LOL Sober

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces but I am hoping to generate a few bucks to pay for my web site and some other costs. Paid subscribers do have access to frequent premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I had a recent work experience where I had to approach people and ask if I could talk to them for a few minutes. Many said yes. Some said no, thank you. And some told me to get lost. For those people, I will have a white-hot burning resentment that will burn within me for the rest of my life.

Wow, rejection hurts, doesn’t it? I don’t experience much of it these days. I’ve been with my wife for 28 years, so I haven’t had the pleasure of approaching someone and asking them out and having them tell you that they have no interest in you, which I think is probably the toughest kind of rejection. I certainly remember the dating scene and what it felt like to get dumped or ghosted by someone. But most of that was 30 years ago, so the agony of those moments definitely has worn off a bit.

I certainly pitch things at work and get declined on a regular basis. I wouldn’t say it’s fun but it never seems to cut my guts out. I think professional rejection is often pretty gentle—most workplaces require rejection to sound more like, “Let’s hold off on that for now” rather than “You suck and so does this idea.”

When those people blew me off the other day, I think I handled it pretty well. I slinked off and looked around to see if anybody else noticed. That seems to be a crucial part of how much I let rejection bother me: Did anybody else see my shame and humiliation as it happened? WHAT WILL THEY THINK OF ME?!?!?!

But I did realize two things. One is that I don’t think I have the spine to ever get into sales—I’d take every rejection as a soul-crusher. The second is, I don’t think I would handle dating or getting dumped very well, either.

I ended up spending some time in deep thought about rejection. Why does it hurt so much? Think about it for a second. In theory, if you live a good life and love your family and can afford food and heat for your house and try to always do the next right thing… you’re okay, right? Why would someone blowing you off or telling you that you have food in your teeth send you reeling for the rest of the day? When I’m in the right place, my ego is the exact size it should be—not too small, not too big, and if you tell me I am a bad driver, I will smile and go about my day. It doesn’t tear my heart out.

I think that’s where humility comes in. I can’t be humiliated if I have humility. But humility can be hard to drum up, or at least hold onto. I tend to drift to either thinking I am extremely important and everybody is paying attention to me… or to, I suck and nothing matters. Humility is knowing that you are neither of those things. I’m just another bozo on the bus, as we say in recovery.

So how do you get humility and keep it? I don’t know if an exact formula exists. I will say that I think you want to surround yourself with people and situations that never allow you to veer off to any extreme. I have recovery people in my life who I know would never let me get away with thinking too much of myself, and they would never let me drop to a place where I was sulking too much.

I do think one thing I need to always remember is that humility cannot be bought on Amazon or kept forever—it’s something I need to chase every day like I chased drugs and alcohol.

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 walked into a bar.

You’d think the second one would have swerved.

(Credit: AA Grapevine, November 2001, Fritzi J. from Conyers, Georgia)

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

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

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces but I am hoping to generate a few bucks to pay for my web site and some other costs. Paid subscribers do have access to frequent premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

There is a famous professor named Scott Galloway who was asked what advice he gives to young people as they go out into the world. That advice, to boil it down to one sentence, is, “Get the easy stuff right.”

He goes on to define “getting the easy stuff right” as making sure you get the basics right as you start a life and a career. As in, show up on time. Have good manners. Wear the right clothes. Shower and shave as needed. Listen more than you talk.

On one hand, that sounds like incredibly obvious stuff to tell someone. But on the other hand, how often do most of us mess that up? I’d say it’s a considerable amount, right?

I thought of that recently because somebody who is not an addict asked me what it takes to get sober. The answer is, of course, complicated and impossible to pinpoint, in my opinion—I think the formula for every person is different.

But I would say that getting the sober basics right is a really good place to start. I’m a 12-step person, so my suggestions are going to revolve a lot around that method of recovery.

Go to a lot of meetings (90 meetings in 90 days is the most common recommendation), and go back to ones you like. Get a sponsor, plus multiple other people that you talk to at least once a week outside of meetings. Take service commitments when possible, and try to anchor down with a meeting or two, where you become a regular.

I could add 25 more suggestions but I’ll leave it at that. I think that professor’s broader point is to take care of the easy stuff so that leaves room for the tougher things later, some of which are out of our control. That’s probably the case for sobriety, too. I obviously think working the steps is an awesome part of growth, and sifting through financial insecurities and a sex inventory are very beneficial, too. But I do think getting the easy stuff right opens the door for me to get into the tougher, graduate student-level sobriety stuff. There are lots of times where I have a very good week, and it’s mostly just because I got to a bunch of meetings, spent lots of time with recovery people, and I did spiritual things every day like praying and meditating.

It reminds me of hearing a football player once address a question about the evolution of football, and how high-powered offenses and brilliant schematics have changed the game. He didn’t disagree with that general idea. But he also said, “At the end of the day, don’t forget that the team that wins is usually just the one that blocks and tackles the best. All the other stuff is nice and sometimes can make a big difference. But if we block better and tackle better, we’re probably going to win almost 100 percent of the time.”

I think about that sometimes, especially during football season. Block. Tackle. Rinse and repeat. That’s a good way to think about sobriety, too!

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

Several years ago, my wife and I took a vacation in Las Vegas. Sandy, our 65-pound boxer, came along. The motel allowed pets, and everything went smoothly until the manager asked us to take the dog out in the afternoon so the maids could clean our room.

My wife had made the plans to go shopping, and I wanted to make a meeting. But the temperature was in the mid-90s, and we couldn’t leave Sandy in the car. So I got the number for the local AA clubhouse, called, and explained the situation. “Could I bring my boxer to the meeting with me?” I asked.

The man who answered the phone was silent for several seconds. “Sure,” he finally responded, “as long as she doesn’t talk more than a few minutes when it’s her turn.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, October 2001, Pat O. from Indiana, Florida)

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 but I am hoping to generate a few bucks to pay for my web site and some other costs. Paid subscribers do have access to frequent premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I had just started college when the movie Jerry Maguire came out. I loved everything about it. It was about a sports agent representing a football player. It was about a compassionate, empathetic guy trying to fight a system that can be cold and heartless and focused entirely on money. And last but not least, it had a beautiful love story.

But there is one quote that has stuck with me to this day, and I’ve been thinking about it lately because it is an enormous problem for me. I’m not talking about “Show me the money!” either.

I’m talking about “You complete me.” It’s mentioned earlier in the movie off-handedly as something that two deaf people sign to one another in an elevator. But it becomes the entire center of the movie toward the end, when Jerry realizes that Renee Zellweger’s character, Dorothy, is actually the love of his life. He ultimately says, “You complete me,” to her, and she ends the conversation by saying, “You had me at hello.”

For some people, that is probably just a lovely quote and a good way to summarize a perfectly fine romantic comedy. But for me, I realized that the message of that movie really hit me wrong, at the wrong time of my life, because it set an expectation about what a romantic partner could do for me.

Again, let me emphasize that this is only related to me—I have no opinion on the way other people choose to love each other. I just know that that quote lands with me in a way that suggests if I feel like something is missing, maybe a girlfriend will take care of it.

I don’t want to blame all of my romantic struggles early in life on a movie. But I was impressionable, and this movie came along at a time when I really was heartbroken at my inability to have the kind of relationship I wanted. I, of course, was the issue. I was a heavy, obnoxious partier who didn’t have much trouble speaking with women or getting first dates. I just didn’t get a lot of second dates because I was pretty awful at the whole dating scene. I definitely had an issue with falling in love in 20 minutes, which I attribute a little bit to my addictive personality. Guess what? People don’t like you practically proposing to them before they know your last name.

Looking back, I think I walked around a lot looking for something to complete me. Alcohol obviously stepped forward as something I tried. Same with drugs. Romance is on that list, too. I remember wondering why I felt like an incomplete puzzle all the time—maybe a girlfriend would be that last piece to complete the puzzle, like in Jerry Maguire!

I guess there is a context in which “You complete me” could be a positive phrase in my life. It’d have to be that I have tremendous spiritual fitness, and that I am indeed missing one small piece from the puzzle. But I do think it is a dangerous concept for me, as someone who has often felt like something is missing, to think that YOU will be the answer. Those expectations are wacky and too heavy to put on a human being, in my opinion, and it’s inevitable that a person fails to complete another person. I just don’t work that way. There’s no new neighbor, or girlfriend, or boss, that is going to fix me. That’s an inside job, and I have to do the work to feel self-worth so that there is reasonable space for that last piece of the puzzle. When I do that, my ability to be a solid romantic partner, with realistic expectations for what another person can do for me.

When I watch Jerry Maguire now, I get this sinking feeling toward the end, because I don’t know that many relationships can survive when someone is a total mess trying to figure out their life, and then they just go back to an ex-girlfriend and say, “You complete me.” It makes for a lovely Hollywood script, but I can’t imagine that doesn’t end up in divorce court three years later, where both people, ironically, will end up saying, “Show me the money.”

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: “Alcoholics are the only people I know who need a pole vault to get over an anthill.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, October 2001, Chuck I.)

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 but I am hoping to generate a few bucks to pay for my web site and some other costs. Paid subscribers do have access to frequent premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

How long does it take for you to get mad?

I have a friend who recently had a road rage incident. He just blew his stack and almost got into a physical altercation on the side of the road. There was no pause or contemplation of whether being that mad was worth it. He just lost it. The cops showed up and broke things up. But it made me think about how long my fuse is.

I would say my anger can come in just a few seconds. I can get to that emotion almost immediately—if my emotions were on a shelf, anger would be front and center.

I wish that weren’t the case. But I will say that the longer I have been sober, the more that anger has been pushed a little farther back. That’s progress. And I would also say that rage is far out of reach for me—I might get a little spicy without much effort, but it’s gotten pretty difficult for me to be in a rage. Mild irritation is more available than I would like, but I will take that over wanting to throttle people in a millisecond. So that’s a good thing, and something I will continue to work on.

I heard somebody say recently at a meeting that he tries to make anger expensive and kindness cheap. He says he wants warmth to come easily, and resentment to be hard to buy. He admitted that it’s often the other way around—resentment is available for a penny, and kindness is much harder to buy. He said he wants to not have easy access to anger, and instead have love and tolerance constantly jingling in his pocket as loose change.

Man, I find myself as the opposite on a lot of days, and having constant mild frustration is itself quite frustrating. I keep asking myself, Why can’t I just naturally be all smiles? Why do I need to put in hours of work every day to be the version of me that I like? God, let me roll out of bed as a bundle of positive energy!

The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that I need to accept that kindness isn’t available at the Dollar Store for me. I have to earn it, and that’s ok. Like so many other things about alcoholism, I need to just accept that I have a disease that requires daily treatment. When I had cancer last year, I didn’t like going to chemotherapy… but I never tried to get out of it. I had to do it. End of story. There was no choice.

So that means in my little metaphor of kindness being cheap and anger being harder to buy, that simply means I need to invest some money in up front to reduce the cost, then cash it in for inexpensive love and kindness.

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:

Three signs you might be an alcoholic:

--1: The convenience store clerk asks why you have grass on your back.

--2: You keep the dry-wall repair guy on retainer.

--3: You believe that you’re receiving the equivalent of a college education watching Court TV.

(Credit: AA Grapevine, October 2001, Tom L. from Orlando, Florida)

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 but I am hoping to generate a few bucks to pay for my web site and some other costs. Paid subscribers do have access to frequent premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

My oldest daughter was talking to my wife and I the other day, and she mentioned how strange it is that we don’t have our location services turned on for each other. As in, we only know where the other will be based on what that person tells us.

Apparently, for my kids’ generation, it makes complete sense to know where loved ones and friends are at all times. I hear my one daughter checking on the other and saying stuff like, “Oh, she just left Target. She should be home in about five minutes.” My wife always knows where my two older daughters are based on their phones, so it’s not like either one of us is a total privacy prude.

On a certain level, it makes sense for a spouse to know where the other is. And, as my daughter said, what are you hiding?

The truth is, I’m not hiding anything. I have some old-school notions about privacy, and I don’t see the need to have GPS tracking my wife or me. I certainly understand a parent following along with a younger kid to know what they are up to. But for the most part, with any other adult, I want to have the kind of relationship where I have faith in what you say to me, and I want you to have that faith in me, too.

Let me back up to the privacy thing for a second… I am pretty adamant about reasonable levels of privacy. I just don’t love the creep of technology into our lives and how inescapable it can feel—I always ask myself, do I own a phone or does a phone own me? Adding in a layer where my phone is broadcasting my whereabouts just feels unnecessary to me. For me, it’s about boundaries. But to each their own.

Again, I have zero to hide—I live a boring sober life these days. I can’t think of a time in years, maybe a decade, where I didn’t go where I said I was going to go. Now, if I had a relationship where I worried about my spouse’s behavior or they worried about mine, that’s totally different, and I also don’t think I am beyond that. Hell, the reason I am writing this is because if I had an iPhone during my active addiction days, I can almost guarantee my wife would have wanted to know my whereabouts, because I lied almost every day about what I was up to.

I don’t live like that any more, and I had a very proud moment when my wife said to my daughter, “I don’t need Dad to have his location turned on.” I honestly was a little surprised—if she had brought up that she would rather know where I am, I’d probably do that because, again, I have nothing to hide. But instead, she said she didn’t care, and I had to pat myself on the pack a bit because that’s 17 years of telling the truth. She doesn’t need a tracker on my ass any more, and that’s pretty cool.

Now don’t get me started on how often I am tracking a package that is apparently lost in the mail and not arriving by Christmas 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 day a skid-row drunk collapses on the street and a large crowd gathers around him. They all try to be helpful.

“Give him a drink of whiskey,” says one lady.

“Stand back and give him some air,” a man shouts.

“Give him the whiskey,” the lady insists.

“Call an ambulance!” someone yells.

Suddenly the drunk sits up and hollers, “For Pete’s sake, shut up and listen to the lady!”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, October 2001, Dick L. from New Westminster, British Columbia)

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 but I am hoping to generate a few bucks to pay for my web site and some other costs. Paid subscribers do have access to frequent premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I have a spot on my couch that is my spot. Let me just say that again: IT IS MY SPOT.

The couch is gigantic and could comfortably fit five people, with room for about eight if you really wanted to squish in there. So the corner that I occupy for long stretches of time is only one small corner.

And yet, these people that live at my house—who you might refer to as my family—insist on sitting there sometimes. How dare they, right?

I came back the other day and my 20-year-old was home from college. She was camped out in that spot, and I asked her to move. She said she would in a few minutes.

A few minutes went by and I asked again. Now I could see that she was digging in. “In a few minutes, I said,” she told me.

“It’s been a few minutes,” I said.

“Well, it’s our family couch, not your couch,” she said.

I walked out of the room. This was such outrageous behavior.

Then I remembered one of my favorite passages from the book Living Sober, where the authors unpack what anger and resentments really are. They came up with a list of 16 descriptions of forms of anger other than just flat-out being pissed off.

The list is: intolerance, contempt, envy, hatred, snobbishness, rigidity, cynicism, discontent, tension, sarcasm, self-pity, malice, distrust, anxiety, suspicion and jealousy.

That is such a provocative list to me. Who thinks they are angry when they’re being sarcastic and having a good laugh? Who thinks of snobby s**t-talking as anger?

Rigidity is the most intriguing to me, because I think lots of people would say they are not rigid. But I also think most people have significant moments of rigidity, even though they don’t call themselves rigid people. I certainly do, as evidenced by my couch incident. I also think that I sometimes struggle with timing on things—if we decide to go to dinner at 6 pm at a restaurant a half hour away, I am breathing out of my mouth at 5:31 when all of my kids are wandering around whining that they can’t find their water bottle.

I also think most of us—alcoholics and normies—have a hard time managing work projects, a personal budget, a birthday party, whatever, without thinking everything should be done as we believe it should be done. I think I often convince myself that because I am running the show, the show should only be run the way that I think it should be run. That’s rigidity, and that’s anger. Think about how pissed you usually get when something isn’t done the way you wanted it to be done.

The ultimate nightmare rigidity scenario is when you dig in, and the other people digs in, too. That is rigidity butting up against more rigidity, and guess what? It’s usually two cinderblocks smashing into each other.

That was certainly the case with my daughter. Neither one of us wanted to budge on our couch demand until I ultimately decided to take a few deep breaths and walk away. Deep breaths are big for me—sometimes I visualize my aggravation as a knot that is caught in my chest, and I picture me just blasting it out of my body through my lungs. It doesn’t always get rid of the irritation completely. But it makes it a more manageable blob.

I went upstairs and watched a few minutes of football. When I came down to the living room, she was sitting in the kitchen. I knew she wasn’t sitting there because she wanted to; she moved because she was ultimately giving me back the spot. I also knew she wasn’t going to say, “Sorry I snapped at you. Please have your spot back.”

And I certainly wasn’t going to say, “Sorry for overreacting about one small area of our large couch. I love you and am so glad you’re home from college.”

What do you think I am, spiritually fit?!?!?!?!

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

A woman in a bar spotted her friend, a heavy-hitter, drinking by herself at a table. Concerned, the woman went over and said, “Sally, you look terrible. What happened?”

“My mother died in June and left me $10,000. Then in July my father died and left me $50,000. And last month, my aunt died and left me $15,000,” Sally said.

“Three close family members lost in three months? That’s tragic,” the woman said.

“Yes,” Sally agreed, “and then this month, nothing!”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, September 2001, Melissa R. from Calgary, Alberta)

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 but I am hoping to generate a few bucks to pay for my web site and some other costs. Paid subscribers do have access to frequent premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

When I was drinking and drugging, I started waking up to a brutal question from my wife: “Do you remember what happened last night?”

Sometimes the answer was no, and that was terrifying. Sometimes the answer was yes, but I didn’t know how I was going to weasel out of whatever I could remember about the drunken buffoonery from the night before.

I wasn’t a big blackout drinker or drug addict. But I had some, so I would guess that I was asked that question about 20 times total in my decade of overindulgence. Each of the 20 was a disaster, and I never had a single good answer to that question. My wife never said, “You did all of the dishes and made a beautiful flower arrangement. Thank you!” It was always something I was glad I didn’t remember.

So this past weekend, I woke up on Sunday morning and my wife said, “Do you remember what happened in the middle of the night?”

My stomach plummeted because that question is so associated with alcoholism for me. I didn’t say anything for a second, then just said, “Uh, no. What happened?”

Then she said something equally terrifying.

“You don’t remember yelling somebody’s name four times?”

Oh my god. I was ready to drive to the airport and a one-way ticket to fly into the sun. I had no idea where this was going.

Then she said, “Who is Bill? You kept yelling, ‘Bill!’”

Whew. OK, I can work with that, I thought.

The truth is, I don’t know who Bill would be. Bill Belichick? I have a family friend named Bill, but I’m not sure why I would have been dreaming of him. Buffalo Bill, the killer in Silence of the Lambs?

I had no answer for what she was asking, and she ultimately just shrugged and laughed and we moved on.

I kept thinking about the whole thing for awhile because it’s a pretty funny story. A few days later, I am still laughing about it, and I ended up feeling two big things:

One is, I am grateful that I don’t blackout and do crazy s**t that requires an explanation the next day.

And two, I’m going to tell myself that the person named Bill that I yell about in the middle of the night is Bill Wilson, one of the godfathers of recovery. I’m going to assume that I love sobriety so much that I just scream about it all night!

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:

Asked by her third-grade teacher to spell the word “straight,” Susie, the daughter of an alcoholic, stood up proudly and said, “S-t-r-a-i-g-h-t.”

“Very good, Susie,” said her teacher. “Now, can you tell us what it means?”

“No ice,” Susie answered.

(Credit: AA Grapevine, August 2001, Kevin O. from Hastings, Nebraska)

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 but I am hoping to generate a few bucks to pay for my web site and some other costs. Paid subscribers do have access to frequent premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I watch a lot of UFC fights, and there is a moment before every fight where both fighters walk to the cage. It is a wild walk—there’s music blaring, and sometimes 20,000 people are screaming for a guy as he or she walks into a cage where they will try to absolutely destroy another human being.

I still remember some of the conflicting emotions that I used to feel as a wrestler running out onto the mat through a tunnel of teammates and coaches yelling and screaming and slapping me to get me wound up. It was exhilarating, terrifying, joyous, a little dangerous and very brotherly.

I was struck by that the past two weekends when I watched fights. A fighter would come to the cage with an entourage of their closest friends and family, men and women who sweated, bled and cried with these fighters as they trained for months for this moment. And now they were going to go into the cage, then somebody would lock the door and they would go to battle against another person with their own crew standing outside the cage.

They always hug. No high fives. No chest bumps. Hugs. There’s a reason why they always hug their people before they go into the cage, and it’s because they all knew what it took to get there and also how daunting the thing could be that they were about to do. There’s real danger when it comes to that kind of violence.

I’m writing about this on a sober blog because I was in the grocery store recently and saw a sober guy who I hadn’t seen in a year, maybe more. In fact, I couldn’t even remember his name, just that he went to some of the same meetings as me. I don’t have his number, don’t know where he lives, don’t talk to him outside of meetings and can’t remember a single conversation I have ever had with him one-on-one. And yet, I gave him a big-ass bearhug in the soup aisle today.

That got me thinking about what hugs represent, especially for us sober people. We are huggers. I think of the 5,000 or so people I’ve ever met at meetings, I think I have probably hugged about 4,900 of them. It’s actually a little odd to give out handshakes.

So why is that? It’s definitely not because we are going to cage fight anybody. But… we also know the fight that many of us went through to get to that moment. Everybody I meet at meetings has had a horrible bottom they have lived through. There’s lots of arrests, divorces, bankruptcies, missed birthday parties and funerals. We all have so many scars. They’re all different, of course. But they’re kind of all the same, too, if that makes any sense. As we say in the rooms, I may not know you… but I know you.

Maybe there are similarities with fighters, after all. MMA corner people know what somebody went through to get to that point, and they want to love them through the fight they’re about to endure. In that way, we sober people are similar. I know what it takes for a full-blown alcoholic to stay sober, so when I see them again, some part of me is glad that we won the fight—for that day, anyway. That’s why we hug.

I should say, though, that the initial reason I started thinking about this topic was because the UFC pay-per-view from two weeks ago came on at 10 pm. At about 10:02, the cameras zeroed in on the three-man broadcasting team, and all three announcers were staring backwards away from the camera because a massive brawl had broken out in the crowd. Fights at UFC fights are pretty common, but I have never seen the entire broadcast sputter like that because the brawl was so chaotic.

It turns out, the fight was on the floor, near the side of the cage, and it was between one fighter’s training partners and friends, with another fighter who is a well-known online troll. He’d been picking on that fighter for years on social media, and now he ran into the guys who hug the fighter before he goes into the cage.

So maybe the similarities end there with UFC fighters’ entourages and my sober crew. I don’t think I want a sponsor and sponsees who want to beat the living s**t out of any sober nemesis of mine!

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 sharing my experience, strength and hope at an online meeting for the first time, I felt very much a part of the growing online world and proudly declared myself an official “cyber-drunk.”

“That’s fine,” an oldtimer responded, “as long as you remember you’re not a virtual alcoholic.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, August 2001, Anonymous 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 mostly publishing free pieces but I am hoping to generate a few bucks to pay for my web site and some other costs. Paid subscribers do have access to frequent premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

Monday was my 17-year sober anniversary. I say this every year but… what a ride it has been.

I try to take a moment at the end of every year sober and reflect upon the previous year—what did I specifically make progress on this year? And are there any areas where I stayed the same, or took a step back?

For me, there was a big headline from November 2024 till November 2025—cancer. In March 2024, after a routine colonoscopy, I found out I had rectal and liver cancer, making it Stage 4 cancer. Basically, my ass was falling off.

On the day I was celebrating my 16th anniversary last November, I was coming off a brutal surgery, with three more chemotherapy sessions to go. Then… who knew? Was the cancer gone? That would be the story of my year.

Luckily, the cancer was indeed gone. But I was told, in no uncertain terms, that uncertainty was going to be a part of my life going forward. Cancer tests aren’t like on TV. There’s no definitive yes/no. There are lots of appointments to talk about strange masses that might be fluid, or maybe swelling, or maybe a horrific tumor that will choke the life out of my body… who can say?!?!

But long story short, the tests keep looking good. So as of Tuesday of this week, I am cancer free. And when I look back on the year, and if I made any spiritual progress, I keep coming back to the same word: uncertainty.

When I found out I had cancer, everything I thought I had plans for went out the window. My year shifted toward revolving entirely around a hospital near my house, and everything that my doctors told me to do. My cancer trumped everything. It was like if the earth just completely changed course and begun to orbit a different star.

That meant the ground underneath my feet always was shifting, that I could never quite get my feet under me in just about any aspect of life. I had to go do a will, closely examine my life insurance policy and make adjustments, and have some conversations with people about what I would want if I don’t make it. The only certainty was the uncertainty.

But you know what? I began to accept the uncertainty, and I came to an obvious realization that most people would agree with but never truly accept in their heart: This whole thing is uncertain. The world. The country. The state. The town. My freaking house. Nothing is for sure. I could redo my roof and try to sell my house, then a tree branch falls on it. I might walk out to start my car tomorrow morning and it doesn’t start… or it’s not even there!

When I say that to people, they all nod their heads. They know that’s true, logically, but I don’t think many people truly accept that. If they did, we’d have 90 percent fewer arguments, 90 percent less middle fingers on the roads and I think Facebook would just disappear overnight—because when you accept the uncertainty of this world, and that none of us knows for sure that we have tomorrow, then you are able to truly feel what actually matters. And winning an argument about whether Bill Belichick is the best football coach ever suddenly doesn’t occupy a half hour of your day.

But accepting uncertainty is easier said than done. I need to surround myself with people who live that way, and thankfully, I have so many sober friends that treat their disease as a one-day-at-a-time, 24-hour reprieve from substance abuse and that has now spread into their entire worldview. That has become infectious for me, and I very rarely find myself saying so many things that other people struggle with… have I saved enough money? What will I do if I lose my job? What happens if my kid gets sick? What if I get sick? What happens when we die? If there is a heaven, will I be in it?!?!

I’m pretty at ease with all of that stuff, because I have people in my life who constantly remind me to not live in the wreckage of the future. That is a big deal—I need people who won’t put up with unproductive negative thinking—and I feel like I made major strides this past year when it comes to accepting the uncertainty of the world around me.

And yes, that even includes if my ass starts to fall off again!

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

You know you’re a recovering alcoholic if:

--1: Emails from your friends say HALT in the subject header.

--2: Your idea of a smooth opening line is “I really liked what you shared.”

--3: You don’t know the last names of most of your friends.

(Credit: AA Grapevine, July 2001, 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 but I am hoping to generate a few bucks to pay for my web site and some other costs. Paid subscribers do have access to frequent premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!

I was in New York City multiple times in the past month, and I had quite an experience.

I worked in New York for 10 years, specifically in the midtown New York area. For about five of those years, I had begun to hustle and work urgent cares and doctors offices for pills, all while spiraling pretty hard into an ugly alcohol addiction, too.

So as I walked those streets, I had multiple instances where I remembered some very ugly day or incident at a street corner or a bar or pharmacy. There was one McDonald’s where I tried snorting several painkillers, which didn’t go well. Shocker, right?

But on this recent trip, I also began to note that at many of these dark places, there was also a lot of light. I’d spent about seven years running loose as an active addict and alcoholic, but then three years as a newly-sober person who loved his new life without drugs and alcohol. So many of those street corners and restaurants and pharmacies also featured fond memories of walking out of a meeting with my sponsor, getting together with a newcomer and lots of other awesome things. There was one combo Subway/Dunkin Donuts in particular where I used to go and nod out from the painkillers while trying to hype myself up with caffeine at the same time. And that was the same Subway/Dunkin where I went to pick up party subs for an anniversary party at the 12-step meeting I called my home group.

When I was there recently, it had been awhile, and I found myself caught up in the feeling of sweet-and-sour that addicts can feel about their old stomping grounds. On one hand, I felt overwhelmed by the sadness of what I used to do in those parts when I was still running and gunning. On the other hand, I felt tremendous gratitude about the people who invested their time in me and helped me live an entirely different life in the exact same place. The good feelings ultimately trounced the bad ones. In fact, the negative memories seemed to amplify my gratitude that I didn’t have to live like that.

It was just a helpful reminder about what so many addicts go through as they try to get their life on track. Often times, they can’t just go to Hawaii for 90 days to get clean and sober, then come home and quit their job and dump their husband or wife to move to Canada to avoid all of the old triggers. I had to get sober and turn things around while in the same house, job and car, and I am so glad I had people there to guide me through those same spaces where I used to wreak havoc. Without them, I probably would have ended up violently throwing up in every Applebee’s bathroom in New York City, not just the vast majority of them!

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

HEARD AT MEETINGS: “When you make a mistake, make amends immediately. It’s easier to eat crow while it’s still warm.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, June 2001, Susan C. from Richmond, Virginia)

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