Category Archives: alcoholism

And on the 366 day…

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You better get up

Now don’t you understand?

And raise your hand

Hey, hey, hey

I said, raise your hand!

- Bruce Springsteen (Raise Your Hand)

I did it! Errr, well, I guess I did something. I mean, I did get a big ovation, lots of smiles and a heavy new medallion complete with a plastic wrapper. My wife gave it to me along with a kiss, a hug, and a cake that I wasn’t allowed to eat. I did get to cut it up though. After the chips lady awarded her chips for various lengths of sobriety, she asked people to raise their hands if they had a year or more to show that the program worked, I proudly put up my hand for the first time.

So here I am at a year and a day, close to two years after I started this journey. You know, “trudging the Road of Happy Destiny” along with the rest of the drunks and addicts.

See, here’s the thing. The day after THE DAY, was just another day in the journey, a journey that will never, can never, stop as long as I want to live. I’m the motherfucking Flying Dutchman, man. If I stop sailing the Seven Seas of Recovery, I’m gonna die. That’s a fact!

Fortunately, I’ve taken the wheel with my higher power filling my sails and and a crew of my fellows, we can stay out here forever. Ulysses ain’t got nothing on me.

Or won’t.

That dude got home in a decade or so. My Odyssey is just beginning to continue and  tomorrow is another day.

Peace out,

M

Progress, Not Perfection

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Progress, man’s distinctive mark alone,
Not God’s, and not the beasts’: God is, they are,
Man partly is and wholly hopes to be.
- Robert Browning (A Death in the Desert)

 I ran across this quote the other day when I was searching for another Browning quote,

Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,

Or what’s heaven for? (Andrea del Sarto)

and I thought they form an interesting pair in their relationship with each other and in consideration of my ongoing recovery.

They say that if you aren’t working on your recovery, you are working on your relapse and, from previous experience, I believe this is an apt expression. The most important part of the work is to completely stop what you ought not do. No “dalliance” with this step in recovery is acceptable. You’re either in or your out. Perfection, not progress, is the rule.

In every other aspect, recovery is always a work in progress. God and animals need make no progress, they merely are and that is all they ever need be. Man alone attempts progress, as Browning aptly stated. At ten months of sobriety, I have progressed exponentially during my ten months of sobriety. While progress, not perfection is the rule, my sobriety requires perfect progress. Therefore, my grasp must be within my reach or there is no heaven.

Peace out,

M
In Recovery Facebook Page

What if Sobriety Sucks?

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Fairly recently I heard a man speak about his biggest fear as he contemplated becoming a recovering alcoholic. It wasn’t about whether he could get clean or not. It wasn’t about whether he would fit in at meetings or with those in the fellowship itself. No, as the title of this post suggests, he was most worried that his new life without alcohol and drugs would not be as fun as his life had been when he was drinking and drugging.

Let’s face it, a lot of what we were doing was fun, at least it was for me, until it wasn’t fun anymore. For a good while partying is fun. Isn’t it? It’s somewhat tough to “party” when you’re aren’t drinking and drugging though. Go to a club or rock concert and drink soda? How about at a baseball park? I’ll have a hot dog and a beer…oops, lemonade. No weed at the Jimmy Buffet concert? Wow, that sounds like heck of a good time. I want to be a sober parrot head! Unlikely, I think.

Well, as he and I have learned, being sober is fun. I tended to isolate when I was drinking and drugging anyway so the social aspect of AA is much more fun than sitting in my home office with the door locked and hoping that everyone would leave me alone. My friends in AA call or text me, I attend meetings and talk to people there. Sometimes, I even go to AA social events and, well, socialize.

Are there places I won’t go and people I won’t see any more because they would suck sober? Absolutely! The fact is that I can’t remember how many concerts I went to that I can’t remember. So why not go to a rock concert sober? Why not go to the ball game sane? It’s all about living life on life’s terms and not having to worry about where the next drink or drug is coming from. That’s the fun, in my opinion. Not the headaches I used to get, the bloody snot I blew out of my nose every day, nor the vast sums of money gone from my bank account.

Yeah, I’ll take the fun of a sober life over the only perceived fund of drugs and the drinks any time. To me, sober is where the fun is; being drunk and high just isn’t fun anymore, in fact it sucks.

Peace out,
M