, ways I’m better than you all. Six, ways I’m worse than you all. Seven, things I’m not doing but talking about doing. And then there is a sentence that says “Written by someone who’s used all of them.”

I won’t go through each one of them but I have had some experience with all seven, and all seven made me at least smile because I identify with each item. I cringed a little bit about the pet one because on one hand, I get it, I don’t go to meetings to hear about your pet situation… but I have shared about my pets, and I have enjoyed hearing about other people when they discuss their pets. I actually don’t subscribe to the idea that there are luxury problems when it comes to sobriety—if your cat is sick or your plant dies and you are falling apart and in danger of relapsing, that isn’t a luxury problem, that’s just a problem. So I am here for pet talk!

The concept of someone sharing about steps they’ve never done is funny to me, because I definitely have heard plenty of that in the rooms, and I think when I was new I would share my opinions about Step 9 or Step 12. The thing that sometimes bugs me is people who say they did the steps in 1982 and that’s the only time they did them, because in my humble opinion, the steps are tools I will use the rest of my life. I don’t view stepwork like a high school degree, where you do it and you get a certificate and you are done. I need to keep going.

The last item on that list is one of the biggest things I need to be on the look out for. I can’t tell you how many times in recent years where I noticed that my awareness of issues is tremendous… and my actions are not. I’ve said “I need to get to more meetings” and “I should take on more service work” and “I should try therapy” many times without actually doing it, and that’s a clear sign of a problem, in my opinion. It’s not enough to think I have a problem. It’s not enough to KNOW I have a problem. It’s only enough when you are taking good action to combat the problem.

I will give myself some credit for realizing that when it comes to seeking outside help this past fall. I felt like I had stalled out a bit in some areas, and I mentioned to everybody in my network that I was thinking about therapy. And then I did it. So I am proud of that.

You might notice I left out any mention of the time between saying it repeatedly to people and actually going to see a therapist… I think it was a good six months, maybe more. But hey, progress, not perfection!

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:

QUESTION: What do you call it when an AA sponsor always seems to have a group of admiring sponsees in tow?

ANSWER A spontourage.

(Credit: Grapevine, by Kristen B. of Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 2009)

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 in Nebraska when several newcomers showed up and said they were at their very first meeting. I always feel a warmth toward newcomers because we were all newcomers at a certain point in our lives, and I also love the concept of somebody who might have found the solution sitting right in front of me.

I sat behind them and ended up staring at the backs of their heads for an hour. I watched them as they fidgeted and checked their phones and then got the hell out of there the second the meeting ended, and I smiled a bit to myself because I remember those days well.

That got me thinking about what it must have been like to see me walk into my first few meetings. I think my head was spinning and I was scared and I didn’t like some of the God stuff I was hearing. I also think I only could catch about 50 percent of what people were saying, which is something I take for granted now. There are so many things we talk about with short-hand language—resentments, the spiritual axiom, daily inventory, sponsorship—that you learn over time and then start to use yourself. But in the beginning? My eyes must have glazed over.

But as I stared at the backs of these guys’ heads, I also took note of what was happening around them in the room. There was so much laughter, so many hugs, so much clapping for anniversaries, that I flashed back to my early days and I had a spiritual experience thinking back on some of my earliest memories of getting sober.

I think the biggest thing that I got from my first few meetings was hope. I walked into sobriety broken down, with disastrous relationships with loved ones and friends, and a job that I should have been fired from. Put it this way: I didn’t have many people whose eyes lit up when I showed up.

But that’s what happened at meetings. When I said I was at my first meeting, people were thrilled. They clapped and lined up afterward to speak to me. People were begging me to take their phone numbers and to come back the next day. I got a long list of suggestions for other good meetings in the area, and all sorts of words of encouragement. I found myself at a point in life where no one was cheering for me to make an appearance, and suddenly I was Tony Robbins. It was awesome.

Setting aside being treated like the most important person in the room, I also found that the mood at meetings was so different from what I expected and so different than how I was feeling in other corners of my life. Sober people were hopeful and optimistic. When someone would start gossiping or whining, somebody else always seemed to reel them back in. I didn’t meet a lot of people who were interested in being sad or angry. They’d worked hard to get sober, and they were going to laugh and smile and enjoy life, dammit.

I didn’t realize until that Nebraska meeting how much I must have needed that. I couldn’t wait to get to meetings and see sober people, and I often chalked it up to the mysterious notion of pink cloud, a phrase that gets used all the time but is pretty squishy and undefined. I know lots of people experienced something I’d call pink cloud, including me, but how long is it? How do you get it? Why doesn’t every sober person get a month or two of pink cloud? Can you get it back, or is it one-and-done?

Well, I think I stumbled into my answer, which is that after not being able to stop drinking and drugging for about 10 years, I had stopped. I felt better. I slept better. I wasn’t puking every day. And then for an hour every day, I got airdropped into a room with shiny happy people who were farther down the same road as me, and they seemed so happy. It seemed like the moment I had put down the drugs and alcohol, I had been put on a journey with a bunch of bright lights up ahead. I felt the optimism in my bones.

I guess pink cloud implies that the glorious early vibes of recovery eventually wear off a bit, and life gets normalized. I think that’s true in my case… but I also think that I have pretty regular short bursts of that same pink cloud of incredible gratitude. And I also think that when I am open-minded about it, the pink cloud pours back into my brain when I see somebody who is on Day 1 or Day 17 or Day 39 of this journey. And the thing I want to make sure of is that when that guy on Day 39 shows up and is having a hard day, whether he is in his pink cloud still or not, I need to make sure that I am oozing that same amount of hope and optimism that was freely shown to me. So yes, I need to make sure I put my Tony Robbins hat on as much as possible.

This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:

A guy goes out after five months in the program. He comes back to his home group one night, plastered.

The greeter crabbily warns him, "You ought to put the plug in the jug! I'd hate to come to your funeral!"

Slurs the drunk: "I didn't invite you anyhow."

(Credit: Grapevine, May 2009, by Tony A. of Massachusetts)

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 men’s meeting the other day where the topic was moral inventory, and specifically the role that fear plays in all of our lives. It was during an NFL playoff game on a Sunday afternoon, and I had this a-ha moment of sitting in a circle of 30 men, talking about the relationship between pride and fear instead of watching football, and I couldn’t help but feel grateful. Oh, and also appreciative of the torture we put ourselves through.

Let me start with the sheer gratitude. As we went around the room, so many big tough dudes shared very vulnerable things about the way their brains work and the way they take inventory on a regular basis. A lot of the shares revolved around the way that fear is under every rock you lift up. If you’re really mad, there’s probably quite a bit of fear wrapped up in that anger. If you’re sad, there’s probably a lot of fear in there. If you’re insecure, there’s definitely fear around every corner. Hell, if you have money issues, there’s probably fear in there.

So I felt gratitude that I had so many people in my life modeling good habits when it comes to understanding what is going on inside my head, the buttons that I have that get pushed on a regular basis and how to keep my side of the street clean.

Now, about the idea of torture: It can be torture sometimes. I got fired up at Target the other day because it was cold out and the whole front of the store was crowded with people who parked illegally waiting for someone to come out. It was chaos getting in and out of the store, all so people could save themselves 10 seconds of being in the cold in New England in January. It comes with the territory, people. Have you considered parking in the crazy invention known as a PARKING LOT, everybody?

I gave one guy the stink-eye and then thought to myself, “What do I care? How does it affect me if somebody has their blinkers on parked right in front of a store? And how do I know that they weren’t waiting for their 95-year-old grandfather who uses a wheelchair to come out of the store?” It was a quick moral inventory that straightened out my brain, but I also had a moment where I thought, “Goddamn, can I just be a pissy brat for five minutes about the Target parking lot? Why do I need to do a deep dive into my psyche when most other people don’t? Let me be an a*****e!”

But that’s the gift—and the torture—of recovery moral inventories. As much as they can feel punishing sometimes, and as frustrating as it can be that not everybody takes the same kind of look in the mirror on a regular basis, this is the best way to live for somebody like me. I’d rather walk this earth being 10 percent too hard on myself than 10 percent too hard on everybody else.

So I had a pleasant trip to Target and let it go that people park wherever the hell they want. I’ll never get aggravated about it again.

(Just kidding. On the way out, I found myself dusting off the stink-eye that I had used on the way in…)

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 a senior citizen when I got to AA. Now I'm more of a senior citizen because I got to AA."

(Credit: Grapevine, May 2009, by Mary B. of Menominee, Michigan)

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 where someone shared their experience, strength and hope, and she talked a lot about her meandering journey to find a higher power. I certainly identify with that sentiment. And she said she ended up not really completely figuring it out, but she did realize that prayer is a powerful tool for her to use as she tries to find a God that works for her.

And she said she says the same prayer every morning, and that it has consistently been a game changer for her. She said she closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and says, “Where to next, boss?”

That’s it. That’s the prayer.

I love that prayer. It’s four words, but it has so many layers to it.

First of all, it’s a question. It’s not asking for anything. It’s not presuming the list of things that you need to happen that day. It’s a question, which forces you to be open-minded.

Secondly, it asks where, which I love. That indicates to me an acceptance that you don’t know where this journey is going to go, that you’re open to wherever the world takes you. The more I think about every day as an open road, rather than something I will seize and drive wherever I want regardless of whether that is the right place for me to go, the better off I am.

Third, I think setting it up using the word “boss” is pretty valuable. I kind of don’t consider my higher power to be my boss, per se. But I do consider my higher power to be a mysterious combination of things that is bigger than me. So even though I wouldn’t say my conception of a higher power is my boss, it’s also not not my boss, if you know what I mean. I need to think of my higher power, which I would best describe as the universe as a whole, as something that I defer to. So even though that word isn’t the perfect description, I do find the idea of being ready to take orders from the universe and go with the flow to be the best way for me to start a day.

Last but not least, I think the word “next” is valuable. To me, that means that I am looking forward to today, and only today. I am not living in the wreckage of my past or my future. I am ready for today. I am embracing the idea of one day at a time. I am present.

So I am going to start saying that every morning—Where to next, boss?—and we’ll see where it takes me.

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

Topic at meeting: "You don't get to be a pilot by going to JFK and watching the planes take off."

(Credit: Grapevine, May 2009, by Taren S. of 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