LOL Sober

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If you’ve been to any 12-step meetings, you’ve probably heard the spiritual axiom mentioned roughly 4,000 times. I’ll throw it out there just in case it hasn’t popped up on your radar recently. It’s from Step 10 of the 12 and 12 book. Here goes:

“It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us. If somebody hurts us and we are sore, we are in the wrong also.”

Oof.

I’ve written about this before, but I have had some ups and downs with the spiritual axiom. When I first got sober, it made sense to me 100 percent of the time. I found that even when people did wrong me, I would become disturbed because I was hanging onto it. Sometimes I wanted to be mad. It was exciting. To this day, I get an adrenaline rush when my fists are balled up.

Then, after I had been sober for awhile, I met some people who had deep pain from terrible things that happened to them, often when they were very little kids. I really found it impossible to look at them and say, “Well, you know what the spiritual axiom says…”

Now I’m somewhere in the middle. I have found that the vast majority of disturbed moments—let’s say maybe 98-99 percent—confirm the spiritual axiom to be true.

And for that small percentage where it’s just an awful thing where anybody on earth would be disturbed and is entitled to be disturbed, I’ve found that almost every one of them is not a problem that the 12-step programs are necessarily meant to solve on their own. Our literature consistently reminds us that if you’re looking for marriage therapy, go to a marriage therapist AND talk to your sober network, or for legal counsel, call a lawyer AND your sponsor, or if you have trauma from other life events, find a great psychiatrist or therapist of some sort to help you through it.

I’m bringing this up right now because I had a recent difficult situation with a loved one where they did something pretty crappy, in my humble opinion. If I told you the details of it, I bet you would agree with me. I say that because I called, oh, maybe 4.1 million people to try to build my case. Because when it first happened, I had a grand plan to to take this thing to the Supreme Court for resentments.

In all seriousness, these are the toughest situations for me to navigate because I feel like I am right. Deep down, I feel like it is justifiable to be upset.

But here’s the fine print you’ll see in Step 10 if you give it another read. It addresses these exact situations. Justifiable resentments are even more poisonous than regular ol’ run of the mill beefs, because it’s hard to not think I was wronged and therefore I am right.

As I unpack those situations, I often find that I might not have started off in the wrong… but I have now veered into the wrong lane and am driving 90 mph. In this most recent situation, I realized quickly that my role was that I was running with the resentment, not working through it.

Here are a few questions I asked myself:

—Am I sharing this with others because I want to process it and move on… or am I looking for other people to tell me I should be pissed? (One thing that helps me navigate this answer is that I listen to how my voice sounds. I want my tone to be calm and measured, not a guy ranting on the phone trying to swing a voter to my side. I need to be looking for a solution, not building up a problem. My voice is actually a good indicator.)

—What percentage of me is thinking about how to punish the person, versus what percentage is thinking about how to forgive the person? (I’m not saying this has to be 100 percent forgiveness… but forgiveness has to be in the conversation with all the terrible punishment scenarios running through my brain.)

—Have I prayed about it? And if I did, did I mean it? (I’ve done fake prayers before because I wanted to be able to say that I did. “Dear God, help this a*****e to stop being an a*****e.” That’s not really helping anything.)

I did not have great answers to those questions on Saturday when my difficult situation began. But I got there eventually. I made a few phone calls to trusted sober friends, and that helped take the steam out of my anger long enough to begin productive conversation and thoughts about pushing through it.

I’ll be honest, I’m only about 70 percent through the woods. I’d love to say when I apply the Fourth Step and spiritual axiom to significant disagreements that there is a Resentment Genie that appears and poof, it’s gone. It’s not always that simple. But what I find is, when 70 percent of the anger is pulled away, it’s actually enough to tackle the other 30 percent in a calm and serene way.

So I’ll be working on the 30 percent this week. And good news, it looks like I will NOT be needing the nine Supreme Court justices to help me through it.

ALCOHOLIC/ADDICT JOKE OF THE DAY

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 a garden-variety drunk. Almost every morning I woke up in someone's garden."(CREDIT: AA Grapevine, December 2004, by Mike D.)

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 not putting anything behind the paywall for a little while longer, so if you choose the free option, you’ll receive everything without paying. If you’d like to contribute anyway, many thanks.

I saw another hilarious meme from Sarcastic AA Book the other day. If you don’t follow that account on Instagram, you’re missing out on some daily laughs about sober life.

It says: “That f*****g b***h better call me every day so I can show her the way to peace and serenity.”

That one made me laugh because I have never had that exact thought… but I’ve come close. It’s the ultimate trap of longterm sobriety—thinking I know what I am doing, and that now I am the teacher of all things sobriety.

It still happens to me. In recovery, we read about five books over and over again, and that means I’ve read our literature repeatedly. I’ve heard people share for hours on each step, and I have worked them myself. I’ve read the first 164 pages of the Big Book at least 20 times, maybe up to 50 times total. There’s a real danger to feeling like I’ve heard it all and I know it all. I start to think that I am Dr. Nelson H., professor of the sober studies program at Drunks University!

It’s all b******t. In fact, the less I think I know, the better off I am. Seriously. I’ve shared this before but I went to a work event once and there was a presentation about the ideal employee. And the presenter put up a slide with a giant white circle with a tiny red dot in the middle of it. He said that the giant white circle was everything you could possibly know, and the red dot was about the amount that a single person knows.

His point was that you want employees who are aware that they are the red dot. You want self-aware people who know there is still expertise to be learned every day. I laugh about that story because I remember looking at that slide and saying to myself, “Geez, I’m pretty sure my red dot is a lot bigger than THAT.”

The meme I mentioned at the beginning is specifically about working with newcomers and sponsees. It’s amusing because of that tendency to think we got it all figured out now that we’ve been sober for awhile. I can’t really, truly help people if I am under that delusion.

In my sober time, I’ve been told some really difficult situations from other sober people. I’ve been asked directly, “What should I do?”

I still have an inclination to puff up my chest and just give an answer. But I was told early on in recovery that one of the most important phrases that I need to learn, one that I probably haven’t used much in my life is… “I don’t know.” And that’s the right answer so many times, isn’t it?

I’ve had people ask me if they should get divorced, or tell me they didn’t pay their taxes for awhile and aren’t sure how to approach the IRS or that they have a health issue and aren’t sure what to do with it. And just to be clear, I am not a marriage counselor, a doctor or a tax attorney.

But it is tough for somebody like me to squash down the pride and ego, and boost my humility enough to say something like, “Hmm, I’m not sure. Have you prayed about it? Have you and your spouse tried seeing a therapist/physician/lawyer?”

I guess the key word for me is to support other sober people, rather than teach. I am stubborn—I don’t want a recovery professor preaching at me, either. But I can support, which often means just listening and being available. I can do that.

To go back specifically to that meme, I don’t know that I can actually show somebody the way to peace and serenity exactly as that phrase is worded. I found my way to peace and serenity with guidance but it’s my version of peace and serenity, not anybody else’s. It involves my higher power, my meditation, my meetings, my sober circle, my program. I have to always make sure I am open to suggestions and insights, for sure. But this is a program where you take what you need and leave the rest.

So with all that in mind, I find it kind of heart-warming and reassuring to think about how I am a work in progress, and I always will be. That relieves some pressure when I think about it. I’m trying my best, and that’s good enough.

I mean, will a small part of me still always have a first thought that all of you other people should be following the amazing path that I am blazing here? For sure. So maybe I ought to try and pray and meditate and get to a meeting every day… but also maybe look at that meme every morning and remember I should probably make sure I am on the path to peace and serenity before I start Google Mapping it for you.

ALCOHOLIC/ADDICT JOKE OF THE DAY

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

"How come if alcohol kills millions of brain cells, it never killed the ones that made me want to drink?"

(Credit: AA Grapevine, October of 2004, Daniel 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 not putting anything behind the paywall for a little while longer, so if you choose the free option, you’ll receive everything without paying. If you’d like to contribute anyway, many thanks.

October is rough for me. Not bad. Not good. Just rough.

Let me run through just a list of stuff I associate with October.

—I have two important birthdays, my wife’s and my oldest daughter’s. There’s always a little bit of stress and excitement around getting gifts, cakes, etc. But those are mostly joyous occasions.

—This is not a joyous occasion: I got sick in October of 1999 and ended up in a coma. When I woke up, I had to start having amputations that have affected me every day of my life since then. Every year around Halloween, I get some calls from friends and loved ones saying how hard it is for them, too.

—It’s my busiest time at work every year.

—Now that my kids are all in school, October usually is the month of the year when the s**t starts to hit the fan. The niceties and introductions of September are over, and now the tests and homework start to pile up. So my kids always seem a little edgier and busy around now.

—I love the holiday of Halloween, and trick-or-treating, and Halloween decorations. But I really don’t like horror movies or scary stuff. I’ve watched a lot of scary movies but the sensation of getting jump-scared or haunted by a doll that might murder you in the middle of the night… those kinds of thrills just don’t do anything for me and I actively avoid watching them. I also got extremely aggravated the other night because I was watching a baseball game at 8 p.m. and my 7-year-old wandered into the room just as a commercial for the new Halloween Kills movie. She was terrified for an hour at bedtime after that, and I really think at that moment I could have killed Michael Myers with my barehands, by myself.

—And last but not least, the item that impacts all of these other October things: I got sober in November of 2008, which means that October 2008 was the worst month of my life. Lots of overdoses. Puking almost every day. Vowing “I need help” every night and then not doing anything about it. Breaking my family’s hearts for yet another month. I remember that Halloween was the first one when I had two kids who were dressing up in costumes to go trick-or-treating, and we were excited to be going out as a family and… I decided to try muscle relaxers that evening and passed out and missed the entire night.

I’m telling you all of that because I do think recovery matters more than ever for me right now. And I’ve met lots of other sober people over the years who have that one that puts them on the edge. Often times it’s December because of the holidays, but I have sober friends who scuffle for a specific time period every year for a variety of other reasons, too.

What ends up happening for me is that there is a constant strong emotion lurking in the background at all times, which throws me off for large chunks of time. Sometimes it’s bad background music, like when I think about how much pain I am in every day because of my illness years ago.

Sometimes it’s deep gratitude because I always try to remember how bad it was at the bottom, in October 2008, before I went to rehab. But over-elation can be a bad thing, too. I don’t want to be in a work meeting crying and telling everybody I love them and blurt out “Every day is a gift, man, that’s why they call it the present” for 27 coworkers.

The solution for me is always more recovery—specifically, reaching out to others and seeing how they are doing. That always evens me out, and that is the goal. I don’t really want to try to be ecstatic 24 hours a day because I don’t think that is possible. I want to be even-keeled and measured… a steady presence.

Making phone calls really helps. I always encourage people in a rut, whether they’re new to recovery or have 20 years sober and are struggling, to try to connect with 14 different people in 14 days and talk to that person for at least 15 minutes (so no voicemails).

That has never not worked for me. I always end up strengthening a bond or creating one with a sober friend, and it 100 percent of the time gets me out of my own head and my own stuff.

And the good news about firing up my phone like that in October is that I have a bunch of strong connections just in case Michael Myers does show up at the house!

ALCOHOLIC/ADDICT JOKE OF THE DAY

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 destitute drunk, wearing only one shoe, entered a bar and begged the bartender for a free drink.The understanding bartender poured him a drink and then remarked, "I see you lost a shoe.""Heck, no," answered the drunk. "I found one!"(Credit: AA Grapevine, October 2004)

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

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

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m not putting anything behind the paywall for a little while longer, so if you choose the free option, you’ll receive everything without paying. If you’d like to contribute anyway, many thanks.

I saw an old interview with Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and he was talking about the meaning behind “Under the bridge.” He was describing how that song was a snapshot of him, many years ago, going with a friend to score drugs, and ending up under a bridge, high, with a bunch of other drug addicts.

I was struck by how he described the scene as incredibly lonely—because there were people everywhere. It made me think about the definition of loneliness, which for me is one of the most deadly, dangerous things in life. I can’t spend much time being lonely. And what he was describing was being lonely while surrounded by a LOT of people.

I have this visual of me from 2005-08, alone in a dark room, late at night, drunk and high, my whole life a lie. I was all by myself except for two of my cats that would always hang out with me. God knows what they must have thought.

I remember sitting in my guest bedroom many nights, vowing that this was 100 percent the last time I would ever do this, that I had to stop drinking and drugging.

It’s a picture of extreme loneliness, and it’s true: That absolutely is how hundreds of nights ended for me. And I did feel alone.

Then I contrast that visual with what happened when I went to rehab and got sober… I picture all of the people hugging me, cheering me on, telling me they love me. Again, that happened. Those are real images in my head, because they happened to me.

Those visuals are also incredibly valuable to my sobriety. One shows how my life looks if I pick up a drink or drug. The other shows the exact moments when my life changed and I knew I didn’t have to drink or drug any more.

But here’s the thing about both those pictures: Neither one is the WHOLE truth.

In that first image of me alone, my wife and kids were in other parts of the house. I still had a job, good friends and a loving family. Were they fed up with my behavior? Yes, lots of them were. But they were still in my life. They still gave me birthday presents and invited me over for Christmas. So my addictions were pushing me away from them, which means my loneliness was a choice that I made every day.

In the second image, it’s true that I suddenly found an army of people to support my new sober journey. And they did. But I also had moments where I found myself at the edge of the herd, not sharing at meetings, not going to meetings very often, taking a week off from talking to my sponsor.

I also started attending holiday gatherings and work meetings without any liquid courage running through my system for the first time as an adult, and I realized that it’s a totally different ballgame to hang out with people and converse with them and be with them if you don’t have a buzz going. So I had moments where I felt awkward and just avoided people… and discovered that you can be lonely in sobriety, too.

But I realized there’s also one common theme among those two images—that in both cases, when I was lonely, it has usually been because I was choosing to be lonely. I still enjoy time to myself and find it healing in the right dosage. That’s solitude, though, which I consider different from isolation and loneliness.

I can’t get lonely. I have all the tools to avoid loneliness. I just have to choose to utilize them.

There’s a version of me that is sober but goes to my daughter’s field hockey games and sits 50 feet away from everybody else so nobody bothers me. There’s a version of me that sometimes stays up way too late so I can have full control of the TV by myself, with nobody stealing the remote.

But that version of me isn’t really happy. There isn’t enough connection, and I need connection to stay sober and keep growing. So today, I am going to throw on “Under the bridge,” make a few calls to sober friends, sit 6 feet away from people instead of 50 and pet my cats a little bit more than usual.

ALCOHOLIC/ADDICT JOKE OF THE DAY

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 AA member attends a business function and is questioned by some tipsy coworkers about why she isn't drinking.

"Oh," she says, "I'm allergic. When I drink, I break out in strange spots… like Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York…"

(Credit: AA Grapevine, October of 2004, from Jensine B. of Scottsdale, Arizona)

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

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

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m not putting anything behind the paywall for a little while longer, so if you choose the free option, you’ll receive everything without paying. If you’d like to contribute anyway, many thanks.

This newsletter is mostly about recovery. But once in a while, I’m going to tell you a funny story from my drunken days. They always help me remember to not take myself too damn seriously, and also how ugly the bottom was.

So here goes:

When my wife and I got married many years ago, we decided to go to Las Vegas for our honeymoon. It was cheap and neither one of us had traveled very much in our lives, so why not?

Within an hour of getting to our hotel, the MGM Grand, my wife had food poisoning. She basically told me, “Drop your stuff off and get the f— out of the hotel for like two days because I feel horrible.”

So I did. At that point, I wasn’t full-blown alcoholic/drug addict but I was at about the 40-yard- line. The start to my honeymoon did not help.

I had no supervision and all of my wedding money in my pockets, and I was loose on the floor of a casino for the first time in my life. There were free drinks and you could gamble and smoke indoors. What?!?!

For 48 hours, I was basically drinking, gambling and smoking the entire time. I ended up wandering around the casino when I got too drunk at the tables and needed to wake up a bit. And I kept winding up in the same spot—in front of the MGM lion habitat.

They had two lions in a big glass case in the middle of the casino, like a zoo exhibit. It was pretty cool, but not as cool as it felt to a young, drunk me on my honeymoon back then. I kept going back and staring at the lions, for hours. I still remember the main handler who ran the habitat because he was totally weirded out by me.

The first time I stumbled upon the lion habitat, I stood there long enough that the handler dude came out and introduced himself. I must have been staring through the glass long enough that he thought, “What is this guy’s deal?” and he came out to investigate.

So he came out and we talked for a little while. It was a nice conversation. We introduced ourselves, he congratulated me on my wedding and I asked a lot of questions about the lions. But I’ll never forget that on multiple occasions, my drunken brain led me to interrupt him and say, “Mannnnnnn, look at those freaking lions. Just living in a casino. Unbelievable!”

The first time, he smiled and nodded. By the third time, I could see in his eyes he had realized he was dealing a drunken dope. I eventually left and went back to gambling and drinking and smoking and taking painkillers.

But then I wandered back again, and the same guy eventually came out and asked me how my day was going. I realized then that it was the NEXT day, that I had been up for basically an entire day. The conversation must have been especially bad because I remember saying, “Damn, man, there’s just, like, two lions, right there. In the middle of a casino, just living their lives for the whole world to see.”

He looked at me and said, “Um, are you okay? Do you want to maybe take a breather in your room for a few hours?”

He was right, so I went up and crashed. I must have slept for 12 hours. When I woke up, my wife felt better and we did a bunch of fun stuff and enjoyed our honeymoon. We went to some shows, had some nice dinners, walked the Strip.

I remember on our last day there she said, “Hey, did you know the MGM Grand has a lion habitat downstairs? Did you see that?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh yeah, I cruised past there once or twice. Not much to see, though. We can probably skip that one.”

ALCOHOLIC/ADDICT JOKE OF THE DAY

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 swerving, weaving car was pulled over by a police officer. The cop got out of his car and approached the driver's side. He motioned to the driver to roll down the window and asked,

"Do you have any ID?"

The baffled drunk replied, "About what?"

(Credit: AA Grapevine, October of 2004, from Donald S.)

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 not putting anything behind the paywall for a little while longer, so if you choose the free option, you’ll receive everything without paying. If you’d like to contribute anyway, many thanks.

On Monday, large chunks of the social media landscape crashed and everybody was talking about it. There have been quite a few headlines recently about social media, its impact on people, disinformation, and so on already, so a large crash was bound to generate lots of conversation and plenty of headlines.

It was also an opportunity for me to be grateful about my own lack of social media use. I’m on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram—twice, actually. I have one under my real name, and I use Facebook especially to promote comedy events because it’s quite effective in selling tickets. I also have accounts for Nelson H. on all of these platforms to promote my sober newsletter. So I am plugged in.

But I also try to NOT be plugged in. About 10 years ago, I first got on social media and I liked it. I liked it too much. I found myself really getting wrapped up in how many likes and retweets and replies I got in a way that reminded me immediately that I am an addict. My addictive personality never limited itself to drugs and alcohol, before or after I got sober. For me, if something is good, then five of that thing must be better.

It shows up in my life on a regular basis in two places. One is the online world—it can be very addictive to have 29 people retweet something or like something on Instagram. And if 29, why not 30? How do I get to 30? I NEED 30!

The other place it pops up is food. I am the kind of person who finishes a reasonable dinner and then heads for the cookie cupboard. Then I pull out two cookies and I think about how two won’t be enough. I grab a third, and then I think about four and five. Pretty soon, I have six cookies in my hand and I have eaten them before I’ve actually eaten them. Then I eat them all and feel like I ate too many, that I should have just had four, that I need to do better. It’s the same vicious cycle that I used to go through to plan, get and consume booze and drugs.

Luckily I was able to spot early on that social media isn’t a good place for me to hang out. And let me say very clearly, that is just for me. That is just a personal decision that works for me. Many people love social media and get lots out of it, and that’s fantastic. It just doesn’t work for me when it’s an outsized part of my life.

One thing I specifically don’t miss is getting in fights online with people. Man, I used to love that, especially with people I didn’t know. I remember thinking there were no repercussions to just taking apart some random guy about a political issue or fantasy baseball or anything, really. I thought it was just harmless verbal bickering.

But it wasn’t harmless, because I know it harmed ME. I would find that winning an argument on Twitter about a sports team or a political issue was incredibly hollow for me. It didn’t improve my spiritual condition. In fact, I felt like it drained my spirituality right out of me.

I also found that I wasn’t able to shut it off. If I am judgmental and argumentative and obsessed on a computer, I found that I start to do that in real life, too. It was hard to flip that switch on and off. I have found in real life, I can’t be that guy who’s lobbing out opinions and bickering with neighbors or parents of my kids’ friends or co-workers. I just can’t do it. It doesn’t work for me.

So Monday was kind of nice. Even though I don’t do a lot of social media, I do some. I might not argue with people myself but I still listen in on some wild yelling between people. To know that was unavailable on Monday was kind of nice. I bought a yoga mat and meditated and walked near a waterfall… just kidding, I watched TV instead. But hey, I only ate three cookies that day. Progress not perfection, right?

ALCOHOLIC/ADDICT JOKE OF THE DAY

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 drinking buddies meet on the street one morning.

"Had breakfast, yet?" one inquires.

"Nope, not a single drop!" replies the other.

(Credit: AA Grapevine, June of 2004, Joerg H. from Oberhausen)

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 not putting anything behind the paywall for a little while longer, so if you choose the free option, you’ll receive everything without paying. If you’d like to contribute anyway, many thanks.

I was at an in-person meeting the other day, and at the end, we stood behind our chairs, six feet apart in masks, and said a prayer together. (For the record, it was group conscience to socially distance and I support that—I think being safe for everybody in the room is critical to recovery.)

I did catch myself missing the good ol’ days of, you know, 2019, when we’d hold hands and hug and get really close and say prayers.

And then I thought about my first few months of sobriety… and how the last thing on Earth I wanted to do was hug anybody, or hold any hands, or say prayers together. I remember doing that thing where I stood at my first few meetings in disbelief, thinking, “Is this some cult s**t happening here or what?”

The truth is, I had a couple of things that I thought were parts of the recovery process that I would never want to do. Holding hands and saying group prayers were at the top of that list. I hadn’t done it much in my life and I thought that I didn’t stop using drugs and alcohol to then start hugging and holding hands.

I was there because I just didn’t want to die.

Making amends was also something you other people might have to do, but I didn’t. I mean, I only ever really hurt myself, I thought.

I also wasn’t so sure hanging out after meetings or doing service work was ever going to be for me—I mean, I was soooo busy, ya know? Gotta run, byeeeeeee!

My oh my, how things changed after I got into the rooms. I grew to love the intimacy of meetings. I grew to love the meeting after the meeting with sober people. I grew to love doing service (okay, that’s sort of a lie—let’s say that I grew to like what service did for my program of recovery).

But I really did fall in love with saying prayers and hugging and holding hands. It’s such an intimate manifestation of what we’re there to do, which is prop each other up during the tough times and experience the joys of the good times together. It’s a shared experience with a bunch of other people, all trying to sync up their words and their hearts at the same time. It’s so beautiful, and it’s also unlike anything else in my life. At work, we don’t all gather around the conference room table and hold hands and say the Seventh Step prayer to get ready for the day.

I won’t pretend and say that I use all of the formal prayers in my regular life. I love the Serenity Prayer—it’s a foundation of my program and I try to make sure it’s a foundation of my thought process every day. But I don’t actually say it that much. Maybe I should?

And I definitely don’t say the Lord’s Prayer outside of meetings. It’s not my favorite, to be honest. And that’s perfectly okay! I’ve met people who are very bothered by that prayer or others, and the origins of those prayers, and how they worry about the overlap between recovery meetings and religion.

I get it… but I try to think about recovery like Target or Walmart. I walk past 100 things in those stores to get to the one I want, and I don’t let those aisles full of items prevent me from getting to the thing I need. I don’t say, “Hey, I don’t like seeing the greeting cards as I try to get to the cat litter. I’m done with this place!”

My bottom line is, there are parts of recovery programs that aren’t always for me, and that’s perfectly okay. The old saying is, “Take what you need, leave the rest.”

And, as I learned, sometimes I take what I need and leave the rest… and then later want the rest.

ALCOHOLIC/ADDICT JOKE OF THE DAY

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: 

One veteran alcoholic says the trouble with "Two-Stepping" is that you usually combine the wrong parts of the First and Twelfth Steps, i.e., "My life is unmanageable, and I'd like to share it with you."

(Credit: AA Grapevine, July 2004, 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 not putting anything behind the paywall for a little while longer, so if you choose the free option, you’ll receive everything without paying. If you’d like to contribute anyway, many thanks.

Ever thought you had a good idea—or three—to make recovery better? Me too. I obviously have brilliant ideas that the whole world would benefit from.

(Pssst, I’m joking. Recovery works just fine without my suggestions.)

So here goes. And just to say it very directly: I am kidding. Addiction is a deadly disease, but here at LOL Sober, I really do try to lean into the concept that we are not a glum lot. So I thought this might be fun to goof around a bit. Feel free to correct me in the comments section below.

All right, brace yourself.

IDEA NO. 1: DRIVE-THROUGH MEETINGS

Yep, you read that right. We’re all busy these days, and social distancing is still pretty important. So here’s what we’re gonna do to speed up recovery. Three sober people in every town will be selected to sit out back of a church, and people can line up in their cars, just like at the Burger King drive-through, to pull up in front of these three esteemed members of the sober community. They have four minutes to share, then they can place an order out loud to God, then they pull forward and are done with recovery for the day.

Okay, terrible idea. Let’s try again.

But drive-through meetings is a perfect transition to my next idea.

IDEA NO. 2: A RECOVERY E-Z PASS LANE

As mentioned, since we’re all soooo time-strapped these days, maybe we start letting people pick and choose the three steps they like the most and let them just do those. I mean, who has time for 12 entire steps these days? I have TikTok videos to watch, guys.

Eh, maybe that’s a really horrible idea, too.

IDEA NO. 3: A NEW TIE-BREAKER FOR BUSINESS MEETINGS

Have you been at a contentious business meeting recently? If so, here’s a thought on how to decide close votes going forward—an actual fight! Yes, on any vote that isn’t unanimous, the yeas and nays just immediately start fist fighting. Those rickety old metal chairs everybody sat on for the previous hour at the meeting? Go ahead and use them, WWE-style to figure out what to do with that extra $3.49 left over in the treasury.

That one is pretty bad, too, huh? Yelling and fighting at meetings… probably not part of the spiritual solution.

Let’s keep going.

IDEA NO. 4: A DATING APP FOR NEWCOMERS

All right, that’s not even funny, I am not going to joke around about that recovery suggestion. Next topic, please.

IDEA NO. 5: LET’S OVERHAUL OUR “PASS THE BASKET” STRATEGY AT MEETINGS

Sure, paying the rent is important for our meeting spaces. But what if we could all get rich AND pay the rent? Well, funny you should ask, I have a three-pronged approach to what happens when people get done putting their bucks in the basket at meetings.

Get this: We divvy up the money three ways. One-third goes to betting on sports, to double our money. NFL games are especially easy to pick, and gambling on sports seems like a fantastic idea for an addict like me. Another one-third goes to a lucky group member who will start hitting Off-Track Betting horse racing places to again double our money. Then the final one-third goes to scratch off lottery tickets, to be distributed at our next business meeting. Doesn’t that sound like a really good idea for recovering addicts and alcoholics?

Actually, now that I look at my list… maybe those aren’t the five greatest ways to overhaul sobriety programs. I’ll try again soon! Have a great weekend.

ALCOHOLIC/ADDICT JOKE OF THE DAY

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 sober father was raising his young son with the help of 12-step slogans and sayings. If the boy was angry or agitated, his dad would say, "Easy Does It." If the boy was sad or unhappy, his father would counsel, "Let Go and Let God." This plan backfired one day when the boy asked to go to the toy store.

"Absolutely not!" said the father.

"Aw, c'mon Dad," said the boy. "Bring the body and the mind will follow."

(Credit: AA Grapevine, June 2004, Doug R. from New York, New York)

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

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

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m not putting anything behind the paywall for a little while longer, so if you choose the free option, you’ll receive everything without paying. If you’d like to contribute anyway, many thanks.

I was driving my daughter somewhere recently, and the song “We found love” came on. I hadn’t heard it in a long time and I love the song, I love Rihanna and I of course wanted to take the opportunity to CRANK THAT S**T.

My daughter told me to turn it down, that it was embarrassing to have a dad singing Rihanna loudly in the car, and I obviously did what all responsible parents should do in that situation… I cranked that s**t up twice as loud as before.

She turned it down. I turned it up again. She turned it down. Then we both laughed and I relented and turned it down to a reasonable adult level again.

One reason I think I have such deep affection for that song is that I did find a lot of love in a hopeless place after I went to rehab. I had sooooo many important relationships where things had deteriorated. We might have still loved each other but that sentiment was not flying off anybody’s tongue—we said it because we were supposed to. Every relationship in my life, big or small, was strained, and most people had no idea the level of lying and deceit that was happening around them. I was a total fraud, and so was the love we exchanged.

Then I got sober, and it was time to get real with people. Some relationships took steps backward in the aftermath of finding out the truth. Some relationships took BIG steps back.

But for the relationships that really mattered, I was able to stay sober, start working a program and repair things. And I don’t mean just saying sorry. Most people had heard me say sorry 100 different ways already.

“Sorry I was an hour late to Christmas.”

“Sorry I forgot your birthday.”

“Sorry I put that dent in your car.”

“Sorry I thunder-chunked all over your bathroom.”

They were done hearing sorry from me. But making amends helped. I’m not even talking about formally doing Steps 8 and 9. A big part of the amends process for me was working the steps, getting spiritually fit and not doing the old behaviors. It’s amazing how much things improve when you just stop doing the bad stuff . It’s one thing to have a week clean and sober and apologize for getting too drunk at somebody’s house 10 days ago. It’s another thing to apologize for that and you haven’t gotten too drunk at their house for, say, six months, or eight months, or a year. I found a lot of receptive people when it was time to do formal amends.

A huge part of all of this is the love that people in the program showed me—for free! I’ve shared before that my first sponsor told me once that he loved me, and I was like, “Whoa, wait, what? We don’t even know each other’s last names!”

But those men from recovery who loved me, also helped me learn what real love is. I’d been with my wife for 10 years before I went to rehab, so the whole foundation of our relationship was built between her and a lying drug addict and alcoholic. There were obviously some issues with a couple where one partner has the spiritual principles of a Port-A-Potty at the state fair. That is the definition of a hopeless place to look for love in!

We found some, though—a lot. I had to learn how you treat people, how you listen to people, how you make promises and then deliver on them, how you show up. And I mostly did. I learned how to love and be loved. I won’t lie, it is a continual work-in-progress. But man, it’s worth it. I have a lot of healthy love in my life now and it’s a direct result of working a recovery program.

Oh, and at least 1 percent of the credit goes to Rihanna, too. Thank you, Nana!

ALCOHOLIC/ADDICT JOKE OF THE DAY

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: 

It's easy to find AA. Just go straight to hell and make a U-turn.

(Credit: AA Grapevine, August 2004, J.B. from 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 not putting anything behind the paywall for a little while longer, so if you choose the free option, you’ll receive everything without paying. If you’d like to contribute anyway, many thanks.

There’s a very funny Instagram account that I follow called Sarcastic AA Book. It’s memes and jokes about sobriety, and I like the overall mentality of the person or people who produce it. Recovery is supposed to be fun, and I should be able to laugh at myself. So I’d encourage you to check out Sarcastic AA Book some time.

The meme that made me chuckle this week is one that says, “I really thought that by the time I was sober this long I’d know what the f**k I was doing.”

It really hits home because I do have sober impostor syndrome many days, where I think something or do something that makes me wonder, Am I sure I have been sober since 2008? Because that is not sober adult behavior or thought patterns.

That’s apparently a common theme because there are a bunch of old recovery sayings about it. I’ve heard many people say something along the lines of, “At one year sober, you get your marbles back, and at 10 years sober, you get to play with them.” I get that. I still think my marbles are being handled like a really strict library, where I have to go in and show proof of sobriety and then I get to check them out for a few days before returning them.

But here’s the thing about doubting my own recovery: I think it’s a positive—as long as I don’t beat myself up too much. Let me explain. At a meeting last night, we read Step Seven from the 12 steps and 12 traditions recovery book, which encourages us to humbly ask our higher powers to remove our character defects. I think the word “humility” is in that chapter at least 25 times. Over and over again, we are reminded to be humble, to have humility.

When I do enter the day realizing I don’t know everything, I am so much better off. There’s almost no harm in listening to people, to NOT having contempt prior to investigation, to NOT thinking “I’ve got this” or “I’ll figure it out.” That’s a trap I fall into on a regular basis to this day, where I am acting arrogant instead of confident.

I want to be a confident person. I think I live a good life now. I think I am a solid employee, dad, husband, neighbor, and so on. I don’t ever really benefit when I think that I am the No. 1 dad, the very best employee, the smartest guy on the block. That just hasn’t helped my sobriety at all—I don’t learn anything when my mind is closed because I think I know sooooooooo much already.

The bottom line is, I have found more success in recovery when I constantly ask for help, about big things, little things and everything in between. When I first got sober, I thought that was something you do at the beginning and then you can ease off being vulnerable. That hasn’t served me well. I need an open mind and an open heart—and a mouth that opens as little as possible. If I do that, maybe I can hang onto my marbles for a bit longer than usual…

ALCOHOLIC/ADDICT JOKE OF THE DAY

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 bouncer threw my buddy out of a bar five times in a ten-minute span. I patted the frustrated bouncer on the shoulder and said, “I think you put too much backspin on him.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, September 2004, John L. from Walla Walla, 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