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 heard an interesting podcast recently about the entertainment industry, called Blank Check. It’s about people in show business who have a huge hit, then basically get a blank check from Hollywood, and the podcast explores what happened next.

It’s certainly not 100 percent, but for the most part, they’ve found that most people who hit it big usually get to do whatever they want in the immediate aftermath… and do not end up making the wisest choices. For example, after George Lucas did the original Star Wars trilogy, some of his next projects included Howard the Duck, Willow and two different Ewok TV series. Yeah, not great.

I’m not knowledgable enough about Hollywood to comment on what that all means for successful people in the entertainment industry. But I can say a sober takeaway that I was left with, which is how dangerous success can be for us sober people.

I’ve seen people—including myself sometimes—have tremendous success in recovery and then… completely eat s**t and faceplant. Sometimes it ends in relapse, but more often, I’ve seen people not drink or do drugs but become more dry than sober, and then they’re miserable. That has certainly been the case for me a few times.

I’ve had a very nice life for quite a few years now since I got sober. I am not wealthy, for sure, but I pay my bills on time these days. My marriage is really good, my kids are healthy and happy, I couldn’t have come up with a better job for myself, and I have never felt closer with my friends and family. It’s been an amazing turn-around that I am really proud of.

It has also meant my life gets busy, and whether I purposely make this decision or not, somewhere deep down, I think I have it all figured out and that I am making things happen in the world. Then I don’t pray as much. I skip a meeting or two, here or there. I go on vacation and don’t get to any meetings or make any calls for five days. I earned it, ya know?

I rarely have seen that story end well. For me or others. And to go back to that blank check idea, just like directors who have one big hit and then get to do whatever they want with very little oversight, I can’t do it. I need editors for my writing. I need sober friends to help me with recovery. If I have a medical problem, I need a doctor. If I have a legal issue, I need an attorney. It can’t be me deciding that I know what I’m doing—maybe I’ll represent myself in court!

Nope. Terrible idea. So I am going to try to remember that even on my very best days, I do not get a blank check the next day. In fact, what would the opposite of a blank check be? A bounced check? Yeah, let’s go with that. Next time I have a great day, I am going to wake up and say, “God, please give me a bounced check!”

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 cop pulls over a driver who was swerving.

Cop: Sir, you appear to be drunk while operating a vehicle. Could you please sat the alphabet starting with the letter ‘m?’

Drunk: Sure. The… malphabet.

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!

Sometimes I target this newsletter toward a recovery topic. Sometimes I just try to tell an amusing story. This is one of those times.

When I was a kid, growing up in Pennsylvania, we started sex education in fourth grade and continued through sixth grade. It was taught by the foremost expert in teaching about sexual health—my gym teacher.

Yep, the same guy cackling about drilling all the nerds with dodgeball one day was in charge of teaching little kids about the vas deferens and the vulva. Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?

But that’s how it worked back then in the late 1980s, and I remember during that time period my elementary school would have one special assembly day every year where we’d sit in the gym and have an all-day marathon session where different speakers would talk about everything deemed bad back then: alcohol, drugs, sex and smoking.

They’d bring in a cop to do an hour-long presentation on drugs and alcohol, and he’d show photos of car crashes and horrific livers from people who died of cirrhosis. Then they’d have a doctor talk about the risks of smoking. Then a nurse would get up and try to scare the living s**t out of you about the dangers of sex.

It was all very 1980s “This is your brain, this is your brain on drugs” scare tactics. I say 1980s, but sometimes I wonder if that still isn’t the American way for many people. Personally—and this is just me—I think I may have benefited from a more realistic conversation about safely being around those things, versus “run like your ass is on fire” if somebody lights up a joint near you. As a parent myself now, I see the way my kids react when they hear you should never do something—they want to do it twice that afternoon.

But back to my fifth-grade self. I remember vividly one of those all-day sessions of relentless terrifying photos of tar lungs and pregnant 12-year-olds. I sat beside two elementary school friends of mine, and by the end, we all had eyes bulging out of our heads in fear. As we walked out of the gym, I remember a conversation that went something like:

Me: “Guys… let’s never drink or do drugs.”

Friend 1: “Yeah, that looks terrible.”

Friend 2: “And I am never smoking a cigarette in my entire life.”

Me: “And oh my god… sex is so disgusting. I’m never doing anything like that.”

At the end, I remember we did a pinky promise for all of it. None of us would ever smoke cigarettes, do drugs, drink alcohol or have sex.

Uh… I think all three of us have been to rehab. Stunner, but that session wasn’t a sustainable deterrent for any of us.

In all seriousness, would better education have helped? Probably not. I don’t really think it would have mattered what kind of lessons I had gotten on those topics. I was going to have issues with all of them, and I did.

My fifth-grade self would be horrified!

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 wealthy CEO was slumped in his chair after a five-martini lunch when his phone rang. Answering it, his assistant said, "Sorry, Mr. Jones is unavailable right now. He's out from lunch."

(Credit: AA Grapevine, February 2005)

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!

Let me give you an example that most people have encountered in their life, one that exemplifies something I have been struggling with recently.

Imagine you put on a new outfit, check it out in the mirror, spin around a few times and make sure your ass doesn’t look like an NFL defensive tackle is standing there. Then you ask someone, “Hey, what do you think of this outfit?”

And the person looks you up and down and says, “Well, I really like those pants.”

I would bet most people immediately think some version of, “Hey, what about the shirt? Are you telling me I should ditch the shirt? What’s wrong with my shirt? And you know what, screw you, your fashion sense sucks anyway. Your shirt is dumb, and so are you.”

That’s probably a little extreme, but I think a lot of people probably have some version of that inner dialogue.

I had a similar thing happen recently, but it wasn’t about clothes. Somebody made what I deemed a backhanded compliment, and I immediately launched a full investigation into what was said and what wasn’t said. I got myself pretty worked up and irritated, and then I ended up doing that thing where my own insecurity flips that comment from something that hurts a little, to angry s**t-talking where I start trying to character assassinate them in my brain. I start out by taking something personally, then come up with all the reasons you’re the one who actually sucks.

Is this a thing that only addicts and alcoholics do? No, definitely not. But as I have said many times, I identify with the parts of our sober literature where it digs into the idea that alcoholics do seem particularly sensitive to criticism, real or imagined. I certainly am.

And that’s an important note here. In that example about the outfit, did the person single out the pants because the shirt sucks? Maybe. It’s entirely possible. Or, maybe he just liked the pants quite a bit?

I did the right thing when I was spiraling the other day. I made some phone calls, and we always ended up chuckling about it. It’s either that the guy is a total asswipe, which is funny, or he just meant the thing he said as a compliment and I read into it, which is also funny when I think about how bad I overreacted.

At the end of the day, these situations are often a good window into where my self esteem is. When I know who I am and am spiritually fit and content with myself, you can say almost anything and it shouldn’t leave a mark.

When I am a little squirrely and overly sensitive, that little dig might not be so little. And that’s what I think happened here. I had a long week last week, and was over-tired and a little over-extended, somebody said something that should have been a paper cut, and I turned it into a mortal wound.

So I came out of it smiling and realizing there is almost no benefit to reading into things. Actually, now that I think about it, what’s the opposite of reading into something? Reading out of it? Just reading it and putting it down? I don’t know what to call it… but I am going to try to do that instead the next 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:

AN OLDIE BUT A GOODIE:

Jack, the son of the town drunk, was sent to the principal's office for using a curse word at school. The principal scolded Jack: "We do not use that word here. Besides, you don't know what that word means."

"I do, too!" Jack replied. "It means the car won't start."

(Credit: AA Grapevine, January 2007, by Tim D. of Baldwin City, Kansas)

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 stayed at a hotel recently, and I really liked the towels and the lotion bottle in my room. I loved how firm the texture of the towels was, and the lotion was great for my dry face—not too oily, just oily enough. As I packed up to leave, I put one towel and a small bottle of lotion in my bag and zipped it up.

Then I unzipped it.

Taking stuff from hotels is not a new thing. In fact, it’s a cliche—from the beginning of time, back when cavemen stayed at Holiday Inn Express’ in Columbus, Ohio, they always took towels, I think. (You might want to fact-check me on that.)

The thought is, I paid $100 for the room from this giant corporation, so what’s the harm in taking a towel? I’m not here to litigate whether that’s right or wrong. I get it. That’s why I zipped it up in my bag initially, and I have taken stuff from hotels many times in the past.

It’s just not for me any more. I have figured out the best way for me to avoid doing 10 bad things is to not do 1 to begin with. I am a binger. I binged drugs and alcohol back in the day. And I binge food, TV shows and a bunch of other stuff to this day. The same as it was with drinking, the best way to avoid eating three donuts is to not eat the first one.

Stealing is a slippery slope for me. When I was active, I took whatever I thought I needed, without much remorse. I never got into going to Target and taking stuff… but I would have. For sure, I would have at some point. It was one of those lines I drew in my head that didn’t have much logic behind it. Why was stealing from my dad okay but not from Walmart? It was an addict’s rationale.

In sobriety, that rationale can still be a problem. Just like when I was drinking, the booze was a symptom of a bigger disease, not the disease itself. My disease has always required a spiritual solution that impacts every corner of my life.

When I say the rationale can be an issue, I mean that I have had a few times when I went through the self-checkout lane at the grocery store and something didn’t scan right. Every time I have gotten to the car and realized that, my first thought has been, “Well, I’ve probably overpaid for something in the past, so it probably evens out. Besides, their prices are ridiculous compared with some of the other grocery stories in the area. They could afford to have somebody like me forget to pay for a bag of chips once in awhile.”

Those thoughts just fly right into my brain. It’s an old muscle that I don’t work much any more, but it is a muscle that will get stronger if I work it out on a regular basis. I can’t do that. I can’t get started on one or two shady things, because for someone like me, one or two quickly can become three or four, and then look out, you better hide your wallet and those fancy plates that Aunt Vivian willed to you when she died.

It reminds me a little bit of an idea I entertained early in sobriety. I told a friend who isn’t an alcoholic that I had to quit drinking but would miss having a beer or two on NFL Sundays. His suggestion was to maybe allow myself every Sunday to drink a few non-alcoholic beers. I thought about it, but when I ran it by people I had met in sobriety, they all shook their heads that they thought it was a bad idea. It was explained to me that the rituals of drinking had to go along with the actual drinking. They suggested it was all or nothing on beer, and I tried nothing and it has worked.

I’d like to keep it that way. And I’d like to keep it that way on taking stuff. So I think I will just leave the lotion and towels in my hotel rooms. The hotel chain might be able to afford it. But I sure can’t.

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

"I think I woke up on the wrong side of my head this morning."

(Credit: AA Grapevine, January 2007, by Sarah S. of Harrisburg, Pa.)

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 just started watching Andor, which is the 347th Star Wars spinoff show. Just kidding, it’s only like the 10th Star Wars spinoff.

To give a quick mini review, I can already tell Andor will be one of the two best, along side The Mandalorian. It is light years ahead of some of the other recent ones.

I was struck by a fascinating conversation in the pilot episode by the lead character, Cassian Andor, and his robot, Bee. Bee has a running gag that he sputters around a bit because there is an issue with his power source. And there is a moment when Cassian asks Bee to lie for him and say he was at home the entire night before. Bee responds by saying, “OK, but it is going to burn up a lot more energy from my power source to lie than if I told the truth.”

Whoa. That line hit me hard. When I was still active, I lied all the time to keep my b******t going. I think most alcoholics and addicts had a similar house of cards they were trying to keep upright.

And yes, I think all that lying drained me of my energy every day, literally and figuratively. It is physically exhausting to keep a complete sham going, but it also sucks any spirituality out of you and exhausts your soul, if that’s possible. Even when I would pull off another day running and gunning, I’d lay my head down on the pillow and feel a pang deep down in my chest. It’s an ugly feeling to know you just conned a bunch of people you care about.

But fast forward to sobriety, where I stopped lying. Does a lie fly out of my mouth sometimes? Yes, but not often. I know for a fact that I cannot be lying about much of anything and still be sober. If I start pulling con jobs again, it’s only a matter of time until I have to drink or drug (or both) to numb the pain.

What I am most interested in as it relates to that android quote is lying to myself now. Sometimes when I have a rough day and I think, “I should get to a meeting, but I’m sooooo tired, maybe I’ll get to one tomorrow,” it’s not lying… but it’s definitely not the truth.

Sometimes I’ll catch myself thinking somebody is an a*****e and I need to get even with them over that shitty email they sent to me, and I’ll have that sober voice in my head that says, “Hey, maybe call a sober buddy and run that by him first.”

But then the fired-up part of my brain pushes that aside and decides to sit there and stew for four hours. Then over those four hours, I’ll obsess over it, yell at my kids once or twice, ignore an important work assignment and on and on. I’m lying to myself that this is the right path.

To bring it back to that original quote, I still have moments where a thought or behavior is b******t and it drains me of energy. I go to meetings and try to do good behaviors so that I can fill up a spiritual gas tank that inevitably starts to drain a bit as the hours go by. When I start firing off lies and sugarcoating things and pretending I’m fine, I feel like Bee—my power source is losing juice twice as fast if I just told the truth or did the right thing.

So I guess the lesson here is… watch Andor? You’ll get more sober, or something like that.

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

At my home group one day, a fellow announced he was visiting from out of town. After the meeting, I introduced myself. We got to talking, and I asked him what type of meeting his home group was. "It's a naked Step meeting," he replied.

"You're kidding!" I said. "Naked Step meeting?"

"Yes," he said. "After we read the Preamble, everyone takes off their clothes. We read the Step, share on it, and then we get dressed at the end of the meeting. Everyone's nakedness promotes honesty far beyond regular meetings."

Several months went by, and this man again visited my home group. I asked him how his naked Step meeting was going.

"Oh," he said, with disappointment. "The meeting broke up."

"Why? What happened?"

"Well," he replied, "people started to compare rather than identify."

(Credit: AA Grapevine, December 2008, by David O. of New York, 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 THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I don’t pray as much as I should. I wish I could get more into it, and not just do it when people remind me.

But honestly, it’s always been a weak part of my program, and deep, deep down, I think the truth is, it’s always going to be a struggle.

I have, though, been thinking lately about what my favorite, most underrated sobriety prayer is.

I love the serenity prayer, which I think everybody knows and therefore can’t really be underrated.

I love the Seventh Step prayer, which goes:

* My creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength as I go out from here, to do your bidding.

I like the Third Step prayer, which begins, “God, I offer myself to thee, to build with me and to do with me as thou wilt…”

I know some people like the Lord’s Prayer, but that one’s not for me. I just don’t love it in my own program. In fact, when the chairperson says we’ll close with a prayer or a silent meditation of your choice, I choose the silent meditation.

I also have a deep appreciation for the idea of prayer for others in sober literature, where it’s suggested that when we have a resentment for someone, come up with the very best, well-meaning prayer possible and do it for two weeks. I have used that concept many, many times over the years, and it has worked 100 percent of the time for me.

But none of those are my No. 1 most underrated prayer. That honor goes to the Set Aside Prayer, which goes like this:

* God, please help me set aside everything I think I know about myself, the 12 steps, the Big Book, the meetings, my disease, and you, God, so I may have an open mind and a new experience with all these things. Please let me see the truth.

Oh man, that prayer really hits home for me right now, because I continue to be reminded that knowledge isn’t always my friend. I’ve been sober since 2008. I’ve read all the books and worked the steps and been to roughly 3,000 meetings. I know the stuff you need to know. But that knowledge only gets me so far. It’s a little like if I memorized the Buffalo Bills offensive playbook and knew every single assignment of every player on the field… that doesn’t mean I can play in the NFL! The knowledge only gets me so far.

This analogy falls apart a little bit because I never had the athleticism to play in the NFL, but you get my point: Knowing stuff is a great starter kit for sobriety, but there’s so much more to it than that.

And that’s why I love the part about asking God to help me put down all my experience and expertise at the door of every meeting, and go in looking for a new experience. And that s**t happens, doesn’t it? How many times have you been at a meeting and heard someone say, “Geez, I’ve read this part of our literature 100 times and I never noticed that.” I’d argue that they probably did read it before, but they’re at a stage in their recovery where that section now applies in a new way that they’re just catching in the moment.

I will say that as I was writing this entry, I pondered who I’ve heard say that over the years, and it’s often the people I see at the most meetings, with the kind of recovery that I want—it’s people who never consider themselves finished products who got their masters degree in sobriety and are peacing out. They’re the people who are setting aside everything they think they know, and seeing the benefits.

So as of Sept. 22, that is my favorite prayer. I wrote “as of Sept. 22” because it dawned on me that there is a paradox of how the prayer itself applies to the prayer—I am going to try to wake up on Sept. 23 and have set aside everything I think I know about my favorite prayers, just like everything else!

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 drunk was applying for a new job. A serious-looking personnel manager told her that the company needed an individual who was very responsible.

"I sure qualify, then," she said. "Everywhere I've worked, whenever something went wrong, I was responsible."

(Credit: AA Grapevine, December 2008, by Bob M. of Green Valley, 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 THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

Football is back, and man, I gotta say, I was very much looking forward to it this year.

I’ve had a topsy-turvy relationship with the sport over the years. I’m not even talking about the dangers of the sport itself—I certainly have days where I see a bunch of ugly injuries, or terrible behavior by people in the league, and I wonder why I am supporting that kind of sport with my eyeballs and dollars.

That’s all legit. I have gone back and forth on the sport and what it means to watch it and enjoy it. I think I’ve gotten to a place where I am okay with the sport itself.

I’m more interested right now in the idea of something that changes the way that I feel, and my relationship with that. Because football changes the way I feel. I like it. I look forward to it. I record games and watch them later. If I am having a bad day and there is a good game on TV that night, I often feel a little better. If it’s a fine day but a little boring, a good upcoming game perks me up a bit.

Now that might not sound like a big deal, because a good Monday Night Football game isn’t exactly the same as reaching for vodka and heroin. Watching too much football isn’t going to cause me to overdose on my bathroom floor.

But I do need to keep an eye on it. That’s my main point, and I have two different thoughts in my head. One is that recreational stuff like football or movies or playing tennis or board games can be a beautiful thing. I mean, I got sober to enjoy my time on this planet, so I’m okay with looking forward to things that help me escape a bit.

However, the other thought is that I do need to make sure my hobbies and interests don’t get out of control. I’ve definitely had periods where I do think it crossed over from a welcome fun release into something that could potentially be problematic.

For instance, I have participated in some gambling years ago, and some fantasy football contests that are borderline gambling, and I have to say, it’s not for me. Other people might be able to do it without any issues. But I avoid anything close to gambling because it amps up the stakes and I can feel it starting to stoke my addictive side, with potential serious consequences. It’s just not worth jeopardizing my sobriety because of betting on some football games.

Another example is that I occasionally blow off meetings or skip stuff with my family because I am obsessed with watching a football game. It doesn’t happen too much any more. But I still occasionally catch myself at a kid’s event, checking updates on my phone every 15 seconds. That’s not great, either.

But overall, I’ve settled into a football schedule that I am comfortable with and works with my other life obligations. I watch a ton of TV, probably more than 95 percent of people in this country. But it’s something I very much enjoy, and I’ve figured out a schedule where it doesn’t really impact anything.

And so my feelings as of September 2022 are that if you got sober and have stayed sober, you deserve to have things you love… and yes, maybe sometimes that thing runs from 1:05 pm till 12:05 am every single Sunday in the fall.

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:

BUMPER STICKER SEEN OUTSIDE AN AA MEETING

"There's no town drunk here—we all take turns."

(Credit: AA Grapevine, November 2008, by Deanna S. of Canton, Georgia)

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

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

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces 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 read a tweet the other day from a sober person that made me smile.

Then I looked at it again, and it made me laugh.

Then I read it a third time and it REALLY made me laugh. Now I can’t stop thinking about it.

It is so simple, yet so profound and so true… here goes:

“The worst part of being sober is knowing what’s going on.”

I found it funny for multiple reasons. One is just the literal meaning. Yes, when I got sober, I finally knew when my kids needed to be places, and when the actual deadline for work projects was, and how much money was in my savings account.

When I was drinking? Not so much. I buried my head in the sand every day with drugs and alcohol. That must have been such a nightmare for people dealing with me.

The second part that makes it funny is how true it is that knowing what’s going on can be painful. There was a reason I was numbing out every day to avoid being an adult—because being an adult can be tough! One of the fundamental slogans of sobriety is “life on life’s terms,” which is basically a direct answer to that tweet.

And the third thing that’s funny about it to me is that it’s not like I got over that feeling—I still have days where I don’t want to know what’s going on. I don’t want to know that that bill is due, or that one of my kids has to go to Target to buy socks and the store closes in 11 minutes, or any of the other b******t that gets in the way of me doing whatever I want, whenever I want to do it.

I had a tough work week last week, so I decided early this week that I would throttle down and relax. Go to the gym, watch a bunch of TV, and do the bare minimum as I recharged.

Well, it didn’t quite work out that way. I had a car fail its emissions test, I had multiple unexpected pickups to do for the kids, and a leaky faucet that had to be fixed right away… how dare the universe bog me down with all that b******t? Don’t you know how this was supposed to be my throttle down week?

Then I thought about that tweet, and remembered that if I don’t roll with what’s going on every day, I am going to be miserable. It’s impossible to plan out life and then have the whole plan go perfectly. It just doesn’t happen, and I know that, and I don’t know why I even try. It’s so silly. And yet… I’ll probably do it again tomorrow.

The good news is, like so many other things in sobriety, the more I laugh about it, the more it loses its power. So I owe a debt of gratitude to all the Twitter jokes—I am actually glad that I am sober and know what’s going on.

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

"Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic," was the meeting topic, prompting a newcomer to wax philosophic at great length from the point of view of reincarnation: "Was I an alcoholic in my previous lives? In some but not in others? Will I still be an alcoholic the next time I come back? And in the life after that? And hundreds of lives after that will I…?"

The stunned silence following this line of questioning was finally broken by an old-timer who patted the pilgrim on the knee and said gently, "Don't worry. In AA, we try to take things just one life at a time."

(Credit: AA Grapevine, November 2008, by Paul C. of 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 was on the road for work recently, so I was by myself for a few days in a hotel room 1,000 miles away from where I live. One evening, I was driving when a new song from Justin Bieber came on. It’s called “Lonely,” and the lyrics really hit me hard.

I’ll just read a section of them:

What if you had it allBut nobody to call?Maybe then you'd know me'Cause I've had everythingBut no one's listeningAnd that's just lonely

I'm so lonelyLonely

The song is about the dangers of fame, and how you can be surrounded by 100 people and yet feel completely alone. I get that. And I get it especially since I’ve gotten sober.

Of course, loneliness was a huge part of my active addiction. I retreated slowly and steadily for years onto a man-made island, constructed by me. My life was very small, with only a handful of people who I was close to, and zero people who actually knew what was going on with me.

And then I went to rehab and started going to 12-step meetings, and suddenly I had lots of new friends, and I had dozens of people who now knew the truth: I was an addict and an alcoholic, and I had been lying and hiding for years now.

Whew. There was definitely pain that came with the truth being out, but I mostly felt like the truth had set me free. Everybody knew, and everybody was very supportive. No more secrets. I felt like I had an army behind me.

That has mostly been the case ever since. But I learned years into sobriety that “lonely” and “by yourself” are two different things. I can be lonely in a full room of people, and I can feel loved and connected in a hotel room in Texas by myself if I have the right spiritual balance in my life.

I was thinking about this topic before I heard the new Bieber song, but the song reiterated to me that there is a version of sobriety where it looks good on paper. I have a job. I have a great family. I have enough money. I go to a few meetings every week and sit in the back. I call my sponsor once a week and leave a voicemail saying all is well. I say a prayer once in a while.

And maybe that would work. Key word: maybe. But even if I stayed sober and kept things steady, I’m not sure it’s the absolute best version of sobriety, though. I need to seek out deep connections with as many sober people as possible, and I need to be an active member of 12-step programs. I need to be the treasurer of groups. I need to chair a meeting once in a while. I need to sponsor people and be sponsored by somebody. I need to show up five minutes early to meetings, and leave five minutes late. I need to grab every hand that reaches out for help, and I need to reach out my hand for help without any reservations.

The good news is, I’m doing most of that stuff right now, and I am seeing the dividends. But I still identify with what Justin Bieber is signing about—that your life can be full, even as you retreat into the background of it.

So thanks, Biebs, I really appreciate the reminder!

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 chairperson at a meeting in the Bronx, New York, said that on one of his benders he got down on his knees and prayed, "Please get me out of this one, and I'll get out of the next one myself."

(Credit: AA Grapevine, November 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!

I took my family to Disney this year, and my youngest daughter really wanted a giant beach ball as a souvenir. She saw some kids who had bought one at the hotel gift shop and then had been playing with it in the pool.

She wanted to do that, too, but I talked her out of it and got her to buy something else. My logic was that I didn’t want to have to lug a giant beach ball home.

I told my wife about it later, and she laughed and said, “You know you can deflate a beach ball into a small chunk of rubber that fits easily into a piece of luggage, right?”

The answer is… yeah, I guess I knew that but it didn’t quite dawn on me when I was haggling with my daughter.

I bring this up because I have been thinking a lot lately about a theory I have about my sobriety, which I call the Backpack Theory. Let me explain the Backpack Theory.

I think about my life as though I put on a backpack every morning and I wear it around all day, at all times. When the backpack is empty, I start to forget I even have a backpack on.

But that’s not usually how it works. I start to collect things throughout the day—frustrations, stuff that I need to do but I am procrastinating about, fears about work projects, insecurity about money, a headache or other physical pain, a difficult conversation I have to have with one of my kids, and on and on.

I start collecting those things within five seconds of waking up. I start packing them into the backpack and then I strap it on and start trying to move around that day. The backpack is obviously a metaphorical backpack—I promise you, I am not in the kitchen getting my coffee for the morning in underwear and a backpack. But you get what I mean.

There’s two ways I move through life with my backpack on, accumulating grudges and irritations and gossip and s**t-talk and self-pity.

I either pack it all in the backpack all day until I feel like I can’t take another step because it’s gotten so heavy and burdensome. When I do that, I find myself very unbalanced and out of whack, and it is not good.

Or—to go back to the beach ball story—I deflate the thing and stuff it into the bottom of the backpack and it doesn’t weigh me down and throw me off balance.

The better way is obvious, isn’t it? But I choose option No. 1 sometimes, because sometimes I still like to have the weight of the world on me, even though it’s b******t. There’s something exciting and definitely NOT boring about having a big bag of stuff that sets you on fire inside.

But it’s not very sustainable. I can’t have many days like that. Actually, I can’t have many afternoons or three-hour stretches like that. I need to deflate that stuff right away.

So the next obvious question is, how do you deflate those things?

The single biggest thing I do sometimes is a mini fourth step. I will take something that is bothering me, write down what it is, what it affects (that’s pride, ego, insecurity, etc.) and then try to figure out my role in it. Sometimes that takes 15 seconds—it can be on the back of a napkin or in my Notes app on my phone. It doesn’t have to be a six-hour meditation on that clown who lives up the street. It can be a 60-second meditation on the clown that lives up the street!

Sometimes I don’t even formally write down a fourth step. I had one recently where I called three sober friends over the course of about a day and a half, and I aired out the situation. We talked through what my role was, and I ultimately processed it and deflated that beach ball. One less thing for the backpack.

I also noticed recently that sometimes a mini fourth step doesn’t completely wipe out the thing bothering me. It does, however, usually suck a huge percentage of anger out of the issue. And if I can have a difficult situation in my life where my head is in an 80 percent better place, that’s a big victory and I will take it. Living a life 100 percent free of anything bothersome is something I haven’t seen happen for myself, so hanging onto that idea is pretty delusional at this point.

So I guess the bottom line I want to ask myself every day is, how much do I want to put in that backpack today? Do I want it stuffed to the point where I am about to tumble over backwards? Or do I want to have a light backpack that I barely notice? It’s often my choice.

Oh, and one other bottom line: We’re talking about hitting Disney again next year for vacation, and I think I owe my daughter a beach ball. An UNINFLATED beach ball.

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

After a recent meeting, one man was sharing with another the news of his recent job promotion. "I've got a big pair of shoes to fill," he said.

The other replied, "The job will probably work out better if you just wear your own shoes."

(Credit: AA Grapevine, November 2008, by Tim G. of Seattle, Washington)

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