LOL Sober

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.

For the second time this week, let me just tell you a funny sobriety story. Maybe there’s some important meta message in there for you. Maybe there isn’t. It certainly ranks as one of the most important moments in my sobriety, because it changed my worldview of what sober relationships could look like.

Here goes:

The first time I did a Fifth Step, it was in the lobby of a busy financial services high-rise in New York City. I sat in the lobby coffee shop as people with briefcases and heels hustled in and out of the building. I remember an indoor waterfall piping in some soothing noise in the background.

My sponsor and I sat at a small table as accountants and stock brokers jetted past us. I went through my entire fourth step with him—my resentments, the parts of me affected by the resentments, and what my role in those resentments looked like. It was an incredible two hours.

Right there, scribbled on the pages of an old notebook, was the recipe for my addiction. So much anger. So much fear. So much big ego/low self esteem. So much self pity. So much finger-pointing and judgmentalism. All of the ingredients were there to create somebody who had to numb out to be able to deal with life.

When I got done, I felt equal parts exhausted and exhilarated. It felt like I’d poured my soul out. My sponsor said, “Great job. You did some really good work here. I love you.”

I was taken aback. Love? That wasn’t something I was used to saying to very many people.

“Uhhh, thanks, and, um, I love you, too,” I blurted out.

Then I awkwardly added, “I feel like if we’re gonna love each other now, we should at least know each others’ last names.”

My sponsor started dying laughing, and he told me his last name and I told him mine. “What’d you think I was gonna do, one-night stand you?” he asked.

We had a good laugh about it, and it was one of the most significant moments in my life. It hammered home the idea that I didn’t need to ever navigate the difficult stuff in life by myself. I had a community of people here who loved me even though they didn’t know my last name. For me, that’s what the Fifth Step is all about.

As I left the lobby that day, I felt love, and I felt loved, as I walked back to my office. And the best part? Unlike actual one-night stands, there was no walk of shame for this 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.

An inebriated lady was weaving down the street carrying a box. A friend stopped her and said, “What have you got in that box?”

“It’s a mongoose,” said the lady, with a hiccup.

“What on earth for?” said the friend.

“Well, you know how it is with me. I’m not very drunk now but I will be soon, and when I am, I see snakes and I’m scared of ‘em, and that’s what I got the mongoose for—to protect me.”

“But,” said the friend, “those are imaginary snakes.”

“That’s all right,” said the woman. “This is an imaginary mongoose.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, April 2000, Diana L. from Tulelake, California)

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.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Not sure what happened this morning, but some people got this post and some didn’t. So I am resending to everybody. Apologies if you got it twice… it isn’t THAT funny to have to sit through it two times!

One big goal I have with this newsletter is that we just have fun. It’s the entire point of this thing: Sobriety is a blast for me when I do the work. So occasionally I am just going to dial up a funny story that has some sober ingredients but is mostly just to make you laugh.

This one features irritation, impulsivity, some fight-or-flight behavior and the idea of walking around with your fists balled up. Not a great idea.

Here goes…

In the middle of the pandemic, I was at my wit’s end at home. The kids were scrapping with each other, my wife was frustrated with them, work was piling up… it was just too much, for everybody involved. Nothing terrible. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just too many people in close quarters for too long.

So I went to the grocery store for a few things we didn’t need that much. I just wanted some space, more than we were out of chocolate milk or shredded cheese.

This was early on in the pandemic so everybody was masked, and the weather was nice enough that I was in jeans and a Penn State football T-shirt. As I grabbed a cart, a guy made eye contact with me and said, “Hey, wiener.”

The guy called me a wiener.

Wiener? What was this guy’s problem? I thought. And what kind of insult is wiener, anyway? I’m not a wiener—he’s the wiener!

I was already coming in hot at the store, so I was incredibly irritated that some rando had the audacity to call me a wiener. I must have had a pretty ugly look on the top half of my masked face, too, because the guy kind of back pedaled and stayed away from me as I entered the store.

I was in there for maybe 30 minutes. I spent the first five plotting out how the wiener man was going to get dropped in the crouton aisle. Then I spent the next 10 minutes or so rolling through everything you guys have taught me in recovery.

“Somebody else’s opinion of me is none of my business.”

“Hurt people hurt people.”

“Any time I am disturbed, there is something wrong with me.”

By the time I got to the frozen vegetables for the final 10 minutes of my trip, I was already laughing about the out-of-nowhere wiener name-bomber. That’s one of the coolest things recovery has taught me—how to convert a bad feeling into a chuckle. Sometimes I’m able to process a white-hot burning resentment into a good belly laugh with one phone call to a sober friend.

That’s what happened here. I checked out and headed for the parking lot, already relishing the call I was going to make on the way home to one of my sober network friends. I love moments like that because it is a great opportunity to check in, call myself out on any b******t, and immediately clear out that space in my head.

I put my cart back, took off my mask and walked to my car. And there, 20 feet away, was the wiener man again. This time he had his mask off and he had a strange look on his face as he made eye contact again. I’d describe the look as… something like a pleading facial expression to clear up our beef?

With his lips exposed, I had a much better understanding of what he said next: “We are.”

I looked down at my T-shirt, saw the Penn State logo and realized he hadn’t called me a wiener. He’d actually said the universal exchange that happens between Penn State fans. One says, “We are,” and the other replies, “Penn State.”

I couldn’t help but laugh and say, “Penn State,” with a sigh of relief and embarrassment. I felt like… a huge wiener.

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.

The patient was lying in bed, still groggy from the effects of the recent operation. His doctor came in, looking very glum.

“I can’t be sure what’s wrong with you,” the doctor said. “I think it’s the drinking.”

“All right,” said the patient. “Can we get an opinion from a doctor who’s sober?”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, March 2000, Matt W.)

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.

One big goal I have with this newsletter is that we just have fun. It’s the entire point of this thing: Sobriety is a blast for me when I do the work. So occasionally I am just going to dial up a funny story that has some sober ingredients but is mostly just to make you laugh.

This one features irritation, impulsivity, some fight-or-flight behavior and the idea of walking around with your fists balled up. Not a great idea.

Here goes…

In the middle of the pandemic, I was at my wit’s end at home. The kids were scrapping with each other, my wife was frustrated with them, work was piling up… it was just too much, for everybody involved. Nothing terrible. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just too many people in close quarters for too long.

So I went to the grocery store for a few things we didn’t need that much. I just wanted some space, more than we were out of chocolate milk or shredded cheese.

This was early on in the pandemic so everybody was masked, and the weather was nice enough that I was in jeans and a Penn State football T-shirt. As I grabbed a cart, a guy made eye contact with me and said, “Hey, wiener.”

The guy called me a wiener.

Wiener? What was this guy’s problem? I thought. And what kind of insult is wiener, anyway? I’m not a wiener—he’s the wiener!

I was already coming in hot at the store, so I was incredibly irritated that some rando had the audacity to call me a wiener. I must have had a pretty ugly look on the top half of my masked face, too, because the guy kind of back pedaled and stayed away from me as I entered the store.

I was in there for maybe 30 minutes. I spent the first five plotting out how the wiener man was going to get dropped in the crouton aisle. Then I spent the next 10 minutes or so rolling through everything you guys have taught me in recovery.

“Somebody else’s opinion of me is none of my business.”

“Hurt people hurt people.”

“Any time I am disturbed, there is something wrong with me.”

By the time I got to the frozen vegetables for the final 10 minutes of my trip, I was already laughing about the out-of-nowhere wiener name-bomber. That’s one of the coolest things recovery has taught me—how to convert a bad feeling into a chuckle. Sometimes I’m able to process a white-hot burning resentment into a good belly laugh with one phone call to a sober friend.

That’s what happened here. I checked out and headed for the parking lot, already relishing the call I was going to make on the way home to one of my sober network friends. I love moments like that because it is a great opportunity to check in, call myself out on any b******t, and immediately clear out that space in my head.

I put my cart back, took off my mask and walked to my car. And there, 20 feet away, was the wiener man again. This time he had his mask off and he had a strange look on his face as he made eye contact again. I’d describe the look as… something like a pleading facial expression to clear up our beef?

With his lips exposed, I had a much better understanding of what he said next: “We are.”

I looked down at my T-shirt, saw the Penn State logo and realized he hadn’t called me a wiener. He’d actually said the universal exchange that happens between Penn State fans. One says, “We are,” and the other replies, “Penn State.”

I couldn’t help but laugh and say, “Penn State,” with a sigh of relief and embarrassment. I felt like… a huge wiener.

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.

The patient was lying in bed, still groggy from the effects of the recent operation. His doctor came in, looking very glum.

“I can’t be sure what’s wrong with you,” the doctor said. “I think it’s the drinking.”

“All right,” said the patient. “Can we get an opinion from a doctor who’s sober?”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, March 2000, Matt W.)

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.

When I was in college, I contracted a freak illness that almost killed me. I spent a week in a coma, and when I woke up, I was glad to be alive… but terrified because I knew I’d never be the same.

My doctors did the best they could to save my feet, but the tissue damage was horrific. I ended up having the ends of both feet amputated (all 10 toes), so I went from a size-12 foot to a size-4. I have the same size foot as I did when I was in kindergarten.

“How long until I can run again?” I asked my doctor.

“Not for a very, very long time,” he replied.

I immediately thought I could tell what he was really saying: I was never going to run again. I have the same size foot as a 5-year-old, and I’m 6-foot tall and 165 pounds. By 165, I mean, I weigh 190 but one time in college I did actually weigh 165, so I’m going with that.

From those early days after the coma until I got sober, doctors gave me basically whatever I wanted for pain. I spent a good 10 years getting rapidly sucked into opioid hell to go along with my alcohol problems.

Fast forward to 2008, when I got sober. Chronic pain was one of the biggest things that kept me from going to rehab. How could I possibly manage my very real pain without painkillers? I’m not alone with that concern, either: I saw a statistic recently that around 20 million Americans—yes, 20 million—have chronic pain issues. That means the next time you’re at the mall or Target, you probably passed 10 people with significant pain issues.

Even at the very, very bottom, when I knew I couldn’t keep going in active addiction, I wanted some solution to the pain problem. At rehab, I remember haggling with the counselors that I should at least be able to take Ambien or some other heavy sleep medication. The concept of “I won’t be able to sleep!” weighed heavily on my mind, and that’s been a pretty common thing I have heard from other people in the rooms of recovery. In my experience, concern about pain, sleep or recovery being boring are among the biggest reasons I’ve heard that people don’t come into sobriety.

My counselors didn’t let me take Ambien or anything else for sleep, so I did have a few bumpy nights. But guess what? I eventually settled into a rhythm of getting to sleep without any pills or booze. Like I did with pain, I found out that there are solutions other than my self-prescribed plans.

When it came to my feet, I did struggle for a few weeks early in sobriety. The truth is, I do have significant pain problems with my feet, and I always will. Airports, amusement parks, long lines at a sports stadium… those are hard for me. I end up in a lot of pain. I had a long weekend with my family and am actually in a ton of pain right now.

But I also discovered that the barrage of pills actually destroyed my ability to gauge and manage pain. Try to get your head around that for a second: I had created a pain management plan that made my pain unmanageable. It was a little like blowing a tire on the highway and deciding to turn the radio up so you can’t hear it any more. That’s not a long-term solution for your tire.

What I realized was that without being in a haze, I got to know my feet a lot better. The truth is, I need to have a very strong relationship with my body (and no, injecting 50 Vicodin, sleeping pills and 6 beers isn’t good for any relationship, is it?). That means constant communication, constant listening, constant learning. Again, like a good relationship. Now I have learned to hear what my body is telling me, and in return, I have found that I am able to ask my body for more than ever.

For example, remember how my doctor said I probably wouldn’t run for a very long time? He was right. But around the start of the pandemic, I thought, “Nobody ever actually told me I couldn’t run. Not even close.” So I started jogging last March for a minute or two, every day. Then I got up to 4-5 minutes, then 10, then 15. That’s about my maximum, but I am able to run almost every day now.

If you ever saw me running, it’s not a very pretty picture. I kind of lurch along, one foot in front of the other, just like my sobriety. But I recently ran for 30 minutes, and I was exhausted. But if you were looking, you would have seen a smile on my face, because it was a spiritual experience. A sweaty, gross, huffing and puffing spiritual experience. But those are the best kinds, aren’t they?

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 little prayer:

“Dear Lord, so far today I’ve done all right. I haven’t gossiped, haven’t lost my temper, haven’t been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or overindulgent. I’m really glad about that.

“But in a few minutes, God, I’m going to get out of bed, and from then on, I’m probably going to need a lot more help.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, Jan. 2000, “Ham on Wry,” by 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.

As I’ve said before, I am a big fan of Just for Today, a daily meditation book from one of the 12-step fellowships. I love that you can subscribe and it arrives in your email inbox every day with a little dose of something spiritual for breakfast. (You can subscribe here.)

I really enjoyed the June 9 entry, titled “Old dreams needn’t die.” The passage lays out how many of us spent our childhoods creating what we wanted to be when we grow up. (I personally don’t remember ever dreaming off eating 50 Vicodin, 8 beers and 2 Ambien every day and then barfing all over the inside of my car.) For me, addiction ruined many of those dreams, or at least postponed them.

There’s one line in particular that hit me: “In recovery, we find a reason to hope that our lost dreams could still come true.” Then it ends by encouraging us to tell ourselves, “Just for today, I’ll do whatever I can to realize my dreams.”

Early on in recovery, my life was a dumpster fire, so my dreams were things like, “Someday I want to pay the electric bill on time.” I still remember when I had about two months sober, collection agencies were hounding me day and night for overdue bills. This is not an uncommon issue in recovery: Our literature addresses similar situations, and I have a bunch of people in my inner circle who all had to work through significant financial issues.

So I knew what to say and do. The woman on the other end of the line seemed to be in utter shock that she’d managed to get me on the phone. It was like she’d discovered concrete proof of alien life. Total shock.

I told her I was new to recovery, that I couldn’t pay the whole amount today, but that I’d like pay $100 now, and set up payments for the remainder. I swear, every time she spoke, it was with such incredulousness that I felt like I was some sort of debt collector’s unicorn.

That whole story may not seem like much, but financial shame was a real thing for me. I don’t care that much about money… I just don’t like buying things and not paying for them, to feel like around every corner was somebody I’d stiffed who wanted me to pay them back. That definitely wasn’t on “When I grow up, I want to be…” list as a kid.

As a great blessing of recovery, I have cleared up almost all of my debt, slowly but surely, one day at a time. So let me now talk for a minute about big dreams.

As a kid, I loved standup comedy. I subscribed to Columbia House pretty much just to get comedy tapes and CDs—you remember Columbia House right? You could sign up and get 15 tapes or CDs for a penny, then for the next year, you’d get one CD per month for $29.99. It all averaged out to just about exactly what you’d pay if you bought everything at a music store.

Anyway, I would listen to standup and think, I can do that. Or I at least wanted to try to get on stage some day and make people laugh. It was a deeply-felt dream of mine.

And when I graduated college in 2001 and got a job in New York City, I thought, Whoa, New York is one of the best comedy spots in the world! There are open mics every single night and probably 10 comedy clubs within a half hour of my apartment in Queens. Jackpot!

Well… I never once tried standup. Not a single time. I was drunk or high pretty much every night.

Fast forward to 2018. I’m 40 years old, with 10 years sober, and I’m basically in midlife crisis mode. There was a point where I felt what apparently many people have felt over the years—an overwhelming sense that more doors were closing around me than were opening. That missed opportunities and adult responsibilities meant I had to settle into a safe place that didn’t leave room for chasing a dream.

Some sober friends encouraged me to take a look at Steps 8 and 9 and think about making amends to myself. “Whaaaaaaat?!?! You can do that?” I asked. I’d never heard that I might owe myself an amends or three.

When I worked through those things, one prominent adventure left untried was… standup comedy. For me, amends aren’t just saying sorry—it’s asking the question, “How do I make this right?” And I got a few nudges from sober friends that I needed to make it right with myself.

So in October 2018, I walked on stage for the very first time in front of about 100 people and did five minutes of (alleged) comedy.

I bombed horribly. Five minutes of sadness and silence.

But it was a spiritual experience for me. It changed the way I view addiction and recovery, similar to the way the reading described. The dreams I thought might be gone forever might just be me closing the door on stuff myself. As I often do, I need to remember, “To thine own self be true.”

I’ve been doing comedy ever since then, and I have some shows coming up that I am excited about. I might never become Amy Schumer or Jim Gaffigan but I’ll always know that I tried, and that pills and booze couldn’t take that away from me. 

When I hear somebody in recovery talk about lost dreams—sometimes it’s career stuff, sometimes it’s a family dynamic they badly damaged and think will never be the same—I try to just say, “Are you sure?”

Then I tell them my story, and how I know probably 50 others who had dreams that they thought they’d been flushed down the toilet forever before they got sober and reached deep down in the toilet and pulled that dream back out.

Okay, that’s a pretty gross example to use to make the point, and it actually doesn’t even make any sense upon further scrutiny. But hopefully you understand what I am driving at… and by now, you’re also probably realizing why that Netflix special of mine ain’t going to signed any time soon!

ALCOHOLIC/ADDICT JOKES OF THE WEEK

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

A newcomer is struggling to get the ketchup out of the jar when the telephone rings. “Would you get that, Jenny?” she asks her 4-year-old.

The child eagerly obeys. “It’s your sponsor,” she informs her mom. Then she goes back to the phone.

“Mommy can’t talk to you right now. She’s hitting the bottle.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, April 2003, Richard M. from Golden, Colorado)

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.

When I wanted to go to rehab, I had to meet with an in-take counselor first to gauge my drug and alcohol use, and she’d determine the level of care she thought I needed. I had never been to rehab before, and hadn’t ever gone to a 12-step meeting, either. I was a total rookie at recovery.

I was also completely broken at that point, and decided to tell her the truth. Everything. The lying, the scamming, the bad parenting, the constant overdoses and projectile vomiting. Everything.

For 60 minutes, I answered all of her questions truthfully. I had never said any of these things out loud to anybody, so it was a painful—but spiritual—experience. I sobbed throughout in a way I didn’t expect. It hurt to admit to it all, to fully endorse the idea I had a drug and alcohol problem. But it also felt like a little bit of air had been let out of a balloon that was eventually going to burst. It was my first experience with the concept of “We’re only as sick as our secrets.”

Of course, that’s the polished-up Hollywood version of my story. The whole truth is that I was at my bottom and my sober journey began that day… but I lied to my wife about the time of my appointment and hit a walk-in clinic on the way to rehab, bawled my eyes out to the check-in coordinator at rehab, then got high as s**t on the drive home. Let me summarize that in case you missed it: Yes, I got obliterated right after begging for help from active drug and alcohol addiction.

What can I say? Active addiction is pretty damn ugly.

And even in early recovery, I still wasn’t completely on board with opening up. At rehab one night, when I had maybe 60 days clean and sober, I off-handedly mentioned that a contractor who’d done work on my house disappeared without a trace while he owed us some more work. All I had for the business was an address in a big office building in New York City. One day I went there and found this small business was actually just a cubicle or two in the middle of 100 or so desks, all small businesses renting the space to set up shop.

I went in after hours and found the cubicle for this construction business, rifled through the desk drawers and took paperwork that had the guy’s name and home address listed. Then I tracked him down and pushed him to finish the job, which he did.

In that rehab session, I casually mentioned this like it was a football score. My counselor’s jaw was on the floor, and I had some other hardcore addicts in the room shaking their heads. For me, I was pretty shocked—what was the big deal? The guy was trying to stiff me!

The counselor said, “You did like five illegal things! You can’t do that in sobriety.” She gently encouraged me to connect with my sober network and see what they thought. And they thought… that I had done like five illegal things and that I can’t do stuff like that if I wanted to be sober. More than one person told me I needed to rethink my decision-making process and start speaking to recovery people before I did things such as, you know, sneaking into buildings and stealing paperwork.

That was a critical lesson for me—that I can’t trust my own judgment. I’d been my own higher power for 10-plus years, and that had to stop. After all, I really didn’t get what the big deal with trespassing in a New York City office building during off-hours until it was explained to me. It reminded me of that Seinfeld episode where George Costanza has sex with a cleaning person in his office, his boss asks him about it, and George says, “Was that wrong?” He had no idea. No radar for appropriate behavior. Same with me.

One really interesting thing I stumbled upon later is that I needed to expand the definition of the word “secret” because the longer I got sober, the less I did breaking and entering or other illegal things that I wanted to keep on the down low. No, my secrets now are stuff like being disheartened by a work decision, or sad about some struggle that one of my kid’s might be having. I think I can figure those things out myself, and on some level, I feel a little embarrassed to have to share something that I am insecure about because it’ll make me feel less than if I had to say it out loud to somebody.

So in some ways, those small things can be more dangerous than the big stuff. I always think about a time in college when I told a friend of mine that I had to get back to my apartment to clean out my fridge, and I mentioned that I had a gross open package of bologna in there that was from the previous semester.

“Why would you throw that out? Bologna doesn’t go bad!” he said.

Well… it turns out, bologna does go bad. By the time I threw it out a few weeks later, I think it was a dark shade of green and had grown arms and legs and had accumulated 12 credits as a college freshman.

The point of that anecdote: I can’t leave secrets in the back of my spiritual refrigerator and expect it to not grow mold and spoil.

ALCOHOLIC/ADDICT JOKES OF THE WEEK

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.

Back in the old wild west, a man encountered a drunk lying in the road. The guy had an empty whiskey bottle beside him and his ear to the ground.

“What is it?” asked the traveler.

“15 wagons, 60 horses, 17 women, 24 men, 5 dogs, and a donkey,” replied the drunk.

“That’s incredible!” exclaimed the rancher. “You know all that just by listening to the ground?”

“No,” replied the drunk. “They ran over me about an hour ago.”

(Credit: AAGrapevine.org, November 2002, Ron L. from El Cajon, California.)

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.

A few weeks ago, I had a rough Saturday. It was mostly just lingering work stuff, I felt tired, my kids were bickering. Pretty normal adulting stuff at the end of the week.

So I definitely had less than a full spiritual gas tank when I went out to run some errands. I was outside a building when I saw a girl and her mom walking when the girl started screaming and running. Then the mom grabbed her, and she started screaming and running around, too. Turns out, there was a bee flying around near them.

And I noticed myself whispering under my breath, “Oh my god, calm down, you dopes, it’s just a bee. You don’t bother them and they won’t bother you. Give me a break.”

I’d say 30 seconds later, the bee started flying around near my feet and I let out a little yelp and started jogging to get away. I managed to escape with my life intact but my pride limping a bit. So I live to tell that story, and I couldn’t help but laugh and think a little bit about judgmentalism and where that fits into my sobriety.

Goofing on stuff is in my DNA. I’ve been doing it my whole life. I do standup comedy now as a hobby, and almost all of it involves sarcasm, calling out stuff and picking on things. And I think in limited doses, making fun of the DMV or your mother-in-law or corporate culture is probably fine. Audiences seem to enjoy it.

But I get in trouble with it in real life sometimes, like on that Saturday I described, when I’m not in a great spiritual place and I start really looking down on people. It feels good. I’m not going to lie about that. If somebody does something that I deem dumb or silly or pointless, it’s amusing to pounce with my commentary from the peanut gallery. When everybody’s standing around at the playground or the watercooler looking down on stuff, it seems like a good idea. I often join in and make some jokes. Haha, everybody gets a good chuckle out of somebody else’s misfortune or stupidity.

When I sit with those comments and that attitude, though, I usually feel guilt and shame later. No judgment on anybody else who participates; I just can’t afford to do it very much before I get to a bad place. For me, it’s quick sand. The more I do it, the more I want to do it more, and the more it signals to everybody around me that I’m open for business… let’s do some s**t-talking!

I’ve had that happen, too. I’ve had situations where I’m bad-mouthing somebody to a person, other people join in and two hours later, I’m thinking, “I shouldn’t be so judgey. I need to cut that out.”

And I will… then I’m around those people later and they start unloading again, because that’s what we were just doing yesterday, and I realize that I raised my hand to keep those judgey conversations going with my previous behavior.

The only solution for me is to get out of that business and stay out. (Uh, yeah, good luck with that: I’m writing this because it’s still a part of almost every day for me.)

The truth is, judgmentalism is an infectious disease for me. Same with gossip and complaining—things that feel pretty good at first. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve joined in during a complaint session and been thinking to myself, “I don’t even know if I agree with the griping that just came out of my mouth. And yet I am doing it right now.”

The more I’ve wrestled with it, the more I realize it usually means that deep down, I feel bad about myself. My natural instincts still seem to be that if I can look down on things, that means I am standing taller somehow.

That’s not really true, and I often realize it shortly after. I don’t feel any better than I did before I started goofing on that guy’s pants or his dad bod (or both!). It’s my lack of self esteem showing up in ugly, unproductive ways. And I usually end up feeling even worse, especially if my judgmentalism begins to plant seeds for resentments. That can happen pretty quickly for me.

I’ll close with a quick story about being judgmental at meetings, because that’s really my lowest form of trying to feel superior. Think about that—going to a meeting for free help and goofing on somebody afterward?!

So a few years ago, I walked out of a meeting in New York City along side an old-timer, and I said something to him about a guy at the meeting that I had decided was a bore. “He shares the same thing every time,” I said. “And he just drones on and on. I’m so tired of listening to him.”

The old-timer listened for awhile but I could tell he just wasn’t interested in investing any spiritual capital in this conversation. So I started running out of steam with my bad-mouthing, and finally he said, simply, “Hey, we’re all here because we’re not all there.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

ALCOHOLIC/ADDICT JOKES OF THE WEEK

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.

Fed up with her husband’s coming home drunk every night, late one evening a wife drove her husband up the mountain to an overlook where they could see the local liquor factory in full swing below. Lights were flashing, machines were roaring, and trucks were pulling in and out.

“See?” the wife said. “They can make it faster than you can drink it.”

“Yes,” he replied. “But you have to admit, I’ve got ‘em working nights.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, October 2002, Donny B. from Wurtsboro, New York. To subscribe, go here: https://store.aagrapevine.org/us-subscriptions.)

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I did something this week I hadn’t ever done before. I had to speak at a meeting about the Third Step (quick reminder: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him”), and I realized that of the 12 steps, this was perhaps my weakest area. I’d give myself a passing grade—maybe?—on both Step Two and Step Three.

I did both of them. I have a program that works. I have a higher power that works for my recovery. But I did the bare minimum. It’s like that class where you turned in an extra credit book report at 3 p.m. on the last day of school and managed to eke out a 71 percent. Let’s give me a C-.

Then I thought about what grades I would get on the rest of the 12 steps? So I went through all of them and did a mini stepwork report card, and I found it to be a really interesting autopsy of my program. I’d encourage you to give it a try. I actually had fun with it.

I won’t rattle off all 12 grades but I will say I gave myself my highest grade on Step One. It’s the most work I have done. It’s the best work I have done. And it’s been the most important work I have done. I can’t use drugs or alcohol. Period. I am powerless. My life is unmanageable. And I learned that I need to go to any lengths to never forget that.

As I thought about Step One, I thought that for me—I’m just talking about my program, not anybody else’s—even if I nailed the other 11 steps, I don’t know if my recovery would hold up if I didn’t get an A on Step One. I need to never lose the belief that I am powerless over alcohol and my life is unmanageable. I can’t have any wavering. I can’t ponder that one the way I do the concept of a higher power, or whether I need to make amends, or if I am praying enough.

So Step 1 is an A, in my humble opinion.

I also gave myself a solid A on Step Five—I do utilize the sober people in my life. It’s my No. 1 tool, and I am a huge tool, so I need the recovery people around me on an almost daily basis. There’s no shame in that for me, either. I’ve grown to see I live a better, more fulfilling life when I am leaning on others and letting them lean on me.

I mostly ended up giving myself Bs, including on amends (Steps Eight and Nine) as well as working through character defects (Steps Six and Seven). I will confess that I probably should take a B- on character defects, because I do have some that I still like justtttttttt enough to hang onto. For example, I still love a good argument. There’s about 40 percent of me that doesn’t want to be in the debating society any more, and 60 percent finds it exciting to be going back and forth about stuff, big or small. The 40 percent groans when launching into an argument about who should have won a UFC fight or a Senate seat, and the 60 percent feels a rush to rub my hands together and start rumbling.

I’d say a B+ on personal inventory (Step Ten). I think I do an okay job of constantly monitoring that and making amends when I need to do.

But I did make a special note that I might deserve an A+ on taking your inventory. I am Stephen Hawking when it comes to keeping an eye on your character defects and bad behaviors. I practically have thesis papers laying all over the house with the work I’ve done on everybody else in the world.

The one step where I paused for awhile and really wrestled with is Step Four. I do that step more than any other these days. It is a constant presence in my life, so I guess you’d say I am “good at it.” I know how to do that work and love how much air a good Step Four takes out of resentments, how much it helps me find my role in angry situations.

But I paused because I realized that also means I have buckets of resentments that continue to pile up around me. So it made me think about whether it’s a good thing to be “good at it” when it comes to dealing with resentments. Ideally, maybe I’m a little better at not collecting the resentments in the first place?

It’s kind of like how I got really good at cleaning up puke and getting it out of clothes back in my active addiction days. Perhaps the bigger issue was that I was puking all the time from drugs and alcohol?

So that was my report card—mostly good grades, but I’m probably not on the Dean’s List just yet. I really enjoyed it and was intrigued by the exercise because it gave me a treetop self-assessment of the work I’ve done, and the work I need to think about doing going forward.

Last but certainly not least, let me stress one personal belief of mine regarding the steps. In my experience, the steps aren’t really like school at all. This was an interesting experiment but a wise man once told me the 12 steps are tools that I will use the rest of my life. So, in my program, there is no final exam or graduate program or master’s degree. I’m a work in progress and I always want to be a work in progress.

That’s a perfect transition to a joke I heard recently about the steps…

ALCOHOLIC/ADDICT JOKES 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.

JOKE NO. 1

A sponsee asked, “What do I do when I finish the steps?”

The sponsor said, “You’ll want to lie very, very still.”

Sponsee: “Lie very still? Why?”

Sponsor: “Because you’ll be dead. That’s when you finish the steps.”

JOKE NO. 2

One night, a man gets trashed at a party and tries to drive home.

Five blocks from the party, the police pull him over and ask him to get out of the car to walk the line. Just as he’s about to give it a try, the police receive a call on their radio about a robbery taking place a few houses away. “Stay put,” one of the officers tells him. “We’ll be right back,” and off they run up the street toward the robbery.

Well, the guy waits and waits, but eventually decides to drive home. When he gets there, he tells his wife he’s going to bed. “Tell anyone who might come looking for me that I’ve been in bed with the flu all day," he says.

A few hours later, the police knock on the door. His wife tries to say he's been in bed all day but the police produce the guy’s driver’s license and ask to see his car. So his wife shows them the way to the garage, opens the door and… there’s the police car, lights still flashing.

(Credit: AA Grapevine, December 2000, Manning P. from Richmond, Virginia... subscribe at store.aagrapevine.org/us-subscriptions)

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.

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Woo boy, I had an eventful Monday. It wasn’t a life-changing horrific incident. But it’s the maddest I’ve been in a long time. Or, as the children say these days… I was Big Mad.

My kids were acting really crappy toward me. Really crappy. And it got me boiling-hot mad. Like, I didn’t know what to do with this amount of anger.

I say it that way because it’s in those moments when I would rely on drinking and drugging in the past. I’d have an overwhelming feeling that I didn’t know how to process, and I’d just try to get so numb I didn’t have to feel it. I’d get loaded.

Well, you can’t do that in recovery. It’s life on life’s terms—and let’s be honest, life on life’s terms really sucks sometimes.

When you feel something you don’t know what to do with? That’s been one of the hardest things about longterm sobriety. Anger and sadness are the obvious ones, but I really don’t know how to handle success, either. I tend to handle Ws as badly as Ls.

I remember I got promoted at work twice within my first six months of sobriety, and I called my sponsor to let him know. “Guess who got another promotion?” I said. “This guy!”

He was happy for me and congratulated me, but at the end of our conversation he slipped in, “Remember, this too shall pass.”

I was so pissed at him. How dare he rain on my parade like that?!?!

But the more I asked him about that statement, the more I understood what he meant. “You can’t get promoted every day,” he said. “If you’re relying on that to keep you sober, it’s going to be difficult for you. You need a program that helps you be able to handle really bad days and really good days.”

I didn’t love hearing that, but I’ve grown to realize how true that idea is. It’s awesome how much life improves when you get sober, and how many beautiful things become a part of your life. But I can’t bank on getting high every day on anything—money, food, job promotions, whatever—as a sustainable recovery plan. It’s just not realistic.

Okay, so back to my crappy Monday.

I didn’t know what to do. My kids had a blowout argument in the car and we couldn’t even get out of the driveway. So I made everybody go back in the house and I went for a drive. I didn’t really yell at all. I realized I was not in the right headspace to sort this out in the moment, so I thought of restraint of pen and tongue and didn’t say much.

I noticed my blood pressure getting back down to normal as I drove, and then I sat down in a restaurant that had a fountain soda machine. I tried to breath and do a mini fourth step on my anger. I will confess that I smashed about 10 Diet Cokes in a half hour as I contemplated my resentment—the manager probably should have cut me off and called for a designated driver by the time I got my last refill from the soda machine.

I slowly unpacked everything, with Diet Coke coursing through my veins, and I really believe the initial resentment was justified. My wife told me later that she totally understood my hurt and would have felt the same way. It was thoughtless, silly behavior from my kids.

But I’ve found that justified resentments are… still resentments. I need to ask myself hard questions when I feel like I am in the right. Am I taking this personally? Am I overreacting? Am I crossing over from feeling hurt to hurting others?

I can’t be in that place. I just can’t. I cannot afford to be angry in a way where I have no spirituality and am rationalizing it as being justified. Everything falls apart and I am a lot closer to a drink. It’s not a sustainable sobriety plan for me. And it’s actually not helpful in any way. As our literature says, “It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us.”

So I collected myself. It took about a half hour. I wish I didn’t ever do the fight-or-flight thing any more but hey, I’m going to forgive myself a little bit in that situation—I think it was better for everybody that I get away from the situation for awhile.

By the time I got back home, I was cooled down, and I calmly told my kids why I was upset with them. They were apologetic and we worked through it. No yelling. And we ended up having a beautiful Memorial Day together. Lots of laughing and bad food. It was great.

I’ll say this, though: I kept those a******s’ devices for awhile. One thing about anger and forgiveness in recovery is that it also means figuring out healthy boundaries and repercussions for kids when necessary. And that’s what I did.

What’s so cool about how things ended up is that I did have to dole out some not-so-fun stuff for the kids. But it came from a place of love, not rage—I consulted with my wife and we decided that there was an important lesson here that involved some sting for the kids.

Later that night, I got to an in-person meeting and somebody else at the meeting shared about having a brutal day with their kids and how they worked through it. I felt, for the millionth time, that I was in the right place, hearing what I needed to hear. I’m not alone. Raising kids is hard for anybody. Raising kids while sober is like winning an Olympic gold medal.

That dude seemed a little more spiritually fit than I might have been so I think he got to a good place with his kids without having to guzzle a gallon of Diet Coke.

I’ll keep coming. Hopefully next time I won’t need a keg of soda to work through my issues. But it’s better than the kegs I used to need!

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 scientist runs into a meeting and yells, “Incredible announcement: We just discovered a cure for alcoholism. All you have to do is take one pill daily and you’re cured!”

A man in the back raises his hand. “Uh, what happens if you take nine?”

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

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Today is Memorial Day, and I always try to take a moment and be grateful that I’m not planning on spending the day passed out in my basement.

I used to plan for drunken holidays—they were the perfect time to get obliterated. Everybody’s off work, drinking and hanging out. And if you overdo it, hey, no big deal, everybody is getting after it today.

I’m glad I don’t have to live that like that any more.

But I am also glad I learned to treat holidays like any other sober day, too. Early in recovery, I went to meetings Monday through Friday, took off over the weekend and hit the recovery ground running again on Monday. When we’d go on vacation, or travel for Christmas or Thanksgiving, I wouldn’t hit meetings.

I’d tell myself that it’s a holiday, and I was 200 miles from my home group, so I rationalized that I could just get back on track with meetings when I was at work again the following week.

Finally, after my first Thanksgiving and Christmas, I had a rough first day back in the office and was voicing my confusion about that. I was working a solid program; why did I feel so squirrelly?

A sober friend said to me, “You’re working a business week program. You can’t treat recovery like a Monday-Friday thing. You never did that with your drinking, right? Drugs and alcohol were a 24/7 problem for you. It didn’t matter whether it was an important holiday, did it?”

No, it absolutely did NOT matter if it was a holiday. Like I said, those were the days I felt like I could really hit it hard.

So now I try to treat my sobriety the same way I did my drinking—no off days. For me, this disease is around the clock, 365 days a year. The good news is, I don’t need to get to 365 meetings a year. But I do need to do something spiritual and program-related every single day. I’ve found out the hard day that taking a break from recovery produces not-so-great results. I think I haven’t gone more than three or four days without a meeting in more than five years. It just doesn’t work for me.

That means this Memorial Day I am going to take a few moments and think about the men and women who have died in service to this country over the years. And then I am going to take my family to a friend’s farm because she has some baby goats she wants us to see. So we’ll go laugh and smile and pet some baby goats and be grateful to be spending some beautiful family time together.

Just kidding, I am expecting a lot of whining and complaining. I can already hear my kids going, “It’s too hot… it smells bad… when can we leave?… dad, why do you keep encouraging the goats to bite our hands?”

There is a really good chance by the evening that I am thoroughly tired and annoyed, and so that’s why I am excited to have a service commitment at a meeting on Monday night. I can go and fill up the spiritual gas tank and hopefully come home not wishing that a goat herd had eaten my family

So… happy (sober) Memorial 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 heroin junkie got frustrated with his sponsor for not giving him straight answers.

“Can I still drink alcohol in recovery?” the newcomer asked.

“Keep coming,” his sponsor said.

“What about gambling on football games?”

“Keep coming,” his sponsor said.

“What about overdoing it on pornography?”

“Keep… uh, yeah, don’t do that,” his sponsor said.

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