LOL Sober

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I get to travel a lot for work, and I always find myself landing at an airport in a new place and thinking, “I wonder if there are any sober people here.” The answer always is, holy s**t, yep, there are plenty of alcoholics and addicts here!

On this trip, I headed for Lincoln, Nebraska, and guess what, there were dozens of 12-step meetings to attend. I picked one and went on Sunday, and, as usual, it was a fascinating experience. I almost always find it very interesting how sobriety happens in other places because there are usually some distinct differences, and this was certainly another example of that idea.

The meeting I went to was in a church that was a recovery club, which is something I have never seen before in my 15 years of sobriety. The recovery club was about 30 years old, and they had bought an old church and set up shop. They hold multiple different 12-step meetings there, and I went to a meeting that was held in the main church area.

I’ve never had the experience of a 12-step meeting in the open church area. It was a giant room, with rows and rows and rows of pews, and a high ceiling. There was a coffee pot brewing in the back of the room, and the coffee commitment person even took the coffee pot around the room halfway through and gave refills to whoever wanted them. Speakers all had to go to the front and stand at a podium with a microphone. Because the room was cavernous and people often would raise their hand and then make the long walk to the front of the church, there was a lot of clapping and cheering… the whole thing felt more like an awards ceremony than a meeting, and I was loving it. It felt very celebratory.

It was a speaker meeting, and the woman who shared was really good. She’d been sober for decades, and there were two things she specifically said that made me think. One was that she stopped drinking and realized she had never really felt feelings, and that that took many years of work to figure out. I get that. It’s pretty hard to numb out for 10 years (or more) and then expect to know how to process anger, sadness, self-pity, etc.

The second thing she talked about was the value of friction with sober friends. She talked about having people who really challenged her throughout her recovery, to the point where she would stop speaking with them for periods of time, and her point was that that was good, that she needed some people to call her out on her b******t. She mentioned a few times that if the only person pushing her was herself, she might not have stayed sober.

At the end of the meeting, the treasurer grabbed me and showed me around. He showed me some very cool 12-step history stuff that this meeting had acquired, and it was almost like a mini museum of recovery history. He even pointed toward a flight of stairs into the basement and invited me to go check out what he described as a sobriety archive. I had enjoyed the meeting but decided that I was done with my spiritual growth for the day and I got the hell out of there before I could possibly learn anything else. I mean, there was football to watch, right?

Listen, I am still a work in progress. Maybe next time I hit Lincoln, I will spend some time in the archive… unless there are no alcoholics in Lincoln at that time.

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:

LATTE LAUGHS

I was running late to a meeting where I was the scheduled speaker. As I got out of the car I spilled my iced latte down the front of my shirt and there was no opportunity to change clothes. I solved the problem when I got to the podium and introduced myself: "Hi, my name is Jan, and I have a drinking problem!"

(Credit: Grapevine, by Jan R. of Durham, NC)

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 a few weeks ago, and a guy mentioned he had been going through some significant life difficulties that didn’t involve alcohol but affected his alcoholism. And the point he wanted to make was that he was startled by how much more productive his conversations were with sober friends rather than his family and non-alcoholic friends.

He said he shared his struggles with about five from each group, and he said the conversations were very, very different with sober people, and he couldn’t figure out why.

I found myself nodding along because I had a similar situation about 10 years ago, and I actually arrived at an answer to why that is.

My situation was when I moved from New Jersey to Connecticut, and I kind of went off the rails in every aspect of life. The process of moving was a disaster because inspectors found an oil tank underneath the house we were selling, so the EPA was going to have to get involved, we had to take the house off the market and we had to drop our asking price from from $250,000 down under $200,000.

So I was renting a house with my family in Connecticut and trying to take care of and pay for a dumpster fire in New Jersey. My housing expenses alone were more than my income, so I was racking up debt, with no sober program in the place I had moved to, and the stress was making me a bad dad, husband, employee, neighbor… bad everything.

I eventually found a good recovery network in Connecticut and started getting more spiritually fit. That helped enormously—I began to realize that yes, this was a financial mess and there was so much uncertainty about how this was going to work out… but I knew I would be ok. I had been able to cobble together enough to pay for food, electricity, etc. and I had a roof over my head (two roofs, actually).

I found myself mostly keeping my situation quiet but sharing with two sets of people: sober people, and some friends from work. Both groups were wonderful friends who listened intently and offered solutions. But I found myself very aggravated about the whole thing, and I found my conversations with work friends to only make that worse. When I called contractors or the old owner of the New Jersey house an a*****e, they chimed in with even worse insults. When I moaned and groaned about having bad luck, they doubled down on how much I was getting screwed. I told myself that this was venting, and it was helpful and healthy. But I was lying to myself. I wanted to be mad, and these people were letting me be just that. Again, I think they were fantastic friends to validate my feelings and be there for me.

The sober people did some of the same stuff, but with about 80 percent less negativity and about 80 percent more, “So what’s the solution?” and “Well, let’s think about their side of this for a moment.” Any time I would rant about the dipshit we hired to replace our rotting steps on the old house and he charged us twice what he’d quoted us, they would steer the conversation away from insulting the guy and whining, and more toward, “What are next steps? What is going on with you right now? What actions will you take about the situation AND for yourself to be as spiritually fit as possible?” Other sober people just listened and nodded in a way where I felt both heard and also REALLY heard… as in, they hear me stark raving mad right now, and I don’t want to keep going like that. They were people I respected and admired, and they were choosing not to actively participate in talking bad about people, and that made me want to stop actively participating in it, too.

In case you’re wondering how the old house story ended, it didn’t end well… but it was fine. We sold the house for about a 40 percent loss. I ended up in financial hell for a few years. But we dug out, and everything ended up working out okay.

So when that guy was sharing, I got where he was coming from but was so glad I had stumbled into that same revelation earlier in my sober life. I still find great value in sharing stuff with friends and family, and I also find tremendous value in sharing with my sober network. I think both are essential and I would never advocate to only have people in your life who are in recovery because it’s like we are all perfect people, either. But I love the balance, and I hope I never again try to go through life without that balance.

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:

ROUGH CROWD

A young AA was visiting her father over the holidays, and told him she was stepping out for a while to go to a local meeting. "He gave me a big hug, and said in a fatherly tone, 'Well, just be careful, sweetie. There are alcoholics at those meetings, you know."

(Credit: Grapevine, June 2009, Kaitlyn J. of Washington DC)

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!

My wife sent me to the grocery store to buy a lengthy list of things on Dec. 31. The store was absolute mayhem. The average age of customers was roughly 114 years old, so it was cart chaos, people talking on speaker phones with their great-great-great grandkids, people yelling at store workers… you name it.

I found myself buying groceries and then picking up lots of resentments for free. It took awhile to get through the store and pay. By the time I got out of the store, I was very aggravated.

But as I went out the front door of the store, I got a nice blast of winter air. I took a deep breath and spent a second feeling grateful for being sober this time of year.

I think most people consider Christmas and Thanksgiving to be the toughest holidays to get through without drugs and alcohol. But for me, it’s always been New Year’s at the top of the list because of what a conflicting set of emotions I try to work through.

There’s the agonizing memories of how many times during my active addiction days that I looked toward the calendar flipping to a new year as the chance to stop drinking and drugging. I kept thinking the same thing millions of Americans think about Jan. 1—a new year, a new me.

Except… Jan. 1 was always just another day. I never had any kind of plan to really try to get sober. I just had a magic wish that I wanted a non-existent genie to grant me. So I felt grateful that I eventually asked for help, and I don’t have to spend Dec. 31 in agony, alone, fingers crossed that I could make it to the following midnight without drinking.

I also had a moment outside the grocery store where I thought about how many other people are doing the same thing I used to. Sitting at home, drinking hard tonight with the hope that this is the absolute final time it’s ever going to happen… and then probably not being able to stay sober just because the calendar flips to a new year. I felt so much pain and shame and hopelessness on those nights, so I said a quick prayer under my breath for all those people as I started to load groceries into my car.

I closed the trunk of my car and then took my cart over to the cart return just as a car was pulling in. And in that car… another recovering alcoholic. We shook hands and talked for a bit. I’ve known him for about 10 years, but we never exchanged numbers or anything. I hadn’t seen him in a few months because he’s a morning meeting person and I generally hit evening meetings. He said something along the lines of, “Great seeing you. I wish I saw you at more meetings, because I have always enjoyed hearing you share, and I always get something out of your message.”

I said thank you, and I instantly felt a little better about the whole grocery store trip. It’s amazing what running into another sober person can do to bring you back to the present.

At the end of the conversation, we shook hands and I turned to leave. He stopped for a second and looked at me and said, “Uh… remind me, what’s your name again? Is it Ben?”

I had to laugh because he’d just said something I took as a profound compliment about having an impact on his life, and it turns out he had no idea what my name was. But then again, recovery is about the exact nature of us, not the exact details. I’m not sure I need to know peoples’ names in order to stay sober and live a beautiful life. I reminded him of my name, but left by saying, “You can call me whatever want,” and we both had a good laugh as we went our separate ways.

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 try to take one day at a time, but sometimes three or four gang up on me at once."

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

I remember once talking to a new guy who started coming to meetings and flirting with the idea that he might belong in a 12-step program. He had lots of curiosity about sobriety but not a lot of interest in doing it himself… yet.

One thing that blew his mind was the idea of just dialing up other sober men. He said to me several times, “Wait, so you just cold call people?” I hadn’t ever heard it put like that but I guess it’s accurate.

“Yep,” I said.

“So in the middle of the day, you’re having a hard time, you just start calling people?!?!?!”

He couldn’t believe it, and it was one of those things where it had become so commonplace for me in recovery that I didn’t understand why he was in disbelief. I was in disbelief about his disbelief.

But he started to talk to me about his drinking and his overall life, and I remembered how the concept of calling other sober men every day was a foreign concept to me in the beginning, too. He described a life hidden indoors, isolated from the world, door locked and blinds closed, trying to manage his drinking while also trying to hold down a job and any remaining relationships that weren’t broken… and I flashed back to when picking up the phone was the weirdest, scariest thing ever, too.

He kept coming around for awhile, and he even called me occasionally. He would schedule it like I was his accountant or something, with a text asking if I was going to be around next Thursday at 3:30 pm. I always chuckled and said yes. But he came out of his shell over time, and as far as I know, he lived happily ever after. I moved away from New York/New Jersey in 2011 and haven’t spoken to him in a long time. I like to think he is on the phone right now with somebody.

It was a good reminder to me about picking up the phone. I still talk to a lot of alcoholics and addicts every week… but not as many as I used to. I get sucked into texting back and forth with guys some days, and it just isn’t the same. I certainly couldn’t email or text myself into sobriety, and I don’t think I can keep myself sober by FAX machine and texting, either.

So I will push myself to be a cold calling warrior in the new year!

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 traveler was checking in at a large hotel in Detroit. Observing hundreds of guests milling around the lobby, he asked the desk clerk, "Who are all these people?"

"They're members of Alcoholics Anonymous, here for a convention," was the reply.

"AA, huh?" said the new arrival. "I wonder if it really works."

"Mister," replied the desk clerk fervently, "I hope so! I surely do hope so!"

(Credit: Grapevine, July 2009, C.M. of 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 THIScomedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I shared at a meeting the other day how Halloween 2008 helped get me sober, and someone specifically commented that that anecdote really hit home with him because of what a mess holidays used to be when he was still drinking and drugging.

Halloween 2008 was my first real Halloween as a dad. My oldest daughter was 3 and my youngest was 1, so it was their first time dressing up and going trick or treating. My wife and I were very excited… except I was living a lie. Nothing really excited me other than drugs and alcohol. Stuff like Halloween was fine and all, but I had to squeeze it in around the drugs and alcohol. Substances were a black hole that was sucking my whole life into it.

That day, I remember taking 45 painkillers. I was up to 15 painkillers at a time, and I would take 15 at about 9 am, then 15 more at about 11 am. By that point, I was often either barely conscious or very sick. But I would do it anyway because I did usually get a pretty good hour or two of being high. At about 2 pm, I would be woozy and coming down, so I would take 15 more.

I remember that day vividly because I had gotten my hands on a bunch of muscle relaxers, which I had never tried before. I hurried home from work—and yes, I was driving a car at that point—and got home around 6 pm. The kids were all dressed up and ready to go, and I told my wife I was going to eat dinner quick, then meet her down the street.

My wife told me the route she was taking, and I waited for the door to close. Then I popped two muscle relaxers and cracked my first of a few beers to wash it down.

Five hours later, I woke up. I had passed out. I think it was mostly the muscle relaxers, but who can say with all those opioids and alcohol in your system? It was after midnight, and my wife and kids were all asleep. They had gone trick or treating, come home, got ready for bed, brushed their teeth and gone to bed… and I was unconscious in the other room. I missed the whole thing.

I remember thinking, “Oh my god, my wife is going to kill me in the morning.” But the worst part was, the next morning, she seemed mildly disappointed but mostly unbothered by my absence, which hit me hard because I realized that I had become something other than a dad. I was a guy who lived at the house and sometimes showed up for stuff and sometimes didn’t. I was everybody’s roommate, and not a great roommate at that.

I shared that at the meeting the other day, and several other people commented to me that that was a helpful reminder around the holidays. For a lot of us sober people, holidays can be a grind where we get out of rhythm and feel a little squirrelly, and it can be easy to lose track of the fact that we are doing just fine.

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 woman brought her son to an AA meeting. Later, as they were leaving, the mother complained about the hard seats, how long people had talked and how the chair didn't follow guidelines. Finally the little boy said, "Mommy, I thought it was pretty good for a dollar!"

(Credit: Grapevine, September 2009, by Chris K. of Lexington, KY)

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 walked into a 12-step meeting the other day that I had never been to, and as I wandered down the steps into the basement, I couldn’t help but feel some gratitude to all the churches out there.

I have been sober since November of 2008, and I estimate that I have been to about 3,000 meetings during that time. Of those 3,000, my guess is that 2,900 have been in churches. And of those 2,900 meetings, I think I probably went into about 100 different churches in about 25 different states.

Even as I typed those numbers, I had to shake my head in disbelief. That is a lot of churches, all over the country, and I can’t recall any of those meetings being the first one ever held at the church.

Think about what that means.

It means that years ago—sometimes decades ago—a bunch of drunks went to a church and said they’d like to use their facility—probably at an off time when no church workers were there. For startup groups, there isn’t much money stored up to pay exorbitant rent, either. So I imagine that the churches that said yes were genuinely trusting and wonderful people, and that their motives were mostly to provide a valuable service to the community for the sake of providing a valuable service to the community. What a beautiful thing that is.

Now, does paying rent help? For sure. My guess is that hosting meetings might pull in a few hundred bucks a month for some churches. But I’ve never heard of it ever being enough money to really move the needle. Most rents that I know of are about $50 a month for a weekly meeting, which comes out to about $12 for an hour at a church. That’s a pretty good deal for us alcoholics and addicts, isn’t it?

Aside from the value and generosity, it’s impossible to understate how important it is that newcomers to recovery have a neutral space like a church to go to for meetings. Even people with bad feelings about religion recognize the safe, quiet spaces that churches are. If you never had been to a 12-step meeting before, and your life was on fire, and you were worried about what your neighbors and co-workers would think if they heard you had an addiction issue… where else is a better place to try to anonymously seek help? In that case, it’s not like you’d want to show up at a park, or the mall, or the back of a restaurant, or at a random person’s house, or even a school. I can’t come up with a better option.

I’ll get back to churches in a second, but I want to say a few words about recovery clubs, too. I have been to lots of good meetings at recovery clubs. I have heard some mixed opinions about recovery clubs but I don’t happen to feel the same way. I’ve heard people say they worry about the traditions of 12-step programs colliding with the concept of recovery clubs, and how renting or owning a building that services various fellowships can be closer to running a business than 12-step programs may historically have leaned toward. But I personally have had awesome experiences at recovery clubs and like the idea of one-stop shopping for literature and various different groups. I am someone who has alcohol and drug issues, and can’t really stop gambling once I start. So I have enjoyed having one building where all of those meetings happen on a regular basis.

But I would come back to churches as the GOAT for meetings. I haven’t been to church for actual religious purposes in probably 10 years; it’s just not my thing. But I have grown to cherish the ones I have been to for their generosity and forgiveness (hey, sober people are just people, so I have seen some bad behaviors over the years). I have seen lives change and miracles happen in those basements, and all it cost was about $12. What a gift.

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:

NOT THAT KIND OF BARFor the past three years, I've volunteered a few nights a week at our Alano Club, serving sodas and snacks behind the counter. I have met scores of AAs and their children, who often hide out with me while their parents attend meetings.

I was in the foyer of a movie theater when a boy, about 13, broke away from a group of friends and came over to say hi. He was the son of a member at the club. When he returned to his friends, I overheard one ask: "Who was the old guy you were talking to?"

"Oh, he's cool," the young man replied. "He's the bartender where my dad goes for his AA."

(Credit: Grapevine, by Brian A of Petaluma, California, October 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 THIScomedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I was driving the other day on a 35 MPH road in the town I live in. I got behind someone driving 25 MPH, which is slower than the speed limit, which is an absurd thing to do in this world.

Anyway, we were approaching an intersection and the light was green. But this guy was puttering along so slowly that I just KNEW we were going to miss the light by 1 second and I was going to be cursing this slow poke for adding two minutes to my day.

Sure enough, as we were getting near the intersection, the light turned yellow. But instead of slowing down from 25 MPH, this a*****e hit the gas hard. He shot forward like he’d just entered Indianapolis 500 qualifying and he went ripping through as the light turned red. I, of course, was stuck at the intersection, shaking my head and trying to voodoo curse the guy in front of me.

I was only pissy about it for 10 seconds because it is a very amusing phenomenon to observe, the person who meanders around and then suddenly finds the gas pedal when a yellow light appears.

I’m writing about this on a sober newsletter because as I sat at that red light, hoping Santa Claus delivered four flat tires to that guy’s house, I thought about how often I figuratively only hit the gas pedal when I really want something.

Feeling jittery about my sobriety? I hit three meetings in three days and call a bunch of guys.

Overdraw my checking account? Panic and swear up and down that now is the time to become financially responsible.

Uncomfortable conversation that will need to be had with someone at some point? Put it off until the last minute, then yell at somebody.

But why wait till it gets to the point where I have to hit the gas so hard?

This is particularly valuable this time of year because I have been one of those people who gets distracted from recovery stuff around the holidays, then gets squirrelly and tries to cram in two meetings in one day to get my spiritual fitness up. I can’t afford to do that too much, and I’m planning on doing the opposite of that this holiday season—I want to be slow and steady and methodical with sobriety stuff so that my spiritual fitness doesn’t take wild swings.

To take that road analogy to the end, that means I drive the speed limit or whatever the speed of the person in front of me is driving. No swings from 25 MPH to 65 MPH. I want to stay 35 MPH the whole way through the intersection!

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

"By the time I got to AA, even my imaginary friends had stopped talking to me."

(Credit: Grapevine, July 2009, by Marbury W. of Greenbelt, MD)

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 have an interesting exercise for you to try.

Think back to the last time you were really angry about something. Soak it in for a second. Take a snapshot in your brain. Now ask yourself, where was your pride in that picture?

Now think back to the last time you were really hurt by a comment somebody made. Take a picture of that in your brain. Now ask yourself again, where was your pride in that picture?

I thought about that exercise because I was at a meeting recently where the chairperson did an awesome job of teeing up the meeting with readings from sober literature about how our pride is lurking behind almost everything, good or bad.

If you offer me criticism and I get really pissed about it, my pride is in there somewhere. If you screw me over for a parking spot and I start yelling out the window, my pride is in there somewhere. If you tell me you already have plans next week and can’t do something with me, and I suspect you just don’t want to hang out with me and that hurts me feelings, my pride is in there somewhere, too.

The point is, in almost every situation I ever encounter, my pride is sitting there somewhere. It’s almost impossible for me to think of a scenario where pride isn’t in the picture.

Now, sometimes the right amount of pride is a good thing. I’m proud of my sobriety. I’m proud of professional achievements. I’m proud I pay my bills on time. I’m proud of my marriage.

But I also have moments where my pride is sitting in the very front of the picture, and it messes up the whole thing. I think it’s really bad when I have too much pride, and also when I don’t have much of any. I want the right amount of pride. And that is easier said than done.

So that’s why as the chairperson was opening up the meeting and sharing what I found to be brilliant and hilarious, I found myself really thinking about the value of visualizing where my pride was sitting in every picture. And I ultimately decided that I want my pride in every photo, but I don’t want it in the front or the back. Maybe I need to have my pride pull up a seat right in the middle—visible but not overwhelming.

Oh, one last thing I should share: You know that awesome chairperson I was just telling you about? Uh, well, I may have been chairing that meeting… so maybe pride is still sitting a little closer to the front of the photo for 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:

Mutual admiration society

An AA who had just spent time with his family for the holidays was back at his home group. He shared that a relative had told him that she liked him better when he was drinking. He'd responded, "Yeah? I liked you better when I was drinking, too!"

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

I started therapy recently, and it’s been going really well. She’s a very good therapist and pushes me in a way that I find helpful.

The other day, she said something like, “I have some homework for you that I’d like you to start doing. It’s this thing known as a gratitude list. You write down 3-5 things you’re grateful for every day…”

I had to laugh, because if you’re in recovery, you’ve been told 4,000 times to do a gratitude list. It’s a very commonly-prescribed tool within the 12-step community, and it’s something I’ve done off and on for at least 10 years. It works. Why don’t I keep doing it? Well, it works… but it is work to compile! And who wants to do work?

I will give my therapist credit, though, because she had two very good suggestions about a better way to do a gratitude list. In the past, I would write down anything I was grateful for—my health, my kids, a good sandwich, an exciting football game on TV. One suggestion from her that I liked was to make sure I add an item or two every day about something I achieved. So, not just a good sandwich, but something that I did. For me, that’s usually walking away from an argument, or helping a new sober guy, or reacting better to criticism. It’s humbly patting myself on the back for something. I gotta say, that really helped quite a bit because most of the stuff I have put on gratitude lists in the past was stuff I didn’t really have much to do with—as in, the sandwich, a beautiful sunset, no traffic on the roads, etc. There’s something a little different when I acknowledge some kind of positive thing I am responsible for.

The second suggestion she gave me that I liked a lot was doing a gratitude list in the morning. I had always done them at the end of the day, which is kind of the tradition of recovery programs. Often times, we’re encouraged to assess our day at the end of the day, and I always did my gratitude lists the same way—you sit down at 10 pm and reflect upon everything that happened that day and what you’re grateful for.

I don’t know exactly why the morning thing is so much better. But it is. It launches me out of my bedroom every day with more optimism and gratitude than I usually do, so when I hit that first bump in the road—and there is always a bump in the road, isn’t there?—I am already feeling grateful for my life. It’s remarkable what a different mentality that is.

So overall, my gratitude list has been a very positive addition to my recovery. I’ve been trying to do five items every day. So I guess maybe I can add that to today’s gratitude list, too… one down, four more to go!

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 was so addicted to line dancing that he had to join a two-step program.

(Credit: Grapevine, July 2009, by Terry B. of Albany, NY)

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You’ve heard the phrase a million times: It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

In general, I have found that to be true. You usually are better off saying sorry for something than asking in advance… but I am going to make the case for why that is a bad thing, at least in my life, anyway.

Somebody said that to me about a year ago during a trip to Buffalo Wild Wings. I met up with a few friends for a rowdy evening of watching sports and eating wings. They weren’t sober friends, so some of the people were drinking, too. I told my wife that I thought I’d be gone till the end of a specific football game, which was likely to be over at about 7:15. So I said I would be home by 7:30 or so.

But as the evening went on, I was having a great time hanging out, and I mentioned that I had told my wife that I was leaving at the end of the game. One friend immediately said, “Tell her it went to double overtime.”

I shook my head and said, “I don’t want to lie to her, so I can’t do that. Plus, there is no double overtime in the NFL. So your suggestion sucks on multiple levels.”

Then he said, “Why don’t you just stay a little longer and apologize when you get home? It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.”

I thought long and hard about that, or maybe blaming traffic, or something other than the most reasonable and easiest solution, which was: Ask directly if staying late would be an issue. I did end up thinking, “Maybe I’ll just say ‘Oopsie’ when I get home and hope for the best.”

Except… I can’t start doing that. The “it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission” thing is basically lying, in my humble opinion. It’s doing something sketchy and knowing that I am doing something sketchy, but strategizing the best possible way to get away with it.

The problem with an addict like me is that I have to have firm guardrails around anything that drags me back into being full of s**t. I can’t lie. I can’t cheat. I can’t steal. But I also can’t work angles on people. I can’t manipulate. I can’t tell the truth but not the whole truth. I have to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. I have to just be truthful, through and through. I can’t pretend I didn’t know something might be a problem and then just say sorry.

So I ultimately decided to text my wife and say I was having a good time and would like to stay. She was of course fine with that and appreciated the communication, and I stuck around and had a good old time with my friends.

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

"When I was drinking I drank to celebrate things that hadn't happened yet."

(Credit: Grapevine, August 2009, by Kay K. of Redondo Beach, 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