LOL Sober

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I just got back from an awesome trip to San Francisco with my wife. She’d always wanted to go there, so I gave her a trip to San Fran for Christmas.

We did all the tourist stuff, including riding a trolley car and touring Alcatraz. But while I was there, we also took note of something called Waymo. Waymo is a driverless car service, similar to Uber just without a human in the driver’s seat. On our first day there, we kept noticing dozens of these cars taking people around, the front wheel spinning and the turn signals coming on without an actual human doing it.

For that first day, we were pretty startled by it. But by the second day, when a friend from the San Fran area recommended we try it at least once, we decided to give it a shot. So I downloaded the app, put in my credit card info and booked one.

The car pulled up that morning and my wife and I both gave each other a look, like “Here goes!” It’s the same look you might give a friend right before you jump out of an airplane.

For the first two minutes, it was jarring. A robotic female voice comes on and tells you to buckle in and enjoy the ride. There is a message warning you against trying to grab the steering wheel. And then we were off.

It took some getting used to. But I was stunned how quickly we both just started looking out the window and enjoying the ride. The car had a computer screen in the middle where you could see all approaching cars, people, squirrels, everything, and the car never once seemed confused or on track to drive into a ditch. I was quite impressed.

I couldn’t help but think of my journey to find a steady higher power. I have one. But the relationship always feels tenuous, and every time I try to explain it to someone, I don’t even know how. It works for me but it’s a little confusing sometimes. Part of me wishes I would just stumble into a church and a religion somehow. But it hasn’t happened yet. The journey continues.

There’s the obvious comparison, that life is one big driverless car and no matter how much we try to grab the wheel and steer for ourselves, it doesn’t usually work out well for us. For me to be happy, I need to let go of so many things, and I need to accept the world as it is, not how I want it to be. Anything other than that is pretty miserable and also inevitable—the more I try to squeeze the wheel myself, the more pain I am in, and also the more I realize that it is a pointless exercise, anyway.

But then there is the concept of struggling with finding a higher power. I’m relatively certain that of the alcoholics I know, a large percentage of them scuffle on some level to figure out their higher power, how to rely upon it and how to understand that higher power. So that means that I and many of my fellow sober people are on a constant quest to click our higher powers into place.

My issue is, I know that and yet I barely try. I pray once a week, usually less. I don’t attend church regularly. I don’t spend much time asking spiritual friends how their higher power works. I do the bare minimum to lead a happy life. And honestly, I haven’t felt much pain because of that. My life is pretty great. So I feel like it is working quite well for me.

But going back to the driverless car example… my Waymo showed up and literally took the wheel. I was able to sit in the back and surrender. But think about the work that I did to land in that place. I investigated how it works. I asked a trusted friend about them. I downloaded the app. I filled out the information they needed. I paid for it. I booked it. I did a lot of work before the car picked us up.

To go back to the higher power situation, it’d be the equivalent of me seeing a Waymo drive past and then shrugging my shoulders when one didn’t magically appear in front of me to drive me around for the day. I had to invest in it in order to be able to connect with it.

That has really sat with me for the past few days, though I’m still trying to figure out how it will translate into my life. The one thing I can tell you is, if you struggle with a higher power, you might want to fly cross-country immediately and get yourself a driverless car.

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

Heard at meetings:

“I think alcoholism is contagious. I know I caught it after going to a few AA meetings.”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, June 2000, Alan M. from Melbourne, Florida)

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

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

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

I’ve never read anything written by Leo Tolstoy, the legendary Russian author, mostly because I’ve never felt smart enough to sit down with any of his writings. I stick to basketball boxscores and previews of the NFL draft.

But I was listening to a podcast recently where a Tolstoy fan began laying out his views on death, and those thoughts really hit me hard. The podcast host talked about how Tolstoy wrote that people who fear death aren’t actually scared of dying—they’re scared of the life that they led.

When I sat with that, I found it mind-blowing. I used to be terrified of death. What happens when we die? Will my kids be ok? Will it hurt? What all will I miss out on?

Fear of dying is normal, and it’s probably the oldest fear that humans—or any animal, really—have ever had. In many ways, we’re wired to fight to survive and procreate, which means we’re always going to be hardwired to have a fear of death. I get that, and I still have it on some level.

But it’s different now. When I found out I had Stage 4 cancer a year ago, I went through the entire thought process of the possibility that I wouldn’t live. And to my surprise, I was fine with it. Did I want to die? Absolutely not. I wanted to fight like hell, and I did fight like hell, so as of today, I am cancer free.

But I wasn’t terrified. I didn’t live my life crippled by that fear. In fact, I went the other way. When death was more on the table than ever before, it made me want to be grateful for every day. I credit most of that to sobriety, which has a constant emphasis on staying present. I used to use drugs and alcohol to escape the past, the present and the future.

I also think a significant portion of my fear of dying from before was the idea that deep down, I was scared that I hadn’t done enough with my life. That I would be leaving the world too soon.

I don’t feel that way any more. I have lots and lots and lots of desire to do lots and lots and lots more things in my time on Earth. But I now feel content with how I lived my life and what I have accomplished. I do get bothered by the idea that if I got hit by a bus tomorrow, or cancer took me out a year from now, I would miss out on some heartbreaking parts of my kids’ lives. That’s why I fought so hard.

But professionally, I feel great about what I’ve done. Personally, I am proud of the growth I’ve made, the people I’ve helped along the way and my 25-plus year relationship with my wife. It’s a big reason why I lay my head down most nights without any anxiety about what I need to still accomplish in my life.

Do I want to accomplish more? Absolutely. I feel as driven as I ever have. But my acceptance of myself and the world is at an all-time high, so my fear of death no longer haunts me. I feel exactly how Tolstoy described. Will I be diving headfirst in more of Tolstoy’s writings? Probably… but not until the NFL draft is over.

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)

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

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

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

Greetings, welcome to March 5, which is National Cheesedoodle Day and National Multiple Personalities Day. I have about 29 different insensitive jokes about the idea of those two things being celebrated on the same day. But I will use restraint of pen and tongue and not say them out loud…

Brace yourself, I heard a life-changing phrase the other night at a meeting.

The topic was acceptance of the world as it is, not how it should be. Or, as we commonly say in recovery, accepting life on life’s terms.

Here’s the saying from the other night: Get rid of the word “should” from your vocabulary, and every time you want to use the word should, instead say, “I cannot accept.”

Try it once. Think about some of the times you might use the word should, then slide in that phrase. A couple of examples:

“You should think about hitting the gym more often.”

That changes to: “I cannot accept that you don’t go to the gym more often.”

“You should use my car repair shop instead of yours.”

That changes to: “I cannot accept that you don’t use my repair shop instead of yours.”

“You should call me more often.”

That changes to: “I cannot accept that you don’t call me more often.”

For me, that hammers home the self-centered way that we throw around the word “should.” It’s me imposing my will on you, and when I use the word should, I think it often comes with strings attached. If I recommend my car repair shop instead of yours, and you don’t switch, then there’s a decent chance I will end up with a small resentment or at least feel a little annoyed that you dismissed my opinion.

Now think about big examples. Instead of car repair shop, imagine telling someone “You should get sober now” or “You should think about getting a divorce.” Imagine how sharp those comments would feel if you delivered them.

I also ended up thinking about how selfish that phrase is, and how it doesn’t mesh with the way I want to live my life. I don’t really want to be in the business of telling people what to do, what to watch, what to eat, when to go to the gym.

Do I still do it? Yeah, sometimes. But not like I used to. The longer I have been sober, the more I realized how pointless opinions usually are, especially if someone didn’t ask you for yours. And the truth is, how often does someone say to you, “Do you think I should get sober?” or “Do you think I should switch repair shops?” In actuality, I bet 90-95 percent of the time, you and I aren’t asked that, but we inject it, without somebody asking. And that’s where I get into trouble.

The reason I love the concept of “I cannot accept” is that I don’t think I have ever said that to someone, and I hope I never will, because it’s so aggressive. The word “should” feels like it is a gentle word, and that’s probably why we use it when we are trying to dictate something to someone else. “I cannot accept” is direct and aggressive, which is probably why it sounds so much worse when you sub that in.

For the past 48 hours, I keep thinking about how often I lob that phrase out there. It’s definitely less than I used to. But hopefully I can cut that down to zero because I really should stay out of peoples’ business.

Wait, strike that… I CANNOT ACCEPT that I don’t always stay out of other peoples’ business. That’s better.

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)

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

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

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

I went to a great meeting the other day, where I heard a newish guy speak about his experience, strength and hope. He did a great job.

Just one problem: Somebody sitting near me reeked of alcohol. Was it deodorant? Aftershave? Mouthwash? I don’t know, but I don’t think so. It smelled very much like alcohol, and I had a hell of a time smelling that for an hour.

I should say that I’ve smelled alcohol many, many times over the years, and it is mildly unpleasant. But I haven’t had it up my nose for an hour straight since my last drink, in winter of 2008. So the intensity of it, while listening to a story of drunken craziness, was a tough 1-2 punch.

Another thing that hit me was that as a sober person, the smell is actually kind of gross. I guess it would have an appeal if I was still drinking because I’d want the side effects of a drink. But there’s a reason they don’t make car air fresheners or candles that are called “A pint of vodka” or “Old bar-scented”—I found it to be quite gross.

On the way home, I had a little laugh to myself about how we often say to avoid people, places and things in early recovery. But I would add smells to that list, too, because it was a very visceral trigger for me that night. I didn’t want to drink; I just felt rattled and too close to alcohol.

I could tell it had gotten into my psyche because I could smell alcohol in my nostrils for about 24 hours afterward. I knew I wasn’t actually smelling alcohol, but it’s like my mind trapped the smell in there. It was strange to be smelling something that you knew you weren’t smelling, but I have that issue sometimes at pharmacies, too. I spent so much time getting pills over the years that the smell of pharmacies and pill bottles still can hit me and cause me to have a Pavlovian response. It can be strange to be at Walgreens buying peanut butter Easter bunnies and suddenly have an urge to buy pills, but it happens.

I also had a drunk dream later that weekend, and I rarely have those any more. I completely blame the smell of that drunk guy at the meeting, because it still seemed to be in my head all weekend. I went to another meeting a few days later, still thinking about how much I dreaded that smell, and I ran into a sober friend of mine who works out a lot. Apparently he had worked out before the meeting, because he was smelling a little gamey, like an old gym sock.

On the way home, I had to chuckle thinking about how I guess I would rather smell BO than liquor… but maybe my nose could get a few days off from smelling anything at meetings?

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 with perforations in the lid. A friend stopped her and said, “My word, 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)

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

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

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

A sober acquaintance of mine once shared at a meeting that he was hoping people could pray for his friend, who had recently relapsed after deciding to go out drinking for one night—and one night only. You can probably guess whether the relapse was limited to one night only.

Anyway, this guy shared that his friend (we’ll call him Billy) hit a nearby bar for a few drinks. Then he went to another bar for a few more drinks. Then he went to a strip club, where he had a few more drinks and also did some cocaine. Unfortunately, the cocaine was laced with fentanyl and Billy overdosed in the bar.

Lucky for him, he was revived somehow within a minute of overdosing, and he shook off the cobwebs sitting at the bar. Then… he bought the entire bar a round of drinks to celebrate that he didn’t just die.

That is exactly the kind of drunken preposterousness that seems made up… but us alcoholics can all empathize. To be honest, when I heard that story, my first thought was that it made total sense, that not dying of an overdose is a reason to celebrate with more substance abuse.

That story was fresh in my head when I brought a meal into a local homeless shelter and there was a flurry of activity. Turns out, a man overdosed and passed out on the toilet in the men’s room. The staff used NARCAN to bring him back, and he came roaring back to life… and was furious with the staff. He said he was just sleeping, not using anything. I couldn’t believe how mad he was at the staff, saying they overreacted, that he was just asleep.

Then the EMTs arrived and the guy only got more and more angry. The lead EMT listened to him spew against the staff, using some very choice language, and she eventually jumped in and say that he should be grateful that the staff cared enough to try to save his life. He reiterated, even louder this time, that he was fine, that he was just dozing off in the bathroom.

He eventually waved off the emergency crew and told the staff to piss off, that he wasn’t staying at the shelter that night. He grabbed some food from us and then left the shelter, saying he would just walk around outside all night.

I can’t say for sure… but I didn’t buy the sleeping story. I used that same bathroom and it was about 41 degrees in there, so I don’t think anybody could take a quick nap while sitting on a cold toilet seat. My guess is, he did indeed overdose and was just pointing the finger at everybody but himself as he ranted and raved. And then he let the shelter door slam behind him in anger as he waded out into 20 degree weather, all while professing a pretty hard to believe story.

Again, another example of a story that would be very confusing to a regular person but makes perfect sense to an alcoholic. It’s a good reminder of just how absurd the active alcoholic’s mind can be. Thank god I don’t have to live like that any more.

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 drunk went to the police station to speak with the burglar who had broken into his house the night before.

“You’ll get your chance in court,” said the desk sergeant.

“It isn’t that,” said the drunk. “I want to know how he got into the house without waking my wife. I’ve been trying to do that for years.”

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

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

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

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

One of the biggest hurdles for me in sobriety is getting comfortable and putting myself on cruise control. I’ll often catch myself thinking, “I should start to eat better” or “I should go through the steps again,” and then the thought goes away. Then it comes back the next day, and I’ll shoo it away again, and I won’t do whatever had been on my mind.

That’s why it hit me yesterday at the gym when I read a sign on the bulletin board that said, “You are what you repeatedly do.” I freaking love that phrase, because I find it to be true. I also find it to be one of my biggest whiffs in life, and I suspect that most people would agree that they’re guilty of that, too.

I remember early on in sobriety I turned to caffeine—heavy, heavy doses of caffeine. I’d drink a 2-liter of soda in the morning on my hour-and-a-half drive to work. It would get me hyped for the day but come on, 64 ounces of soda before 10 am? Oof. I remember being bloated and too wired most days, but I kept doing it anyway. I remember thinking to myself, “God, soda isn’t great for you, and this amount of soda must be horrible for your body. I should stop.” I also remember somebody commenting to me that I drink a ton of soda, and I immediately said, “Nah, it probably seems that way. But I really try to avoid it.”

That was a total lie, or at least me saying out loud a wish I had. I remember being embarrassed that I had a reputation as a Diet Coke guzzler, and yet I didn’t change my behavior for a long time (I no longer drink soda, for the record, but it took 10 years). I was what I repeatedly did—I was a soda guzzler.

Right now, I go to the gym about 6 days a week, sometimes 7, and I work hard at my job, I pay my bills and I get to about 4-5 12-step meetings per week. So I am all of those things because I repeatedly do them. But I also eat about 800 calories of cookies and crap after 8 pm every night, so I am that, too. I don’t want to be that guy. I try to rationalize and say I am just about to stop eating all of that stuff… then I keep doing it. So I am what I repeatedly do every night, which is hammer the snack cabinet. Until I actually repeatedly don’t crush the chips and cookies, I am a guy who overdoes it every night. I wish I wasn’t. I vow to someday change my behavior. But I’m not guy that yet, because I repeatedly do it.

So with that in mind, my suggestion to anybody hoping for a change is to stop hoping, and start acting.

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.)

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

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

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

One of the things I always say about my active addiction days was that it was never boring. Terrible? Yes. Potentially deadly? Yes. Financially and spiritually catastrophic? Yep. Heartbreaking to everybody who cared about me? Yes.

But boring? No.

I was thinking about that the other day at a meeting where we read a recent Daily Reflections passage that was about freedom from alcohol and drugs, which gave us the freedom to do so many cool things.

I found that not having to drink and do drugs every day was the ultimate relief. After not being able to stop for years, I suddenly had put together one week, then two weeks, then a month, then two months of nonstop abstinence, and it felt freaking great. That was the “freedom from” part. It was awesome.

Then I hit a point at about three or four months sober where I was like, “Is this it? Who am I? What are my goals?” It was a natural moment that many addicts have, where the rush of early sobriety wears off a bit and now you’re supposed to pay your bills on time, show up at work every day and lead a normal life. The adrenaline of hustling to find drugs, pay for them, take them, then cover up your using had occupied so much time and energy that suddenly that void could be felt. And I felt it.

This was the “freedom to” part that I needed to figure out. What was I going to do with all that time and energy now? I ended up figuring out that I wanted to pour myself about 20 percent more in to work, 20 percent more into family, amp up my recovery efforts and also pick up some hobbies. I started really getting into sports, movies and TV shows to occupy my time.

But what about the “who do I want to be?” part of things? That was a longer process. I went through various phases where I tried not swearing for awhile, tried a bunch of churches to see if I could get into that, tried the workaholic thing for awhile and various other incarnations of who I was trying to become. I eventually landed on the version of me that exists now. I’m still into lots of the same stuff (sports, movies, TV). Church didn’t quite work out. And holy s**t, I swear as much as ever.

The point of this entry is just that it dawned on me how hard early sobriety can be, followed by that chunk of the first year where most of the fires are out but now you need to rebuild. That process can be tough, and it takes awhile to find your footing in this new life. If you’re in that place, I’d say stick around and give it a chance. The reality is, as tricky as that space can be, it’s also the ultimate “freedom to” chance, where you can kind of be whoever you want to be. And you can probably swear quite a bit, if that’s what you want!

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:

On New Year’s Eve, Judy stood up at the bar full of alcoholics and said, “At the stroke of midnight, I want everybody to be standing next to the one person who has made your life worth living.”

The bartender was nearly crushed to death.

(Credit: AA Grapevine, March 2000, Dave S.)

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

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

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

One of the things I think about a lot these days is, am I still growing? Am I getting more sober? Less sober? Staying the same? Less sober is certainly bad, but standing still isn’t great, either. I always say that recovery is like walking up a down escalator—even if you stand in place, you’ll be at the bottom pretty quickly.

I’ve been sober since 2008, and I know I am more sober than I was then. Same with 2009, 2010, probably even 2011. But I am more sober today than I was in 2018? 2020? Six months ago? That’s hard question to answer, because I think if I have grown, it’s incremental. Instead of a 50 percent improvement in Year One, I’m probably looking at yields of 1-5% per year these days, and that’s harder to notice.

Well, I had a day at the gym last week where I did notice quite a bit of growth. I was doing bench press beside a short, stocky guy when a friend—we’ll call him Fred—came over and said hello. We talked for a minute and then Fred drifted over and started working out about 25 feet away. In between sets, he kept up the conversation with me by yelling across the gym. The gym has music playing (usually AC/DC, Guns N Roses and that kind of heavier music). Fred’s voice was moderately loud, I will admit. I think I might have mostly just been listening, but there’s a chance I yelled something back at him.

At a certain point during this conversation, while I was doing a set of bench press, I heard the guy beside me get up and say, “Shush! I’m trying to lift over here.” And I heard Rob stop talking and say, “Sorry, my bad.”

I didn’t take offense to it, though my first thought was, “Hey, this is a public gym with music blaring. Are you studying for the SATs or working out?”

My friend, Fred, on the other hand, began to slowly lose his mind in anger over the next hour. It started as a simmer, with him exchanging a look with me that indicated he was not handling the shush well.

Then I went to the other side of the gym, away from the shusher, and Fred followed me. He was pissed. He said he felt like a wimp for saying sorry, and then he ran through a list of things he’d wished he had said. Then he just ranted about how dare that guy tell him to be quiet.

For a full hour, he got angrier and angrier until he couldn’t contain himself. He started jumping up and down like a boxer or UFC fighter might before stepping into the ring for a fight. He eventually told me, “I ought to go over there and shove a weight bench up that guy’s ass.” The look in his eyes told me he was serious, and I said, “Hey, it’s not worth going to jail over. If you need to shove a weight bench up someone’s ass, do it to me.” I quickly corrected myself and said, “Actually, maybe don’t shove anything up anybody’s anything. Let’s cool down.”

He eventually left that day without violating anybody with a weight bench. But it’s been a week, and he’s still boiling about this guy.

I bring all of that up because I was struck by how much the old me would have been really bothered by it, the same way Fred was. It would have pissed me off that I didn’t say anything to the guy, and then I would have been livid for days—or months or years—by not telling that guy to shove it.

I actually had a few moments where I looked at Fred and just appreciated that I don’t have to live like that any more—what a gift! And it answered for me that question of whether I’ve grown or not, because I honestly think even a few years ago, I might have still had a serious run-in with the shusher. I know not wanting to shove a weight bench where the sun doesn't shine isn’t exactly the greatest measure of serenity… but I’ll take it.

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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If you listened to parts 1 and 2 of this podcast series, you heard me discuss finding out I had cancer, then starting chemotherapy, then having surgery to remove the tumors. There were some dark days—very dark days—during that six-month period. But for the most part, I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome as I entered the end of November with six more rounds of chemo to go.

I had a breather between the surgery and the start of the last six rounds of chemo, and the time flew by. I love the phrase, “Don’t live in the wreckage of your future,” but I caught myself counting down the days till chemo started again. I was dreading it.

Here’s the thing about chemo at the hospital: There is no way you walk in there and end up going, “You know what? Today was an awesome day of chemotherapy!” It’s miserable. The process is miserable. The other people are often miserable. They do the best they can to keep you warm and happy, but chemo is chemo.

People ask me what it’s like, so I will get very granular about it. The first thing they usually did with me was access my port, which involves stabbing a small needle into my chest for the day. It’s never pleasant when they puncture that area but it just kind of ended up being like a shot that stays in your chest.

Then they start putting fluids into you. I usually started with a steroid and an anti-nausea medication to try to get out front of the actual chemo.

Then they come in with the chemo. My nurse would always have a full hazmat suit on, with gloves and a plastic mask over her face the entire time. It was such a jarring visual because my nurses would be protected in case they spilled any of the chemo. Meanwhile, the chemo was going INTO me. Think about that for a second. They’re worried about it getting on their skin, and they’re injecting it straight into my chest. It was always a haunting thing to see.

The first six rounds of chemo, the actual chemotherapy part was about 4 hours of constant poison draining into me. This six-round cycle, they reduced it a bit to 2 hours of chemo. I remember being excited because I thought maybe the side effects would be better with such a reduced amount of chemotherapy.

Not so fast. From Day One of this round of chemo, I found the side effects to be unbearable and worse and worse every time. My doctor explained even though the doses were smaller, I was still getting a heavy batch of very strong chemo, and that the effects of chemo are often cumulative. Which means that Round 7 is worse than Round 6, and Round 8 would likely be worse than Round 7.

I found that to be the case, in a big way this time. The chemo caused me to have significant headaches, which flared up especially bad when I was around noise and people. I also started getting bloody noses this time around, though my doctor thought that was partially due to chemo and partially due to the dry air of winter. I felt nauseous for long stretches of time—I never threw up or really felt close to vomiting, but I felt unease in my guts pretty much all the time. And last but not least, the neuropathy has gotten to be pretty brutal. For me, that meant serious tingling in my feet, hands and face when I got near anything cold. That certainly was the case when I would be outside in 20 degree weather. But I also recoiled the other morning when I woke up and grabbed my laptop computer… just that room temperature computer made me feel like I stuck a screwdriver into a light socket.

The cycle for chemo was usually that I went in on a Wednesday, then went home with a pack on that kept pumping chemo into me for another 44 hours or so. Then they’d remove the pump and I would stop taking the steroid that seemed to muffle some of the symptoms. So days 1-3 would be rough but not the roughest—days 4-7 or so usually got worse and worse.

That usually gave me a general cycle of one bad week, then one good week, then start over again. But during Rounds 7-12 over the past few months, I found that it was pretty much 14 rough days, then you do it again. I didn’t find much relief, and that’s where recovery comes into the picture a little bit.

I am an alcoholic and a drug addict. I sought comfort for years with drugs and alcohol. Sometimes it was to sooth physical discomfort, but other times, it was to sooth mental discomfort. So I really started to struggle in December when I couldn’t find any relief. I still hurt from the surgery, and the chemo was getting worse and worse, and I had spent six straight months battling cancer. I wanted relief, even just for a short amount of time.

But the relief came a different way. I doubled down on getting to meetings, and I found relief there. It wasn’t the same kind of instantaneous buzz that wipes out the bad feelings. It was more methodical and slow-building, but it worked.

I also helped to launch a group of sober people who take food into a homeless shelter once a month, and every Thursday at a smaller warming center. I found tremendous relief there, too, because it really takes you outside yourself. These are people who are hurting, sometimes because of substance abuse, and you’re able to bring them some comfort for an evening. I got a lot out of that.

So I kept inching along with my chemo, and I took a blood test in mid-December that would show if the cancer had spread elsewhere. We knew my liver and rectal areas were clear. But my doctors couldn’t say for sure that cancer cells hadn’t spread out anywhere else.

I had gotten a preview that the test results were good. But on Dec. 31, I met with my oncologist for the first time in a month or two. We sat down and went through the plan for the remaining few rounds of chemo, and then I asked him what my status was, officially. And he said, “As far as we can tell, you are cancer free.”

The words hit me pretty hard. It was a weird feeling to know that the most agonizing cancer treatments were up ahead for me… and yet I was cancer free. But he explained that the last few rounds were precautionary treatments, just to make sure we got it, and I understood that. I don’t want to get to the 1-yard line and not punch it in for the touchdown.

So last week I went in for my final round, and two days later, they took the chemo pump out for the last time. I felt horrible, so it was a strange feeling walking out those hospital doors for what I hope is the last time. I felt like celebrating but absolutely did not want to celebrate. But the overall feeling was awesome. I’d made it. I was cancer free.

It’s interesting how I am feeling today, though. This sounds bizarre to say, but life with cancer was quite simple. I had one big goal every day—fight cancer. It gave me a specific sense of purpose and motivation every day, that I was battling this big thing. And I’ll admit, I have always responded well when there was one big fight in front of me. I get all juiced up and ready to rumble, and then I rumble.

What’s tricky is that I now feel a little bit of a hangover, as strange as that sounds. I don’t think that’s uncommon for addicts like me. When I got sober, there was a huge part of me that was so sick and tired of living the way I was living—I was suffering pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization every single day and wanted out so bad.

And yet… once I got sober and paid my bills on time and wasn’t chasing drugs and alcohol all day, there was a part of me that felt like I had a giant void in me. What would I fill it with?

That’s on my mind right now. I think I have enough spirituality in my system that I don’t need to find a new life-threatening battle to give me purpose. But I am keeping an eye on it, and connecting within recovery will be the key.

The fight is over. All is quiet on the western New England front for me. I was at a meeting the other da…

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

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

Welcome to part 2 of my 3-part series on facing one of the toughest challenges of my life and my sobriety: finding out I had Stage 4 cancer in April. In part 1, which I linked to here, I talked about starting out on chemo and trying to juggle sobriety with all the other stuff going on in my life.

Part 1 of the recovery journey was tough but it went well. The chemo worked. They had seen significant damage to the tumors in my liver and rectal area, and my doctors were encouraged about my overall response to chemo. So that bode well for me.

But now, I had a massive surgery scheduled for the end of September. I knew it was a massive surgery. I knew it was going to be hard. I knew I had support. I knew I’d be down for the count in a big way, for possibly months. And yet… it was brutal.

The day of the surgery, we had to be at the hospital by about 5 am. The surgery was scheduled for seven hours. One surgeon was going to cut about 20 percent of my liver out. The other surgeon would cut out my rectal tumor. It would take all day.

I went under that day and woke up seven hours later, and I was extremely out of it. I would be having a conversation and just fall asleep mid-sentence. It was bizarre.

But one huge thing registered no matter what my state of mind from the anesthesia: my rectal surgeon had somehow managed to not have to do a colostamy bag. That was a mini miracle. I had been prepping for a bag for months, knowing that I would have to have my whole system rewired for a few months. I had begrudgingly accepted that it was in my future, but it was the absolute worst fear of mine. I just couldn’t get my head around having a colostamy bag.

So that was the great news.

But things went south pretty quickly. On Thursday and Friday in the hospital, I was able to drink some apple juice and water and other clear fluids. But still no food—it had been about four days without anything to eat. My doctor on Friday assured me I’d be eating cheeseburgers any day now.

Well, that day didn’t come for awhile. I had a nasty, nasty weekend. I had 59 staples from my stomach to my chest holding me together from the incision, and they also had to do a liver drain, which was a plastic grenade-shaped bottle coming directly out of my liver. Apparently the liver gets hyperactive after a surgery, so excess fluid is produced and has to be drained.

By Friday night, I was starting to feel really bad. I had developed an ileus, which essentially means your digestive system stopped working. Mine was completely dormant. They couldn’t hear any of the normal gurgles and digestive noises, and I started to feel my stomach get bigger and bigger. Nothing was moving through my system, and it hurt so bad. By the middle of the night on Friday, I needed a nurse to come in and stick a tube down my nose into my stomach to drain everything. For the next five days, I had a plastic container that just filled with digestive grossness as my body struggled to start back up.

It got really dark and scary for me during those few days. The nights were horrific. No sleep. Constant pain. I had wires and cords coming out of everywhere on me, so I could barely move. Those were some of the worst nights of my life. I didn’t want to die… but if you told me I could go into a coma for a month till my body heals, I would have signed the papers in a heartbeat. It really started to break my spirit in a scary way.

But on Monday morning, things started to turn around. I got some better nursing care than I had gotten from the weekend shift, and I had lots of sober friends stopping by and scheduling Zoom meetings to try to keep me engaged. So I ultimately pulled through.

One big thing I want to talk about was pain management through all this. I was in tremendous pain, but I was declining pain medication as much as possible. My nurse and my family eventually cornered me and said, “If you don’t take pain medication, you might set back your own recovery. You cannot be in agony all day.” So I started on a morphine pump and some other narcotics, and I took them as prescribed. I guess they helped, but honestly, I was in so much pain that it felt pointless to take them. I was very leery about the whole narcotic thing because opioids are a huge reason why I got an all-expenses pain trip to rehab back in 2008. They were my main drug of choice, though “all of them” might be a better answer for what I used to do.

On Tuesday or Wednesday of that week, I was really on the upswing. I was walking around and they were hearing my system starting back up again. I still couldn’t eat or drink anything but I felt like I was on the right path. And by the end of the week, they were saying I could come home. As an added bonus, when I was about an hour away from leaving the hospital, one of the surgeons came in and said as far as the tests were showing, they had gotten all the cancer out. It looked like there was nothing else cancerous in those two areas.

So when I walked out of the hospital, I was flying high… even though I wasn’t high. I declined painkillers leaving the hospital, and I was so glad I did. I definitely suffered a little bit more than a regular civilian might have. But I also didn’t have to worry about flaring up the allergy again—I have no idea what will happen if I take that first drink or drug, so I didn’t really want to chance it here.

For the next six weeks, I just tried to heal. They pulled the liver drain out a week or so later, and it was about as excruciating as anything I’ve gone through. It felt like somebody was paper cutting my entire midsection as they yanked this long tube out of there. It took me an hour of laying down in the doctor’s office before I could walk out of there.

And the next day, over the course of about 10 minutes, a nurse pulled each one of those 59 staples out of my midsection. I’ll never forget the clink-clink-clink-clink over and over again, 59 times.

But I walked out of the office that day feeling like I had turned a corner. The recovery was longgg—my midsection still hurts four months later—and painful. But I did recover.

Now I had one more big hurdle in front of me to finish treatment: 12 more weeks of chemotherapy.

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)

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

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