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I watched a UFC pay-per-view on Saturday night, and there was a heavyweight named Tai Tuivasa who is a wild man. After his wins, he busts out a celebration he calls the “Shoey”—which entails him grabbing a random shoe and beer that is handed to him, and he chugs beer from the shoe.

It’s as gross as it sounds, and on Saturday night, as he walked through the crowd afterward, multiple fans handed him shoes and alcohol. He chugged every one of them—including a shoe that was filled up by beer by a fan who also poured a bunch of hot sauce into it. You could see on his face the look of discomfort from downing 12 ounces of cheap arena beer with four ounces of hot sauce in it.

As I watched, I was laughing… but also cringing. It was so gross to me. And yet, it brought back so many memories of my active addiction days. Here are just a few things I did during the boozing chapter of my life:

—I picked 10 painkillers out of my own puke and ate them again.

—I puked in dozens of public bathroom toilets, nose buried in a bowl that had God-knows-what else in there.

—I tried sniffing a crushed-up extra strength Vicodin in a McDonald’s bathroom one time, not pausing to think that most of any pill is chalk. I ended up honking out powdery snot for the next two hours. It really looked like I tried inhaling an old-school first-grade chalkboard.

—I projectile-vomited multiple times in my car while driving. I just flat-out blasted puke all over myself and the car. And, as you can imagine, I’d mop it up with napkins the best I could, but I was never in the right state to actually thoroughly clean up the barf.

—One time in college, we bought a bunch of six packs of Rolling Rock, and a roommate scrunched up his face after drinking a sip from the first bottle. “Ugh, this six-pack is skunked,” he said. He went to pour out his beer in the sink and I yelled, “Whoa, what are you doing?” He said he wasn’t going to drink skunked beer, and I thought that was outrageous. So for the next hour or so, I worked my way through six repulsive beers. And at the end, I remember the taste in my mouth and thinking, “It really is like I broiled a skunk and made horrible soup from it, then insisted on eating it in front of 10 other 20-year-olds.”

I could keep going and going…

I don’t recall ever actually drinking beer out of some rando’s shoes, but I can’t imagine I’d have ever turned that down when I was active. The broader point is that I was willing to go to any lengths, puke or fecal matter be damned, to get wasted. As long as I’m willing to go to any lengths for my sobriety, too, I’m so glad I don’t have to live like that any more.

I also was thinking about beer pong, for some reason. A few years ago, I went to a friend’s house on Saturday night for a big boxing event. In the kitchen, a bunch of people were playing beer pong. The alcoholics out there are probably nodding their heads because I think we all played beer pong at some point in our drinking lives.

As I watched, I thought I was going to start dry-heaving. Remember what beer pong actually looks like if you’re clear-headed?!?! It’s red Solo cups, filled with warm beer, and people throwing a dirty-ass pingpong ball that bounces all over a gross table and then falls onto a grosser floor. Over and over again. There is a cup on the table with warm water that everybody dunks the ball in… which seems a little like brushing your teeth in a mud puddle.

So I turned off the TV on Saturday night and just paused to be grateful that I don’t have to do absolutely repulsive things any more. My kids would probably laugh if they heard me talking like this, because they get grossed out when I whip out the 10-second rule if a cookie falls on the floor of my house.

But hey, at least I’m not sucking down beers from some guy’s boot at the mall. I know that’s a pretty low bar… but I’ll take 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.

One Saturday afternoon, around 3 p.m., the town drunk came lurching into the pool hall.

“Hey, Ed,” one of the locals called to him. “Have you been drinking all day?”

“The drunk rolled back on his heels, thought for a minute and replied, “I don’t know. What day is it?”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, October 2000, Jim S. from Galesburg, Illinois)

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I’m about to go on a rant about travel, and I swear there is a spiritual message to pass along. I’ll get there. But you gotta let me cook for a minute. I just had some of the most bonkers travel scenarios a fella could ever hope to not have.

I had a pretty basic trip planned for this week. From Connecticut to Virginia on Tuesday night, then back to Connecticut on Thursday morning. Simple, right? Oh man, I wish.

I got to the airport on Tuesday evening just as a biblical storm was arriving. I mean, it was some Wizard of Oz b******t. In fact, right after I got through the TSA line, the airport power went out. Completely dark, for two minutes. Never heard of that happening before.

It was like something out of a Die Hard movie. Gates started closing, with people rolling on the ground to get in or out of terminals. State troopers appeared out of nowhere. ATM machines were blinking. Alarms were blaring. I thought I was in the middle of an Oceans 15 heist.

Finally, things calmed down a bit, even though all of the computerized screens were still off. They eventually boarded my plane about 45 minutes late, and we started down the runway. Then we stopped and pulled off. We sat and sat and sat for another hour, with the pilot occasionally saying it’d just be another 10-15 minutes. At about 7:55 p.m. he came over the loudspeaker and said something I hope I never hear again: “Ladies and gentlemen, we were told by the air traffic control tower that if we didn’t hear back from them by 8 p.m., our flight path is most likely clear and we can take off. So we’re going to sneak one past the control tower and get up in the air momentarily.”

Uh, what? Do we want to be sneaking planes past air traffic control in any way? I think I’m voting against Team Sneaky on this one.

So we got in the air and oh my, it was bumpy. Big drops. People yelling as we hit pockets of turbulence.

But the plane eventually landed in Philadelphia, and I had about 15 minutes to get to my connection to Connecticut. Haha. I forgot that one end of the Philadelphia airport is in Philadelphia, and the other end is just west of Pittsburgh. I rode two different buses to a terminal that was packing it in for the day. The plane was gone. I got a hotel room at the airport and grabbed another flight the next day.

As I type this, it’s Thursday morning and I am staring at an airplane I was supposed to be on. I had a 6:25 a.m. flight and woke up at 4:30 and started trying to get an Uber. No luck. Tried getting a taxi. “We don’t really have taxis around here any more,” the hotel front desk guy said. Finally, I got an Uber to the airport and arrived at 6:15. The airport was small enough that I thought I had a chance.

Nope. The airline said I arrived too late to check in for my plane, so they bumped me. So I am at the gate waiting for my next flight, three hours from now… and the original plane is sitting there, blinking at me. I’m kinda waiting for the pilots to put the cockpit window down and give me the finger.

All right, enough of me whining. I’m telling you this story because spiritual experiences aren’t always lilacs and unicorns and parted clouds and sunshine beams. Sometimes I learn more from bumpy experiences than smooth ones. In this case, it’s about how unmanageable life is, sober or not.

In active addiction, life was totally unmanageable and I was powerless over alcohol and drugs. I accepted that immediately when I went to rehab. I have no hope once I put that first drink or drug to my lips.

Then I got sober, and in early sobriety, life was still pretty unmanageable. I didn’t have the money to pay all my bills, and I mean that literally and figuratively. The collection agencies were after me, for sure, but friends and loved ones now knew the truth about the 10 years before. I didn’t have the metaphorical currency to pay those tabs at four weeks sober, either.

But then I started putting together days and weeks and months, and good things began to happen. I got promoted twice in my first six months without drugs and alcohol. My relationships improved. I connected with a nice sober network and found a higher power that worked for me. My life had turned around.

And it stayed turned around, to this day. But here’s the thing about finding success in recovery—it can extremely detrimental to the way I view the world. I start to think I am very smart and good at lots of things and good at making lots of good things happen. It’s not that I think I am God or anything. It’s just that I start to pull back my will, pull back my trust in something bigger than me and subconsciously start to think, “I got this.”

So that’s why the dumpster fire from this week can be valuable for me. I have no control over biblical storms. I can’t make airplanes take off or land. I can’t summon Ubers at 5 a.m. out of thin air. I am at the mercy of the universe. I prayed more the past three days than I did in the three weeks prior.

Granted, it wasn’t the kind of prayers I want to be making. I want to have a steady relationship with a higher power, not desperate foxhole prayers of “God, get me to the airport.” But hey, it’s a first step. It’s the equivalent of the sorta sad late-night text to an ex-girlfriend, “You up?”

I have about two hours till my new flight takes off. Hoping this one is on time, smooth and doesn’t require, you know, sneaking past air traffic control.

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.

Then there was the guy who arrived for an intake session with the rehab psychiatrist—constantly snapping his fingers.

The doctor politely inquired, “Why are you doing that?”

“To keep the tigers away!”

“But there aren’t any tigers here.”

“See,” the man said, “it works.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, August 2000, Anonymous)

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 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

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.

I was in a conversation recently about amateur wrestling with someone who was a former Division I college wrestler. I love wrestling so much—I’m a die-hard sports fan but college wrestling is No. 1 on my list.

At the end of the conversation, the guy asked me, “Did you wrestle in college?”

I immediately said, “Yes.”

Here’s the problem: I definitely did NOT wrestle in college. I had a nice high school wrestling career at a Pennsylvania powerhouse, but I did not wrestle in college. I wasn’t good enough to wrestle at that level.

And yet… it flowed right out of my mouth. No hesitation. No restraint of pen and tongue. My brain still can immediately reach for an answer and pull out the one that makes me look the best. Sometimes it’s a flat-out lie, like that situation. Luckily, since I have been sober, my ability and willingness to blatantly say something untrue has dropped way, way down.

But there’s a reason in court they ask you to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Those last two parts are where the trouble lies.

For instance, a few years ago, I remember one day when I told my wife I’d be home from work around 6. She said she had to run an errand as soon as I got home. Well, I rolled in around 6:30 instead, and she asked me what happened with the extra 30 minutes. I told her there had been a car on fire on the highway.

There had been a car on fire on the highway. But I drove right past the flaming car at 55 MPH. The whole truth was, I stopped at a gas station for a soda, drank the whole thing in my car and went in for a refill, ran into a friend, shot the s**t for 20 minutes, and boom, I’m a half hour late getting home.

The problem is, I didn’t count that as a lie at first. But it was. It certainly wasn’t the truth. I said it because it smoothed things over for me—it worked. But I can’t do that and stay sober. I just can’t. I know nobody really, truly was harmed by paving over the truth with some b******t. But my sobriety was harmed. I can’t do that very many times before it is a habit.

So I told her later that night something like, “Hey, I should come clean. There was a car on fire and a slowdown on the road, but I was late mostly because I screwed around at a gas station soda fountain for awhile. I’m sorry. That wasn’t very thoughtful of me and I won’t let it happen again.”

Now for that last part of the court swearing statement: “Nothing but the truth.” I remember at rehab, there was a guy who had been in and out of sobriety for many, many years. He had tremendous knowledge of the various 12-step programs, how rehab worked and had seen countless other people get sober. But he hadn’t been able to get it quite right himself despite multiple attempts.

About two weeks after I got to rehab, he pulled me and said some kind things about how hard I’d been working. I remember he said something about enjoying listening to me speak, but then he said, “Be careful, though. You have a silver tongue that will cause you golden problems.”

The more I think about that comment, the more I realize it doesn’t quite make sense. But I understood his point then to be that I speak well, and that I have to watch to make sure I don’t use my mouth to cover up for bad behaviors and actions.

Even if that actual sentence doesn’t make sense, I do think he made a good point—a point that remains true to this day. I have tried to use my words and humor to get myself out of bad situations, both before and after I got sober. It’s all a hustle to get out of the truth. It’s b******t talk masquerading as truth.

I guess that leads to one of the most important parts of recovery these days. It’s “to thine own self be true.” Most of the lies, or the untruths, or the not-the-whole-truths that I might tell don’t do much harm. So it’s possible that I get away with these minor scams to keep my nose clean.

But I am in real trouble when my internal radar doesn’t start beeping. Luckily, I have been in a place for a long time where my spirituality is just sturdy enough to have that voice in my head go, “Wait a second. That wasn’t cool.” The minute I start lying to myself, too… oof. I hate to even imagine where that road leads, but I bet it would involve my silver tongue causing me some very golden problems.

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.

Typing an email message while tipsy could cause some serious harm. Consider the case of the practicing alky who left the snow-filled streets of Chicago for a vacation in Florida. His wife was on a business trip and was planning to meet him there the following day. When he reached the hotel after several drinks on the plane, he went right to the hotel bar and kept drinking. When he finally went up to his room, he decided to send his wife a quick email. Unable to see the screen clearly, he managed to type the message with one eye closed.

Unfortunately he missed one letter, and his email was directed not to his wife but to an elderly preacher’s wife, whose husband had passed away only days before. When the widow checked out her email, she took one look at the monitor, let out a piercing scream, and fainted. When her family rushed into the room, they saw this note on the screen:

Dearest wife,

Just got checked in. Everything prepared for your arrival tomorrow.

(signed) Your eternally loving husband

P.S. Sure is hot down here.

(Credit: AA Grapevine, June 2000, Jeff H.)

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 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

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.

On Saturday night, I walked onto a comedy stage for the first time since March 2020. I’d done one open mic, but I had no idea what to expect out of myself when I took the mic on Saturday night. Open mics are great, but it’s kind of like having a strong stretching session before a basketball game. You still don’t really know how you’ll play once it’s game time.

Backing up for a second: I first did standup in 2018 as a way to make amends to myself. I’d promised myself as a kid that someday I would try standup and see if I could make people laugh. But I spent my entire 20s and early 30s drunk or high most nights, and I just figured it would be one of those goals I’d have to cross off. I thought I’d thrown away the opportunity forever.

But in 2018, I was in a rut and worked with some sober friends to figure out how to get out of that rut. Standup stood out as a deep sadness on my part, one of the many, many things that alcohol and drug addiction had seized from me.

So I did a show in October, 2018, and kept doing it up through the pandemic. I had good nights and bad nights, but I tended to always have people come out to see me. And those people were mostly fellow alcoholics and addicts. Perhaps the best shows I ever did were sober conventions where I was asked to perform.

There are two reasons why those were my best shows. One is that I saw a lot of loving, familiar faces out in the crowd, and that always helps. Ninety percent of comedy for me is feeling comfortable out there. So much of what makes people laugh isn’t the words. It’s the pacing, the hand motions, the shoulder shrugs, the weird expressions on your face. When I am overly nervous, I end up just blurting out words, not performing an act. Next time you watch a comedian you like, pay special attention to what’s making you laugh. I bet a lot of it isn’t just the words you’re hearing.

The second reason is that reading the room is essential. I’ve had a few regular shows (not recovery events) where it’s impossible to really tap into the room’s energy because I look out at the crowd and it’s 20 people who are 24 years old, and 20 people who are 58 years old. Think about the number of things that would make both of those demographics laugh. It’s a very small Venn diagram.

In recovery, though, these are my people. I know them even if I don’t know them. So it’s really nice to have a good sense of the room the way that a sober crowd provides.

Now, back to Saturday night. I was quite nervous. I practice exhaustively, over and over again. But it’s still not quite the same thing as showtime. Think about making a pretend last-second game-winning basket by yourself on the hoop in your driveway, versus doing it in an actual game. You just can’t simulate it, which means I couldn’t quite say for sure how Saturday night would go.

And trust me on this, I have been ready to go for shows in the past and then… oof. I lay a total egg on stage. It’s often hard to pinpoint exactly what went wrong—sometimes it’s the performance, sometimes it’s the crowd, sometimes it’s the comics that went before. But I’ll tell you this, there is nothing in life quite like bombing at standup comedy.

I’ve led a pretty wild life. I’ve lost big sporting events in front of thousands of fans. I’ve said or done something humiliating during a public speaking event, or at a work function. I’ve been in a coma for a week, a wheelchair for six months and needed friends and family to bring me food and empty my urinal for almost a year. And, of course, I also spent 15 years or so doing more and more obscene things in active addiction. None of it is as rough as torpedoing on a stage by yourself. It’s hard to top the brutality of saying stuff you think will be funny and having 50-100 people just stare at you silently.

Anyway, I got there on Saturday night at around 7 p.m., an hour before the show was to begin. I had a pretty good idea that I had maybe 20-25 people coming—that’s half capacity, all there to see me and support me. And the majority of those 20-25 were people from sobriety.

And sure enough, as the clock ticked down till 8 p.m., friends started showing up. I can’t tell you how much that means. It’s not just about people showing up for me for a Saturday night comedy show. It’s the umpteenth time in sobriety where recovery people have shown up for me, and I know that for important events, I can always count on that group of people—and they can count on me. Whether it’s sober anniversaries, comedy shows, funerals, graduations, even moving… nobody shows up like sober people. It’s a a beautiful thing.

So as the clock wound down till go time, the room filled to capacity (50-60 people) and a big chunk of them were my friends. I went third, and, luckily, the first two comics were terrific. The crowd was warmed up and ready, and so was I.

I walked on stage and for about 8 minutes, had one of the best sets I have ever done. It certainly helped to look out and see loving faces in the crowd. I realized the same thing I often feel when I tell a 12-step meeting that I am struggling—they’re going to love me any way. I went on stage that night knowing if I bombed, they’d still all hug me and support me. What else can you ask for in life than that kind of support?

Well, I guess you could ask them to laugh, too. And they did! What an awesome night.

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 usher in a posh movie theater noticed a drunk sprawled across three seats. “Sorry, sir,” the usher said, “but you’re only allowed one seat.”

The man groaned but didn’t budge.

The usher became impatient. “Sir, if you don’t get up from there, I’m going to have to call the manager.”

Again, the drunk only moaned, which infuriated the usher, who turned and marched back up the aisle in search of the manager.

In a few moments, both the usher and the manager returned and stood over the man. “All right, buddy,” the manager said, “what’s your name?”

“Sam,” the drunk moaned.

“Where did you come from, Sam?”

With pain in his voice, Sam slurred, “The balcony.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, June 2000, Anonymous)

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 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

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.

I’ve been traveling a lot recently, so it’s been hard on my wife and kids to manage life at home when I’m not around. So I try to be thoughtful on trips and bring back small gifts for everybody.

Well… I had a dumpster fire moment last week. On a trip to Charlotte, I was delighted to see an American Girl store across the street. I walked over to buy my youngest daughter something, and struck up a nice conversation about potential purchases with a young woman employee.

She steered me into the best spot to find something in the $25 range. I eventually picked the perfect item and walked down an aisle toward her. She was standing 10 feet away, in front of the register, and I wanted to say thanks for the heads up…

Then I realized that my fly was down. Actually, it wasn’t just my fly: My pants weren’t buttoned at all.

So yeah, it totally looked like I was stripping in the store. I noticed, she noticed (she looked horrified) and I made an awkward noise and then ducked down another aisle. There, I crouched down a bit and, you know, actually put my pants completely on for the day.

I was mortified. I exchanged some awkward followup conversation with the woman but what do you say after THAT? We both just wanted to get on with our lives and I got the hell out of there as soon as I could.

But here’s the thing that relates to recovery. I have learned to process many emotions that used to trip me up—sadness, anger, fear, and so on. But I suck at dealing with the feeling of being embarrassed. I have always struggled mightily with those moments where I feel owned.

It might seem a little silly, but when I did my first Fourth Step and laid out my biggest resentments and where they were coming from, I found a lot of them revolved around feeling humiliated. I just have never been able to digest that feeling very well, and as I found on that Fourth Step, it was a roadmap toward drinking, drugging and numbing myself out when I was an active addict.

Now I’m sober, and I gotta confess, it’s not that much easier. I think I’m able to laugh off things now, I can take some ribbing and my skin is quite a bit thicker. But those really embarrassing moments… they’re still hard for me.

So when I left the store, I spent the next few hours going through a litany of thoughts about how to make the situation better. As so often happens when I am inside my own head, the thoughts got dumber and dumber. At first, it was like, Should I go back to the store and explain? Should I call over there and apologize?

Then it got progressively more and more crazy. Maybe I ought to write a letter to the manager? SHOULD I HAVE FRIENDS AND FAMILY WRITE LETTERS OF SUPPORT SO EVERYBODY KNOWS I’M NOT A HUGE CREEP WHO TAKES HIS PANTS OFF AT AMERICAN GIRL STORES?!?!

I eventually got out of my own brain and called a sober friend and said that I was in a bit of a tailspin. He said I was probably blowing things out of proportion and I told him the story. “She probably thinks I am a huge creep,” I said at the end.

“Well… that is pretty creepy, I gotta say,” he said, and we both started laughing. He ultimately said he gets it but that the best plan of action is to probably say a little prayer, move on and get the hell out of Charlotte.

So that’s what I did. And, as so often happens in recovery, we learn from our mistakes. I’ve kept my pants on the right way for almost a week straight since then!

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.

When a woman called the local police station to report that she had found a drunk in her cellar, the police sergeant advised, “Make a trail of drinks from the basement to the yard and wait for the drunk to follow them outside.”

A little while later the woman called back: “I did what you told me. Now I’ve got two drunks in my cellar.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, April 2000, Shirlene H. from Bountiful, Utah)

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 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

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.

I meditate for 20 minutes a day, and I really like going to YouTube and hunting down 10- or 20-minute guided meditations. There are so many options available for the kinds of sessions you can do (gratitude, getting rid of negativity, acceptance, etc.). Try it some time—especially if you’re somebody who wants to meditate but struggles because your mind races or you can’t sit still. I find the guided ones to be soothing and helpful in holding my hand through meditation some days.

Anyway, I had two in a row recently that mentioned the idea of being a magnet for good things. I took that as a sign that I might need to hear that right now. I’ve heard that concept many times over the years and caught myself blowing it off as hippy-dippy new age b******t. But that’s a good window into one of my character defects—a lack of open-mindedness and dismissiveness when it comes to spiritual concepts and pursuits.

The truth is, the idea that you attract things you put out there constantly comes to fruition in my life. When I inject gossip or judgmentalism into a conversation, it’s almost inevitable that the other person either nods along or adds something, too. When I start complaining about the traffic on a certain road, the person standing in front of me usually responds with a story about bad traffic on that road, also. That stuff ends up being lint traps for crap I don’t need more of.

I’ve also found the opposite to be true. When I express gratitude or something else positive, the other person tends to keep rowing the conversation in that direction. Or, if I am on a rant and the other person steers it toward a positive direction, I ultimately reverse course a bit and get dragged toward a better place. It really is magnetization.

I’m reminded of a recent interaction I had with somebody I hadn’t seen in awhile. I’m at the fist bump stage of re-entering society… I’m not quite ready for handshakes yet, and hugs is like asking me to meet you at a motel for an hour. You gotta buy me a few dinners first, okay?

So I saw this guy and I wanted to say hello, and I reached out with a fist bump. At almost the exact same time, he put his hand out for a handshake. But he saw my fist bump and shifted from a handshake to a fist bump. It was awkward for one second but we exchanged a fist bump and pleasantries and it was quite nice.

That reminds me of my role in being a magnet. In that situation, I’ve never had anybody who just leaves their hand out for a handshake and stares at you—they meet you where you’re at. And that goes for my attitude.

That’s my role: I need to be putting out positive stuff, because that’s what I want to be magnetized to attract back. I definitely have people in my life who don’t participate when I offer up a storm cloud of negative crap, but I don’t want to always need somebody to catch me and turn me around. I’d rather be that guy for other people.

Maybe I can morph into Magneto and control magnetic fields! In the mean time, though, maybe I’ll just try to stop s**t-talking that guy in the office as much as I have been.

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 drunk goes into a bar. The bartender says, “Boy, you look like you need a drink!” The man says, “Okay” and gets the drink, but he doesn’t have the money to pay for it, so the bartender kicks him out.

The man returns an hour later, even drunker, and the bartender explodes. “I kicked you out earlier. I don’t want to see your face in here again.” The drunk says, “Why, I’ve never been in here before!”

“Oh really?” says the bartender. “Then you must have a double.”

“Okay,” says the drunk, “and not too much ice.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, March 2000, Steve P. from Sarasota, FL)

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I’ve been on a lot of airplanes recently and… oof. It’s as unfun as ever. The airports and planes are packed, some people can be very grumpy, and the airlines don’t cater to my every need. (What is wrong with them?!?!)

On one recent plane ride, though, I saw something pretty cool. An older couple, probably around 80 years old, boarded early and was sitting near the front of the plane. They sat down and proceeded to fist bump every single person that boarded the plane. “Let’s have a good flight,” they were saying to everybody.

At first, I was thinking, Oh god, I don’t really need to be touching any strangers on this plane.

But people seemed to like it. Hell, I liked it. It was a totally unnecessary gesture and served no real purpose for the plane ride. But geez, the whole plane felt different when we took off. People seemed a little less irritated, and it felt like there were more smiles on that plane than all of the others I’d been on, combined. Their small kind gesture mattered.

When the plane landed and the seat belt sign went off, I noticed that there wasn’t the usual rush to get off the plane. Usually, people start standing up and boxing out others like they’re going for an NBA Finals rebound. This time, people stood up and started to collect their things to deboard the plane, but everybody gave that couple a chance to get moving first. Turns out, I wasn’t the only one appreciated such a cute little moment.

It was a good reminder that not all good deeds need to be gigantic. Holding a door, returning a shopping cart, fist-bumping every dolt with a carry-on… these small things add up to a kinder, gentler life, especially for an addict like me. I need to be doing as much as possible to be of service to others. If I don’t, I start to drift back into thinking only about myself.

I had a good few days afterward, and I doubled down on something I’ve been doing recently. I’ve been trying to tip workers unexpectedly—cashiers at Dunkin or the gas station, the lady at Subway who makes my sandwich, even the guy at Barnes and Noble who rings me up. Why not? Those people work really hard and nobody ever tips them.

Let me be upfront, though, about still being a work in progress. I constantly have to keep an eye out for my motives, because I do tend to let my hand hover above the tip jar until the worker spots my incredible kindness and acknowledges it. I need that person to know what a superhero I am.

And this weekend, I really caught myself trying to replicate that old couple’s gesture, but without the selflessness they displayed. I bought $12.36 worth of stuff at a 7-11, and all I had was a couple of $20s in my pocket. The guy at the register had greeted me on the way in and seemed to be hustling his butt off to keep customers taken care of. So as I looked at the total, and then the $20 I was about to hand him, I said screw it. “Keep the change,” I told him.

“OK,” he said.

And then… nothing. He just went about his business, and I picked up my merchandise and started to leave. I kept waiting to hear an endless parade of appreciative words from the guy and he gave me nothing.

As I walked to the car, I was muttering under my breath about how this clown would dare not recognize my kindheartedness. How could he not be in debt forever to the guy who gave him $7?

Luckily, I can laugh at myself now in sobriety, and those bonkers conversations don’t last nearly as long as they used to. By the time I unlocked the car and put the milk and Doritos on the passenger seat, I was laughing at my inability to do a kind gesture for the sake of doing a kind gesture.

As usual… I guess I’ll keep coming!

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 woman comes home after a couple of hours spent drinking in her favorite tavern. As she falls through the doorway, her husband snaps at her, “What’s the big idea coming home half drunk?”

The woman replies, “I’m sorry, honey, I ran out of money.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, Feb. 2000, Shirlene)

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 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

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.

My youngest daughter did a cheerleading camp this week, and it was awesome. After her first day, I asked her how it was and she rolled her eyes, exasperated.

“The 6-year-olds are really hard to hold up when we do lifts, and it’s so hard to keep them focused on practicing—they’re very hard to deal with, Dad,” she said.

I started dying laughing. “You’re 6 years old!” I said.

She nodded her head that yes, it’s true, she was indeed talking about people her age. But these OTHER kids were very difficult!

It reminded me of the first time I heard somebody at a meeting say, “You spot it, you got it.”

I immediately misunderstood what that meant. I thought the saying was that if you identify something about yourself, you can handle it. Like: It’s okay, you got this!

But what it really meant—in the context it was said to me, anyway—is that when I am pointing an aggravated finger at things, there’s a decent chance that it’s bothering me for a very specific reason: That the behavior in front of my face is serving as a mirror.

I only discovered my poor comprehension of that slogan when I was railing against a work colleague for being a loudmouth know-it-all and I noticed the sober friend across from me was experiencing a case of raised-eyebrow-itis. I finally stopped, mid-rant, and said, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

He didn’t even open his mouth to answer. It hit me that he was goofing on me with his bulging eyeballs because I might occasionally be a know-it-all loudmouth myself. I initially was thinking, “Nooooooooooo. No way. Me?” But the more I sat with it, the more I realized that it was true, that many of the behaviors that frustrate me the most in life are often times when a mirror is held up in front of my face and I see the worst parts of me on display.

And the truth is, yeah, I have just enough knowledge and wit and opinions to have something to say about almost everything. My best moments in sobriety are usually my quietest—I’m not jamming my thoughts down your throat. My worst moments often involve me needing to just shut up. It’s basically my version of being 6 years old and getting aggravated by other 6-year-olds.

Speaking of which… my little one also recently picked up the phrase, “Whoever smelt it, dealt it.” She uses it all the time, for nonsensical reasons. I asked her to clean up her plate and drink cup from the living room the other day and she shook her head to indicate no. “Hey, you smelt it, you dealt it.”

I was miffed for a minute about the mis-use of that phrase but I eventually shrugged my shoulders and took the plate and cup out of the living room myself. These 6-year-olds can be very hard to deal with…

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.

HEARD AT MEETINGS: “Drinking saved my marriage. We were always too drunk to finish the divorce paperwork.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, May 2003, Anonymous from New York, New York)

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 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

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.

The other day, I did a long weight-lifting session. When I was done, my arms were shot. So when I grabbed my phone, it legitimately felt hard to pick up.

I started laughing, because it was the first time my phone literally felt like it weighed 300 pounds. That’s the old cliche in recovery, right? That our phones are terrifyingly heavy?

And early in recovery, that certainly was the case for me. I took advice to get to 90 meetings in 90 days, find a sponsor and call him every day. But I only called him. It got to the point where he said, “Dude, you need a network of sober people. Not just me.”

I jokingly said, “Ooh, sorry, Mr. Important Busy Pants, I guess I am getting a little too clingy.”

He had a good sense of humor, so he laughed it off and explained what he meant. “Nah, I’ll talk to you every day. I’m happy to do that. But there will be times when I am unavailable, times when I don’t know what to tell you, times when I am flat-out wrong. That’s when you need a long list of trusted people in recovery.”

I was struck by the humility of what he said. He was openly acknowledging he didn’t know everything. That’s been a message I have carried with me ever since then, because I have found that I don’t really want the know-it-all’s version of recovery. I want to be around people who are still actively seeking to grow in recovery.

The importance—for me—of the 1-2 punch of meetings and the phone reminds me of when I had a few injuries in my athletic career and would get prescribed physical therapy. I’d go into the therapy place for an hour and do stretches and workout stuff, then they’d send me home with a list of things to do on my own. For some of my injuries, I followed the directions. For others, I just did the work in the office and ignored the rest. You can probably guess which injuries healed up the best.

Same in recovery. From Day One, I have gone to meetings—usually four a week, no matter what. But I’ve also had periods where that was all I did. On the other hand, when I go to meetings and make a few phone calls every day, my life is much better. I need to pull out that 300-pound phone.

At one point in recovery, I found myself utilizing my drive to and from work (about an hour, total, every day) to make a call or two in the morning and evening. I usually caught up with the same general group of guys, usually all doing a similar commute to and from work. One day, a guy joked that we always end up pouring out our souls together… with turn signals blinking in the background. We started calling ourselves “The Blinker Boys,” and the name took off with a few other guys.

To this day, I love the power of the phone. That one call can go so far in getting me spiritually fit. I always encourage people to try talking to a different person in recovery every day for a month—it’s a good way to build a network, one turn signal at a time.

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 drunk with a 3-foot tall parrot on his shoulder stopped at a watering hole and took a seat. “My goodness!” exclaimed the bartender, when she looked up. “Where in heaven’s name did you find that?”

“Just stop at any bar around here and you’ll find dozens of them,” screeched the parrot.

(Credit: AA Grapevine, July 2003, Pat M.)

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 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

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.

Early on in my sobriety, I had a random—but brain-exploding—thought. I was 32 years old, and for the first time in my adult life, I was living without drugs and alcohol. By that, I mean, I was trying to be a husband and a dad and a son and an employee and neighbor and a responsible bill-paying consumer for the first time without being under the influence.

That hit me hard, because life on life’s terms is hard for anybody. But for a newcomer like me, it was my first time doing basic adult things, even though I was in a 32-year-old’s body. It reminded me of the movie Big, where Tom Hanks is a kid in a man’s body, trying to figure out how to find a place to live, pay the rent, fill out forms to get a job, manage a paycheck, be respectful in the workplace… all things you assume an adult would know because he is in a grown-ass man’s body.

And one story from my early days of recovery stands out as an example of how overwhelming that can be. Here goes:

When I had about a month sober, I was lying on the couch one Saturday morning watching TV. My 1-year-old daughter walked up to me and stood right in front of my face with a bowl of blueberries.

“Dad, do you know who likes blueberries?”

“Who?” I asked.

“Me,” she said, and she dropped two blueberries in her mouth, kept eye contact and just walked away from me, like Keyser F*****g Sose.

I chuckled a little bit at the randomness of the whole interaction, and then I started laughing, and then I started crying, and then I started REALLY laughing. I turned into such a big gooey puddle of emotions on the couch that I had to sit up, at which point I started to cough.

My wife was in the kitchen and heard what sounded like I was having some sort of meltdown. Because I kind of was having a meltdown. Since I’d been sober, I hadn’t had that sort of hurricane of emotions, and it was hard to handle.

I called my sponsor later that morning and told him the story, and I asked him, “What happened to me?”

He started laughing on the other end of the phone. “Well, that’s what’s known as feelings,” he said. “Those are things you used to numb yourself out about but now you have to actually sit with.”

I understood what he was saying. In my drinking days, I definitely felt mad, and sad, and everything in between. But I never really, truly processed anything. There were things that I would get mad about, drink over, wake up mad again, pop some pills to deaden the aggravation, wake up and remember I was mad again… over and over again. I never felt stuff, processed it and moved on. I just stuffed it in the basement and let it fester.

I’m so glad I don’t have to live like that any more. I definitely am still pretty good at whipping up a resentment from scratch (see: My Epic “Wiener” misunderstanding). There are so many minor incidents that I used to turn into an invitation for war but now they pop up, go through my digestive system and are gone in 20 minutes, no big deal. What a gift that is.

And guess what? I have a real soft spot in my heart for blueberries to this day!

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 police officer sees an erratic drunk driver plowing down the street, pulls her over, and gets out to investigate. Approaching the car, he notices that it has a flat tire.

“Did you know that one of your tires is flat?” the cop asks.

“Naw,” says the drunk behind the wheel. “The other three are just swollen.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, October 2003, Bob S. from East Hartford, Connecticut)

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 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