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 have been watching a ton of TV and movies in my free time the past year or so, and it’s been remarkable how much addiction and recovery end up being plot lines these days. In fact, I can’t remember the last show that ran for any length of time where drugs and alcohol were NOT a part of the show.

So with that in mind, I’d like to introduce you to Sober Review. I’m going to take TV shows and movies in which addiction and/or recovery are a central part of the show, and I’ll review them. I’ll give you an overall grade and opinion on what I thought of the show, but I will also assess the way the show treats addicts and alcoholics. I’ve certainly seen my fair share of ridiculous portrayals, that’s for sure.

For my first Sober Review, I decided to watch the first season of the HBO show Euphoria. It’s now four or five episodes into Season 2. The two biggest stars in the show are probably Zendaya and Sydney Sweeney, though you might recognize Eric Dane, too (he was a doctor on Grey’s Anatomy). The show is very complex and nuanced, but the plot description is pretty simple: It’s young adults, mostly high school students, doing what young adults do—they have messy experiments with drugs, alcohol, sex, love and identity. Almost every one of the kid’s is flailing around, trying to figure out who they are, and many of them use drugs and alcohol to help them figure that out. I have no experience whatsoever with that, RIGHT?!?!

I will try to do a spoiler-free review in case you want to give the show a try.

ADDICTION

All right, let me start with the way that drugs and alcohol are represented on the show. They are represented A LOT. Like, I don’t know that I have ever seen more partying in a tv show or movie than exists in Euphoria. In fact, if you struggle with addiction yourself, I gotta say, you might want to avoid this show because I could see it being quite triggering. The entire show revolves around drugs and alcohol and wild party scenes. I’d proceed with caution for all those addicts out there.

But as far as accuracy, I recognized a lot of the mayhem. Overdoing it, fighting, lashing out with words, breaking up with one person and hooking up with another, terrible day-after hangovers, lying to parents… oof, it’s too accurate, and it’s obvious that people with experience themselves play a huge part in putting this show together.

I will say this to all of the sober parents out there: As a father to several teenagers, I found the show to be scary but illuminating in understanding my kids and what they face every day, what people probably text them, what temptations are out there. I bet lots of you fellow addict and alcoholic parents will see it that way. But… I bet lots of sober people with kids will find this flat-out horrifying and cover their eyes. So think about how much you want to actually know before you fire up Euphoria.

RECOVERY

OK, now let’s talk about recovery. There is a ton of sobriety and recovery in this show, too. There is a diner scene in one of the later episodes in Season 1 where a struggling addict kid sits down with a guy who has a long time sober working in a 12-step program. They talk addiction. They talk recovery. They talk sponsorship. They talk amends. They talk higher powers. I’ve never seen anything that thorough about recovery, and I found myself nodding along for most of it.

Two parts about this scene did make me raise my eyebrows, though. First, it’s a 50-year-old dude sponsoring a 17- or 18-year-old high school girl. I think most sober people that I know would frown upon that dynamic. Euphoria portrays it in a powerful, non-sexual, seemingly-healthy way, and again, I found the scene very moving and authentic. But if a man I knew asked me if he could sponsor a high school girl in early sobriety, I think I would tell him that is not a great idea.

The second part is their conversation about finding a higher power. The sponsee raises all the questions that so many of us have about religion versus spirituality, about higher power versus God, about poking and prodding about “Maybe I can stay sober without the higher power thing.” I thought the sober dude was a little too dismissive of what the character suggested she could use as a higher power (for example, she said she thinks there are powers greater than her, like the ocean, and she asks if she could use the ocean as her higher power. He says no way).

All in all, I think the recovery aspect of this is about as deep as I’ve seen on screen.

OVERALL GRADE

I’m giving Euphoria an 87 percent on my grading scale, which, again, factors in accuracy of portrayal of addiction and sobriety as much as “Is this show good?” This show is good. I already explained why I really like it—I think it is a B+ level show.

Now let me explain why I deducted a few points.

The biggest negative for me watching the show is how unsettling it can be to watch a show that is this graphic, mostly revolving around young women’s lives, when they show the first few credits at the end—Sam Levinson is the creator, the director and the executive producer. I found it a little uncomfortable to think of him writing and directing a bunch of these scenes.

Semi-related, this is an artsy show. There are flash forwards and flashbacks, and dream sequences, and unreliable narrators. I’d say 95 percent of the time, I found it brilliant. But in one or two scenes in every episode, I had a moment where I thought, “OK, you’re purposely trying to confuse the viewer here” or “Did we really need that 60-second slow-motion montage of every character with a bright light shining on their face?”

I took off a few points for how much the camera lingers on very difficult stuff—drugs, alcohol, sex, violence. There’s a certain queasiness already associated with watching young people live like this, but I felt like the director, Sam Levinson, took his time lingering on some of the tough stuff for a little too long. There’s a line where a show can go from illuminating to just trying to shock.

I also took off a point for the higher power conversation. I thought it was just slightly more narrow than my understanding of what a higher power can be, and I didn’t like it being on screen like that just in case anybody else out there watched it and decided that it reinforced their decision to not try recovery.

I also docked a few points because of a wild legal situation in Season 1 that has a preposterous resolution, where somebody else confesses to a crime other than the actual perpetrator, and witnesses come forward and confirm the lie. All of these people are very young, and speak to police with no attorneys and without telling their parents. It’s absurd, and I normally could live with some absurdity but this show nails so much else about life in a very real way. To have a complex legal situation resolved in five minutes by having everybody go down to the police station alone and make up a story… it felt like a big mis-step to me and out of place in such an authentic show.

So that’s what I thought of Euphoria. If you’re watching it and have thoughts, feel free to to comment here. Thanks for letting me share!

In case you missed it, I put together a fun mini comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes. Check it out HERE! (It’s behind a paywall)

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 never a sloppy drinker. I was always very proper—I always made sure my drink was on the bar before I feel off the stool.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, April 2005, by Brian D. from Minneapolis, Minnesota)

Please spread the word to a sober friend! Find me on Substack… or Twitter… or Facebook… or Instagram… or YouTube. A…

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 watched the new version of the movie Dune a few weeks ago, and I loved it. One of the things I loved the most about it was that it has a bunch of cool technology in it.

My favorite futuristic item was a force field that is generated by a wrist watch. You hit the force field button, and it surrounds you like a bubble. Except it’s not a completely impenetrable force field. It endures most of the damage of somebody shooting at you or swinging a sword at you, but it’s a little like a bullet proof vest in that it isn’t perfect protection. It can eventually be broken through.

The reason I love that vulnerable force field is that it reminds me of me. At one of my first meetings, I heard somebody say they had a big ego and low esteem, and I was like, “Whoa, it’s like they are talking directly to me.”

That’s the truth: I have thin skin and think very highly of myself, which is a toxic mix. And because of that mixture, I also often think very low of myself, too. Up and down, up and down.

When I was in active addiction, that meant the slightest turbulence pushed me to numb out and get blasted. I’d drink at the problem, and it would wipe out most of the pain or fear. Not all of it—I still felt it. I remember getting into a disagreement with a work colleague one day and just sitting there at my desk, stewing, looking over the cubicles at the top of his head 20 feet away, downing pills and chewing Skoal. “Take that, a*****e!” I thought. Like drugging at it would take care of the problem.

But that never quite worked. The problem didn’t go away. The can just got kicked down the road. And by the end of my drinking and drugging days, I was plastered all the time, on good days or bad, it didn’t matter. I was still trying to use it as my force field, though.

Now fast forward into recovery. I was terrified of living without drugs and alcohol because life without my armor was terrifying! What would I do during a disagreement? Maybe just start running away? Fighting with the person? Screaming at them? Crying… just sobbing and collapsing to the ground?

Well, I found a new force field in sobriety. Recovery has helped me get to the middle place emotionally, where I have ambition and high standards but don’t think I am the best in the world. I think my skin is a little thicker—I said, a “little” thicker—and I haven’t dropped to the ground in tears recently. The force field is still a lot like the one in Dune—it exists, it blocks most things, but it can be penetrated, that’s for sure.

To get more specific about what my recovery force field is, I have found that I need a steady dose of sobriety. I’ve tried the thing where I go to meetings on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and load up all in a row, but it doesn’t work for me. By Wednesday at lunch time, recovery is far enough in the rearview mirror that I start getting a little jumpy.

I need some spiritual stuff every day to build up the force field. I meditate for 20 minutes each day, and I usually talk to one other recovery person every single day. Right now, I am hitting in-person meetings on Sunday and Monday, then Zoom meetings on Wednesday and Thursday. That spreads it out nicely. But even then, on Saturday evenings sometimes, I can be a little squirrelly.

All that said, the force field goes down sometimes, and it sucks. But it’s also part of sober life. I can’t numb out to bumpy moments any more, I have to try to walk through them. I went to an incredible Sunday meeting a few weeks ago and felt wonderful that night. On Monday morning… train wreck. I had a rocky interaction with my family, then a tough phone call, then a not-so-spiritually-fit Zoom meeting and I felt like a mess inside.

I also started working out a lot about a year and a half ago, so I went for a run and thought back to that Sunday meeting. It had been a fantastic blend of people with lots of time, and newcomers, and people in pain, and people who had felt similar pain but battled through it sober. It was everything recovery is all about—living life on life’s terms, even when life’s terms suck.

By the time I got back from the run, I felt much better and I felt like I was heading into the final part of the day with the force field back up. It was a very sweaty force field, but it was up.

In case you missed it, I put together a fun mini comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes. Check it out HERE! (It’s behind a paywall)

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:

Two men attended a funeral and were talking.

“What killed him?” one man asked.

“Booze,” the second man said.

“Did he ever try AA?” the first man asked.

“Oh no, he wasn’t really all THAT bad.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, March 2005, 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!

Somebody asked me the other day, “When did you know you were an addict?” I’ve thought about that question many times over the years, and I’ve probably given 20 different answers. I guess that’s what happens when there are soooooo many options to choose from.

For instance:

I know how I felt the first time I drank, and I know I thought I wanted to do that every day for the rest of my life.

For instance:

I know the first time I felt the rush come over me from painkillers, and I felt the same way as I did when I drank that first time.

For instance:

I know the first time I had been drinking for multiple days in a row and then had a night where I couldn’t drink, and I remember how excruciating it was to NOT drink. I certainly felt like an alcoholic that night.

But let me give you one that I have been thinking about a lot recently because it is such a good summary of how I think, even in sobriety. I’ll give you a little back story, then the anecdote that has been on my mind lately.

When I went to college, I had partied hard a bunch of times in high school. But I hadn’t actually drank very often. I had never done any drugs, even weed. I had never smoked or chewed tobacco, even though dipping was big in my family and with my friends. Now that I look back on it, I was actually pretty innocent heading off to school.

Not for long.

My first semester, we hit the beer and vodka hard. Not every night, but close to it. I lived in a house with four other guys, rather than the dorms, and that was a terrible idea. We’d even get kegs sometimes and just have beer siting there like an all-you-can-drink buffet.

My roommates also introduced me to my first cigarette. I had pretty bad feelings toward smoking before I got to college, and whoo boy, that changed quickly. I started smoking Marlboro Lights, then was on to Marlboro Reds within two weeks. I got up to a few beers and 10 cigarettes every day in a hurry, and then went really crazy on the weekends with partying.

In fact, I often would pregame pretty hard by myself before the actual parties, and it all culminated with me starting to take a shower at 6 or 7 pm on Friday and Saturday nights, right before we went out. But I would take two beers into the shower, and also a cigarette and a lighter. And then I would drink and smoke while I took a shower.

Let me just repeat that… I WOULD DRINK AND SMOKE IN THE SHOWER GETTING READY TO GO DRINK AND SMOKE ALL NIGHT. Do you know how hard it is to smoke a cigarette during a shower? It’s pretty freaking hard!

So that is a pretty wild example of me taking things to an absolutely crazy extreme. I’d love to say that now that my active addiction days are over, I don’t do absurd things like that any more. But then I think about caffeine, and donuts, and cookies, and good TV shows, and hell, bad TV shows… one is too many, 1,000 is never enough, as the old saying goes.

But hey, at least I don’t binge-watch Ozark in the shower.

Actually, now that I think about it, I wonder if that’s possible…

In case you missed it, I put together a fun mini comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes. Check it out HERE! (It’s behind a paywall)

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:

After attending a few AA meetings, I realized why they use the term “barfly” to describe us. We barf and we lie.

(Credit: AA Grapevine, December 2006, by Dan H.)

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 a topic in mind for today but changed my mind at the last minute, so this is a short one.

I saw a meme a few days ago that Bill Wilson, one of the originators of 12-step thinking, died on Jan. 24, 1971. The meme was commemorating the anniversary of his death and it said, “Thank God for the drunk who discovered only a drunk can help another drunk.”

I’m not sure I entirely co-sign on that specific line about how only a drunk can help another drunk. It’s certainly how I got sober and have stayed sober, and if any time I have ever met somebody struggling with active addiction and they ask me what to do, I recommend starting with 12-step recovery. I love it.

But if you told me you got sober by going to rehab and seeing a therapist and going to church and doing whatever else to avoid drinking, I’d say, “Hell yeah, congrats.” That’s not the recipe for me. But I have nothing against other ways people have gotten sober. You do you.

The point of the meme, though, was a great one for me. I still read 12-step literature sometimes and can’t believe some of it is 80 years old and written by a handful of people, with no real experience getting sober. Talk about innovators.

And Bill W. was obviously a critical component of that. I’ve read a lot about him in my time in recovery, and he was certainly a human being, with real human being struggles and mis-steps. But holy crap, what a legacy. I read the entire book “12 Steps and 12 Traditions” recently, and some of the concepts they cooked up in the early 1950s about how to get sober and clean up your life are so ahead-of-their-time that it is hard to fathom.

Then there is the actual sentiment in that meme, about the power of one drunk person helping another. What a basic, but huge, thought. It certainly has worked that way for me. The intimacy of working with another man on stopping drugs and alcohol and starting to make real change… it’s impossible to describe in words. I’ve seen it work miracles, over and over and over again.

When I step back at look at how the miracle of my sobriety is connected to the miracle of sobriety in a bunch of other men, whose sobriety is connected to a bunch of other men… it’s the most beautiful infectious disease in history. And Bill W. is a real groundbreaker in that.

So Bill, we miss you, and this drunk thanks you for being a drunk who worked with a drunk, who worked with another drunk, who worked with a drunk who worked with me. What a gift.

In case you missed it, I put together a fun mini comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes. Check it out HERE! (It’s behind a paywall)

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:

Each year, on my AA anniversary, my sponsor doesn’t give me a medallion. Instead, he hands me a get well card.

(Credit: AA Grapevine, October 2006, from Richael K. of Haverhill, 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 THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

A subscriber reached out to me recently and asked if I would talk a little about shame, and I said screw you, nobody tells me what to do. Just kidding… I loved the suggestion and will always take feedback like that.

Wow, what a topic. I had a few thoughts so I decided to just list them. In general, I will say that I no longer feel a lot of shame. I certainly used to. I would think back on certain important moments, and I either wasn’t there, or I was there but not actually really there.

A specific one that I still think about sometimes is that I get this pang in my stomach that I think used to be shame when I think about how my first two daughters were born into delivery rooms where I was absolutely hammered and trying to figure out how to get painkillers from the doctors as my wife gave birth. Oof.

But I’m at a place now where everything that I used to feel shame about is now guilt. I can live with guilt. Not so much with shame.

Here are a few things that came to mind.

* The 12 steps helped enormously. Working the steps with a sponsor helped me figure out resentments, my character defects and how to make amends to people. I can’t tell you how much that cleaned up some of the shame, but it was A LOT. With guidance, I was able to talk about 90 percent of the things that ate away at me, then try to make those situations right.

* More specifically, when I did my Fifth Step with a trusted sober friend, it was a game changer. He’d heard my first four steps, heard the worst parts of me from the past and the worst parts of me that were still feeding me resentments every day. And at the end, he said he identified with me and had worked through some of the same things, and that he loved me and supported me. WAIT, WHAT?!?! I felt so much air get let out of the shame in that moment. It was like a shame balloon deflating right in front of me. (Quick side note: I’ve told this story before, but it’s appropriate here. When I got done with my Fifth Step, my friend said, “Great job, I love you.” I felt very awkward and said, “Uh, ok, but if we’re going to love each other, I feel like we should know each others’ last names.” He died laughing and told me his, and I told him mine, and he promised me this was not a one-night stand.)

* Recovery taught me a new way to apologize. I’d said sorry over and over again my whole life for bad stuff, and nobody wanted to hear that from me any more. They wanted to know that I meant it and was doing everything I could to not do it again. And I mostly did that once I got sober for awhile. In sobriety, I spent a lot of time paying attention to the way our literature and sober people talk about the concept of owning bad deeds. We’re told to keep our side of the street clean, make amends when necessary and accept the consequences. We’re also told if somebody doesn’t want your apology, or says to lose their phone number and never call again, we accept that, too, without over-investing in their response. I’ve had circumstances where I own something and somebody says, “Yep, thanks, but leave me alone” and it stings… but it is what it is. Accepting that is hard but I’ve learned how to do it. I can own something without it owning me.

* Don’t freaking do the shameful thing again! It sounds so simple that I don’t need to say it out loud, but I need to hear it and be reminded of it. I’ll give you one specific example from my active addiction days that caused me and others lots of heartache even years later: I would sometimes lash out and say really mean stuff to people. Like, the kind of stuff that could end relationships or change them forever in a bad way. In sobriety, I had to reckon with stuff that was said—I couldn’t take it back! But I learned how to make amends the best I could, and then it’s critical TO NOT DO IT AGAIN. When I said sorry for lashing out that one time a year ago, the key part was often that it happened one time, not 26 times. I could then feel a little guilty that it was said in the first place… but move out of shame and focus on not doing it again.

* I titled this “The shame of shame” because I often am too hard on myself and spend way too much time looking back and wishing something was different. That’s such a waste of time! I can’t change it. I don’t have a time machine. I can’t wipe it from your brain. It happened. I need to own the past but not beat the living s**t out of myself about it or else I’m in danger of either drinking over it or being off the spiritual beam now. I had somebody say to me once, “Beat yourself up with a feather, not a baseball bat.” So what I mean by the shame of shame is that if I have shame, and feel shame about the shame, that’s like giving myself two life sentences when I probably don’t even deserve one. It’s unnecessary roughness that does no good.

* Last but not least… recovery doesn’t fix every problem. As hilarious and brilliant as I am, I’m not a doctor, dentist, attorney, psychiatrist, PTSD expert or anything else resembling an actual smart person. I can say, though, that I have seen individual therapists, pain management doctors regarding my chronic pain, and a marriage therapist, and grown quite a bit from that. I remember I had about 10 years sober, and my life was humming along pretty good. But my wife suggested marriage therapy to help us communicate better, and I initially was thinking, “Eh, I’m doing pretty great. If she feels like there are issues, it’s probably because she needs to see somebody.” I talked to some recovery friends about it, though, and they all basically said, “What could possibly be the harm? Even if you both don’t learn anything new and you stop going after two months, it will go a long way toward showing you care about your relationship that you both tried.” So we went, and it was great. A very good marriage got even better, and we did learn some stuff about productive ways to talk to somebody you love.

That’s all I got for today. If anybody else has suggestions, please hit me up. I’m practically out of good ideas so I need you guys!!!

In case you missed it, I put together a fun mini comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes. Check it out HERE! (It’s behind a paywall)

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 drunk and his wife were dining out at a pub. The husband kept glancing at a woman busy downing several drinks at the bar. As the evening wore on, she grew drunker and more boisterous.

The wife asked, "Do you know her?"

"Yes," sighed the alcoholic husband. "She's my ex-wife. She took to drinking right after we were divorced, seven years ago. I hear she hasn't been sober since."

"My goodness!" said the wife. "Who would think a person could go on celebrating that long?"

(Credit: AA Grapevine, September 2006, from Richard M. of Golden, Colorado)

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

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

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

I’ve moved about 10 times in my life, and I do the same thing every time. I pack up all the boxes, get all the couches and chairs and tables ready for the movers… then look around and realize there are 193 small things still hiding in corners of the house or apartment.

The last time we moved, we had three cats, and I spent two unexpected hours just sweeping up cat hair and cat toys and bowls and a bunch of other cat stuff. We had three living cats, and at least two more cats-worth of extra fur lurking under beds and radiators.

That reminded me of one of my favorite sayings I have heard in sobriety, which is: You can take the alcohol out of the alcoholic, but that still leaves a lot of “ick.”

That is sooooooo true for me. My first year of sobriety, I went to rehab, started doing 12-step meetings and I didn’t drink or do drugs. Boom, 90 percent of my problems improved immensely, and quickly.

But after a year or so, I noticed some other bad habits, bad attitudes and bad thinking that were a lot like that cat hair hiding under the bed. That was the “ick” left over after active alcoholism.

Let me tell you, that stuff has been hard to get rid of! I have spent a good chunk of my most recent years in sobriety wrestling with my factory settings, which I think fall under the general umbrella of character defects. I have a bunch of things about me that are problematic… but not THAT problematic.

For instance, I have spoken here a lot about how I am energized by arguing. I like debating the best quarterback in NFL history, or what they should do with that abandoned property on the other side of town, or who should be president of the United States, or who should be president of my house… if there is a president of something, I will argue with you about it!

I will say that I avoid roughly 90-95 percent of all arguments that are available to me every day. But it’s hard. I have quite a few argumentative texts, emails, Slacks, SnapChats and tweets that were halfway toward initiating a disagreement with you but ended up in the delete pile. As an old sober friend of mine once told me, “You’re someone who needs a drafts folder.”

I replied, “Oh, like for emails?”

He said, “No, like, for EVERYTHING.”

So yeah, that’s one of those parts of the “ick.” I think the reason some of the “ick” is so hard to truly get rid of is that sometimes it causes us pain but sometimes it serves us well. Go back to that argumentative thing I described earlier… sometimes I will debate my family about what restaurant we should order from, and I end up winning. Guess what? I like that. I wanted Buffalo Wild Wings and verbally wore you down until you said you wanted Buffalo Wild Wings, too. Yay!

Or in the case of something getting screwed up, if I make the case for why it’s your fault, not mine, and that’s what we settle on… I like that, too!

But I don’t REALLY like that because it’s a short-term hit, just like drugs and alcohol used to be. Sure, I feel good about it for a few minutes, maybe even an hour or two. But that person I just bulldozed to get my way? I probably have to deal with that person again, and it usually is the case that that person now approaches me like I am an enormous a*****e. So it’s not a sustainable way to behave.

Here’s the good news about the “ick” that I sometimes forget. Sobriety is a journey—a long journey, comprised of one day followed by another day and then another day. The 12-step programs don’t say anything about ultimatums or expiration dates on recovery—there’s no “You have 90 days to stop bickering or else YOU’RE OUT!” My experience in recovery has been that I have to keep trying, keep pushing hard, keep asking for a higher power’s guidance, keep asking for other sober men to hold me accountable for my behaviors, and to keep being open-minded and willing.

So I do think I have an obligation to keep working on my “ick,” especially the arguing thing. Just, like, maybe don’t ask me about the NFL playoffs for awhile till I get this sorted out!

In case you missed it, I put together a fun mini comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes. Check it out HERE! (It’s behind a paywall)

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’ve put my drinking career so far behind me that it’s just around the corner.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, August 2006, from Jim of Minnesota)

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

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I try to have some humility about it, but I obviously like to hear myself talk. In case you’re keeping track, I do an anonymous newsletter about the funny side of sobriety, and I perform standup comedy, and I’ll argue with you about college football for free at the grocery store if you ask me. Just pull me aside in the crouton aisle and LET’S FIGHT!

So, yeah, I am a bit of a class clown. One of my biggest battles since I stopped drinking and drugging is to stop being full of s**t. I used to lie and cheat and spin stories to get me off the hook for things, or to look better, and it’s not like you subtract the drugs and alcohol and that behavior goes away.

I need to say that out loud, because even though our recovery literature talks a lot about not having to be the hole in the donut when we get sober, it also doesn’t say, “Always put on a great show at recovery meetings!”

I’m bringing this up because I got asked to share my story at a meeting a few months ago, and I said yes… but honestly, I have this side of me that immediately thought, “Everybody has heard my story lots of times, including me. We’re all sick of hearing it. What could I do to spruce it up? Maybe I could do like TV show writers in their sixth season, where they have add new guest stars, maybe drop in a cameo or two, maybe have a big twist at the end. HOLY S**T, IT WAS ALL JUST A DREAM!”

I didn’t do that, and I don’t want to be doing that. In recovery, we’re encouraged to talk about our experience, strength and hope. Nowhere does it say, “Make sure you liven things up a bit once you’ve been sober for a little while.”

It also encourages us to not be a glum lot, though, and not to take ourselves too seriously. So I do think that gives me a little leeway to tell my story in a way that carries my favorite message—which is that, for me, sobriety has been a joyous, hilarious ride that is ever-evolving. That’s an important point for me: the evolution within sobriety.

You know how at every meeting somebody says, “Geez, I’ve read this chapter 100 times and don’t remember that sentence right there!” I remember saying that to myself once and then realizing that it wasn’t that I didn’t read it before, or didn’t remember it—it’s that I am a different person day to day, month to month and year to year. There are certain things in recovery that just don’t resonate when you’re a newcomer, or don’t resonate when you have been sober a long time.

For example, my first time through the steps, Steps One Four changed my life. I thoroughly admitted I had an unmanageable problem and needed help to deal with it, and then I worked through everything that made me angry about the world. Total game changers.

In recent years when I went through the steps, I found Steps Six and Seven really jumped out at me. I have character defects that have lingered for years now, and there were multiple parts of that process where I felt like I had read something or heard something for the first time. That wasn’t really true—I just hadn’t been ready to hear about character defects my first time through.

So here’s where I landed on how to tell my story: I did it truthfully, without any extra car crashes or bonus director’s cut footage to make it sexier. I don’t want to be in that business.

But I did tell it my way. I prayed for guidance and felt like that was the response I was guided toward. I drilled down a little bit more specifically on two angles—I spoke specifically about the phrase “we are not a glum lot” and how that has helped me get sober and stay sober. And I spoke about how I have been thinking a lot recently about the various stages of recovery and what I learned during each one. For instance, I’ve discovered some cool things during the pandemic that have been awesome supplements to a sober life.

Did I end up hamming it up a bit? Nah, no way, not me! I would never do such a thing!

In case you missed it, I put together a fun mini comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes. Check it out HERE! (It’s behind a paywall)

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 was in and out of AA for fifteen years, and I finally realized that AA is a 12 Step program, not a 12 stand still program. So I started working the Steps."

(Credit: AA Grapevine, June 2006, from Bill M.)

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!

John Madden died recently. He was a legendary sports broadcaster who was also well-known for pitching a zillion different products and putting his name on a video game that changed the esports industry forever.

I ended up reading and listening to a lot of discussions about Madden’s impact, and I heard one story about him that really stuck with me. A TV producer friend of his said Madden once mentioned he had to call another TV producer friend of his who was in his mid-20s.

Madden’s friend gave him a quizzical look and said, “You’re 75 years old and retired. How do you know a TV person in his 20s?”

Madden replied that he met him once, and liked him and was rooting for him. But then he told his friend that he thinks it’s very important for people to always have friends in every age class. So he said he wanted to have at least a friend or two in their 20s, 30s, 40s and so on. He said when he was in his 30s, he made sure he talked regularly to people in their 80s and 90s.

His friend still had that befuddled look on his face, and Madden elaborated. He said he thought it was valuable to have wisdom from all age groups and demographics. He said he saw too many 20-year-olds who only talked to 20-year-olds, and too many 55-year-olds who only heard from other 55-year-olds.

Wow, that hit home for me when it comes to recovery. I have gone through many phases in sobriety regarding my circle of support. At the beginning, I was 32 years old and had a mix of other 30s people who were new to sobriety—most of them were fellow newcomers from my rehab—and a large group of men in their 50s and 60s with long periods without drugs and alcohol. I eventually migrated more toward the old-timers because I saw a lot of relapsing going around with my peer group and I felt like I needed to stick with people who had what I wanted.

A few years into sobriety, I found myself gravitating more toward people at a similar stage of their life: lates 30s/early 40s, married with kids, doing okay in their career but not the CEO of their company. I liked being around people battling through the same stuff, at the same time, as I was.

But I also have subscribed to something similar to what John Madden described. No matter where I’ve been in recovery, I almost always end up talking regularly with somebody who’s 25, 35, 45, 55, 65 and 75. I don’t have a lot of people above that in my inner circle, but I am happy to keep adding. If you’re a 100-year-old dude who wants to talk, call me!

So why is that beneficial, you may be wondering? Well, I love the different brands of wisdoms people at all those stages of life bring. I love the energy of young people in recovery, because I often end up seeing people just getting started in life who are busting their asses to make sure they stay sober. There’s an incredible amount of hunger in their recovery programs, and I find that kind of energy to be infectious in a good way.

I like talking to 45-year-olds with teenagers and lots of college applications and middle management headaches because I certainly have experience with those things right now in this part of my life! I also love learning from others in this general demographic about how they keep recovery fresh—I’ve found it pretty easy to fall into a pattern of going to the same meetings and hearing from the exact same people. I love getting into a groove in recovery, but I also don’t want to cross over into complacency. That’s a dangerous spot for me, and there is a thin line between comfort and complacent. So I like hearing other moms and dads with some sobriety under their belt who are pushing themselves to stay sober and keep getting MORE sober.

I guess if I had to summarize why that quote spoke to me so much, it’s that I have found no sobriety requirement for wisdom. I’ve met 30-year-olds with 5 years sober who say the most valuable thing I’ve heard all day, and I’ve heard 72-year-olds with 25 days sober who also provide me with something that made me more sober that day. It just doesn’t matter… but I do think I raise my chances of having an awesome balanced program by talking to all ages and all sobriety dates.

So rest in peace, John Madden… but thank you for the reminder about what my inner circle looks like.

In case you missed it, I put together a fun mini comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes. Check it out HERE! (It’s behind a paywall)

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 slice of pizza is in the stomach, waiting to be digested.

Suddenly, a shot of whiskey barrels down. The pizza lets it pass in front of him. A few minutes later, another shot of whiskey comes through. Courteously, the pizza lets it pass in front of him, too. A few minutes later, a third shot of whiskey tumbles into the stomach.

The pizza asks the whiskey, "What's going on up there?"

"They're having a great party!" says the whiskey.

"Really?" responds the pizza. "I think I'll go up there and take a look."

(Credit: AA Grapevine, May 2006, from Jay C.)

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

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

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

When the pandemic began and it became clear I was going to be working from home for awhile, I made a vow to start cleaning out my house. I promised I was going to go through all of my old boxes and clothes, figure out what I could donate and what was garbage, and clean out my basement.

I’m proud to say I followed through on that vow.

Did it take me 22 months to crack open the first box? Yes. Yes, it did. But hey, I was getting warmed up for the past two years, ya know?

In all seriousness, I started going through boxes this weekend and I brought one up that blew my mind. It was all of my paperwork from 2007 and 2008. So it was bills, taxes, health insurance statements, etc. from the worst period of my life. I got sober in November of 2008, so this was mostly a paper trail through the ugliest, darkest days of active addiction.

I’m not someone who forgets what those days were like. I remember vividly what the bottom looked like and felt like, and I can tell you 10 stories off the top of my head about how I should have died every day and how terrible it was. I don’t need any help keeping it green, as we say in the 12-step programs. It’s still pretty freaking green in my brain.

But this was a paper trail. This was a documented walk down that path, and even if I remember those days clearly, it was still the kind of refresher that I could use once in a while.

The paperwork was basically in chronological order, with the top being early 2007—when the sharp decline into constant overdoses and flushing my life down the toilet—and the bottom being the end of 2008, right after I got into recovery.

Here’s what I found from the addiction part of that time period:

—An insane amount of medical bills, many of which were fake injuries and made-up visits to urgent cares and pain management clinics to get painkillers.

—A large amount of medical bills for my wife and newborn kids that were unpaid and heading for collection agencies. I always paid for my medical “needs” first.

—About $96,000 in credit card debt, with constant late fees and threatened cancelations. There were at least five of those bills that were sent to collection agencies. I also found a bunch of loan applications that were all rejected… I was trying to borrow money from Discover to pay off the Capital One credit card that I used to pay off the Chase credit card.

—Nonstop overdue bills. I just rotated what I could and would pay, and then I’d get late car insurance and electric bills that said “Gentle reminder” because I was three months late.

—Bills from a psychologist that I went to for awhile to appease the people around me. I think I visited his office 50 times and I’m not sure I told the truth to him one time. I just wanted people off my ass, and I was willing to pay $75 out of pocket per week to stay drunk every day. Though, according to the paperwork, I actually didn’t pay him on time very often.

—Job evaluations that were… not good. Not terrible, either. I managed to be an average or “just good enough to not fire” kind of employee. But it wasn’t exactly proud reading what was in that box as far as my workplace. It was somebody just barely hanging on.

I could keep going but you get the point: If I were trying to convict myself of being a drunk and a junkie, I just found Exhibits A-Z to enter into evidence. And shocker, it would have been an easy conviction. This was a perfect time capsule of a terrible life—a life with a wonderful wife and two very young kids that was falling apart. It was pretty sad, to be honest.

I’ve found the longer I’m sober, the more I have repaired the old damage and can laugh about it now. But that means I think I sometimes round down the sharpest edges so they don’t cut as deep. Lemme tell you, looking through that paperwork, it cut deep.

But then I got down to the bottom of the box, and I saw a few bills that were paid on time and I found pamphlets and service guides for the 12-step programs, as well as some paperwork from my rehab, I started attending at the end of 2008. I was a little confused about why I had guides on how to be a treasurer or chairperson of meetings since I was so new to recovery at the time.

But then I gradually started to remember pestering my sponsor about doing service. I remember being so grateful to the programs because the minute I got sober, my life started to turn around so quickly, so beautifully, that I wanted to immediately give back. He explained that most groups ask that trusted servants have a certain amount of clean time under their belt—usually six months or more—but I dogged him so much that he eventually said, “I’ll tell you what. You may not be quite eligible for some service work, but read all of these guides on how to do it, keep coming, and at the next business meeting, you can volunteer, tell them your sobriety date and desire to do service, and we’ll see what group conscience is.”

Sure enough, at the end of the December, with only about 50 days sober, I had been showing up every day, putting chairs away after every meeting and connecting with members at that meeting that they made an exception to group conscience and let me start chairing a meeting.

The next month, my sponsor told me maybe I should consider becoming treasurer for the group if the group again waived its sobriety qualification. He mentioned that the current treasurer was looking to hand off. So the next month, I studied up on the paperwork about how to be a treasurer for the group, raised my hand… and I got voted in as the treasurer. It was only then that I realized the treasurer who was looking to hand off was… my sponsor. What a great long con!

But it got me started on the service path, and it got me into a new phase of my life, as I rediscovered at the bottom of that box. I ended up having quite a busy weekend tearing up all those documents, and it was a great feeling, to be honest. I don’t have a lot of paperwork in my life like that any more, and I’m confident if I stay on this path, I can continue that.

In case you missed it, I put together a fun mini comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes. Check it out HERE! (It’s behind a paywall)

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 husband and wife were sitting in their living room. He said, "Just so you know, I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens, just pull the plug."

His wife got up, unplugged the TV, and threw out all of his beer.

(Credit: AA Grapevine, May 2006, from Tim)

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 haven’t had many drunk dreams in my sober time. I’d say maybe 10, total—about once every year or so. It’s not a normal part of my life. But I had one the other day.

I used to investigate them to try to figure out if something was a little off in my program, or if I had been in a bar or party setting that triggered something deep within me. I never did find a forensic trail to why I dreamt of relapsing, and so I landed on the idea that I don’t know and that it doesn’t really matter. I’m a recovering drunk, so maybe once in a while I’m going to dream about getting drunk.

What always sticks with me, though, isn’t the actual pills and beer from the dream. It’s the lying. It’s how easily I dive right back into the old lifestyle of just flat-out lying to people. In my most recent dream, I got a bunch of pills and alcohol and disappeared for an entire afternoon. My work colleagues were looking for me. My family was looking for me. Sober friends were calling me.

And in my dream, I just came up with a wild excuse about a car accident blocking off the highway, and I threw in all these little details about the car being on fire and how the lousy local fire department couldn’t get their s**t together to put the fire out. I even showed some people a picture of a burnt-up car—I actually have one in my phone from seeing a burnt-up car from a year or two ago.

Think about that for a second. My brain immediately went into hyperdrive to cover my ass with lies and head shakes and sighs… and even was willing to bust on some poor first responders!

That was the scary part. When I woke up in the morning, it took me a minute to remember it was a dream, that I didn’t actually relapse, because my mind did such a good job of creating this fairytale that even I believed it for 30 seconds.

Like I said, I’ve never been able to connect the dots between my drunk dream and what inspired me to think about relapsing. But I will tell you that I do still have to be on guard for my mind to start wanting to tell tiny little lies to either impress people or cover my ass on something. Perhaps I fibbed to somebody earlier that day and felt guilty?

I still remember about three years ago, when I had 10 years sober, I was talking to a guy who had been a good Division I wrestler. I had been an okay high school wrestler and could have maybe gotten some scholarship money to go to a Division III school and wrestle, but I wanted to go to a big party school, where I wasn’t nearly good enough to try to walk on with the team.

But in that conversation with the really good college wrestler, he said, “Did you wrestle Division I?”

And I said, “Yes, I did. I wrestled Division I.”

I just flat-out lied. I felt insecure about my own accomplishments and reached right back onto the b******t shelf and pulled that one down for immediate use. I didn’t even have to think about it, and it was convincing when I said it. I’m not going to lie and say I corrected myself during that conversation, but I did recognize right away that I need to be really careful with my ability to spew lies. Because that muscle is still in there, and it’s pretty strong, even if I don’t drink or drug any more.

I think for me the only answer is to constantly be plugged into meetings and a spiritual program of recovery. I think if I ever drifted and got down to one meeting every week or so and stopped calling sober people every day, one of the first things that would come back in my life—honestly, probably before I actually pick up a drink or drug—is that I would start being full of s**t.

It might not start out as blatant lies, but I think I’d be sugarcoating things, stretching the truth, maybe telling the truth but not the WHOLE truth… and then I think my radar for lying would disappear. That is not a good outcome, even without a relapse.

So I will be working very hard try to keep my Pinocchio radar as highly effective as possible!

In case you missed it, I put together a fun mini comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes. Check it out HERE! (It’s behind a paywall)

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 newcomer: “I tried to drown my sorrows—until I realized they knew how to swim.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, July 2006, from Judy and Lou L. of Worcester, 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