I’m grateful for a sunny Friday morning and for nearing the end of February. I’m grateful for reminders and lessons. I’m grateful for watching the sunrise, drinking coffee and knowing I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. I’m grateful for seeing what is. I’m grateful to be sober today.

Mystery ?? Button

song of the week:

I think you’d be proud of me this week. Not that I’ve done anything particularly noteworthy. It’s that I had an idea for the song of the week all the way last weekend and despite the many siren calls of other great songs that were clamoring for song of the week status in my head, I stayed true. Even this morning, as I was sitting quietly, drinking that first nearly-perfect first cup of coffee and letting my mind drift where it will, all of these other songs presented themselves, like matches on a musical dating app, and you know what?

I swiped left.

This was the first Steely Dan song I heard. I’m pretty sure it was in the way-back of my dad’s robin’s egg blue Ford station wagon and we were on the way to visit relatives in Minnesota. I’m not sure how it came to pass that the radio was set to something more “contemporary” than the usual horrific easy listening stuff that came dripping out of the radio and was unfortunately favored by the denizens of the front seats—my parents. But “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” started playing and made a pretty indelible impression on me.

Like most Steely Dan songs, I have no real idea what it’s about. Clearly, a relationship has ended, some people think prematurely, others seem to have just left.1Donald Fagen is imploring Rikki, don’t lose my number, don’t call anyone else, you’ll want this later, trust me, when you’re feeling better. Here’s I’m going to mail my number to you, so that you have it when you come to your senses.

This 6th Grader recognized the song was mostly about desperation and he always kind of vibed with that feeling—so, the lack of clarity in the story line didn’t get in the way of me really, really liking this song. Despite the weird stuff about “Slow Hand Road,” and friends in town who “have heard your name,” and “we could stay inside and play games,” this song just fit my evolving worldview. I knew there would come a day when these words, sung so desperately and plaintively, would speak for me, too:

You tell yourself you’re not my kind, 
but you don’t even know your mind, 
and you could have a change of heart

I started acquiring Steely Dan albums in high school and the post-Watergate, cynical, everything is f***ed-up so who cares attitude, was right in my sweet spot. It didn’t bother that the songs didn’t make too much sense, they hit the right notes and the fragments of weird lyrics were startlingly apposite at really interesting times. This song, became the “Lucky Song of 1977,”

This music has a lot of strange juju for me. Like I said, I don’t know what any of it means, I just love it when “Peg” comes on and I hear that drum part, at like 13 seconds in—pow, pow, pow and then the Donald Fagen whiny, nasally, very New York-y voice with the open-ended vowels at the end of words

“I’ve seen your picture, your name in lights above it, this is your big debut, like a dream come true”

I literally get goosebumps when I hear that. I walked around Iowa City, during my high school years and listened to a lot of Steely Dan. I loved all of those weird, sad, kind of calmly catastrophic songs like “Haitian Divorce,” “Bad Sneakers” and “Doctor Wu,” they comprised this fictional world I kind of inhabited, I was the “Midnight Cruiser,” the simp in “Dirty Work,” except that I really didn’t know what any of it meant.2

Steely Dan was a big part of the romantic view I began to develop around the idea of one day living in New York. I imagined myself bumming around the avenues in a pair of beat-up sneakers, living this life of vague regret with a matching, defensive very cynical point of view. And now, I’m actually living that teenage vision of my own life.

I say this over and over, mostly to convince myself, recovery for me was less about battling a disease, it was more about finding what was lost. Lost is actually a generous way to say it; I was trying to find what I gave away way too cheaply a long, long time ago:

Myself.

I gave myself away to the false belief that I needed to be something other than what I was. I gave myself away to the idea that people would prefer a different version of me, same hair and smile, but a very different personality and a proclivity for clever but senseless stunts. We all do this as we grow up, try on different personalities, different ways of being and looking at the world. It’s a little like playing dress-up until you notice the the clothes fit a little too well.

I knew I was giving myself away that night at Magoo’s way back in 1981, when I realized the drinking version of me was now driving the car and he didn’t look like he needed a snack break anytime soon. That was the thing that gnawed at me, that made me feel so lost, so far away and so powerless to change the things that were so obviously destroying my life.

Why can’t you stop? I was asked that question over and over and over. Mostly by myself. I didn’t have an answer then, it was just simply impossible. I now realize that it was impossible because the version of myself that was in operation was built around lies and drinking; that version simply could not exist in a sober world. My many attempts at sobriety back then resembled what happens in a bathtub when one holds a toy duck underwater. It’s possible to hold the duck under for quite a while, but as soon as you relax a little, or lose your grip, the duck comes shooting to the surface with that maniacal duck grin.

And you knew it was going to happen all along.

My many attempts at sobriety were largely efforts at pantomime; I was acting out a part, not actually changing. I played the role of the recovered alcoholic, usually with about 18 months of sobriety, for about ten years. I fooled a lot of people. I hurt a lot of people. The person who was always at the bottom of the heap?

Myself.

I would like to tell you that I got sober and was finally able to stop drinking because I made all of these really insightful realizations and made a super courageous decision to change my life. The truth is, I got sober and stopped drinking because I simply ran out of options. That’s how the Universe works for me. I get lots and lots of very clear signals, lots of chances to exit the highway of doom that I love traversing at high speed, I hear the warnings, but never, ever, do I heed the warnings.

The Universe doesn’t get all prickly, it works on me by simply narrowing my options. In much the same way as Seminole tribe alligator traps worked, I swam right in and then found I could not just swim out. I had no options left. I think that’s one definition of “rock bottom.” The other might be this:

The realization that you are as far away from the person you were meant to be as is possible.

The journey back, the mission to find the missing Dr. Livingstone, is not easy. Remember, I didn’t just lose that person, I sent him packing and asked him to never darken my door again. He was quiet and thoughtful, had lots of crazy ideas, and very nerdy pursuits. He loved books and music and cooking and long walks on really cold days. He maybe thought he would be a writer living in New York one day, wearing corduroy sport coats and sneakers and walking around Avenue A thinking ironic thoughts.

He was too unlike everyone else, for my liking. So we cast him out and made a new version that was going to wow everyone, would excel at all of the things I really didn’t like doing and would generally just usher in a period of great success, satisfaction and fulfillment. I would make a big noise with all of the big boys. The issue was that this version of me required fairly significant infusions of alcohol on a pretty regular basis. Also, it wasn’t me and being something else, someone else, made me very, very, very unhappy. Like I had no center, no core, no real truth—except for all of that sauvignon blanc sloshing around in there.

Once the Universe had stripped enough away, had limited my options, I began to see a little more clearly. What I saw was that I had done a pretty effective job of losing just about everyone and everything that had mattered to me. I was very alone. It was the summer of 2020 and my world had really pretty much come to an end. Another relationship disaster, pretty much complete estrangement from my family and the pandemic-induced loss of the business enterprise I had been running left me with one question:

What the f*** was I going to do?

I listened to a very good and long-tenured friend, who said, “you did always want to live in New York.” And that was true. I had a New Yorker cover of the reading room at the Bryant Park library tacked up next to my desk in college, I consumed the New York Times (especially the Metropolitan Diary) and imagined myself as an actual New Yorker: Staring down motorists infringing on cross walks, staking out personal space on the subway, living in the worlds most glamorous and light-filled city. Walking the streets with my hands in my pockets, thinking about what I would write next.

That was the version of me that I thought was ridiculous when I was 17; the version I painstakingly hid and the version I was too embarrassed to tell anyone about. The dream I was too self-conscious and too afraid to share. When I arrived here in New York on Labor Day weekend in 2020, it wasn’t a triumphal entry with cloaks being spread on the FDR as I arrived from La Guardia. I moved into a sober house on 84th Street with a bunch of alcoholics and addicts that were mostly 20 years younger than me.

I took long, long walks owing to the calendar being so completely empty. I racked up tens of thousands of steps traversing the streets of my new city of residence. I made a surprising discovery: I started to find myself as I explored this place I had never lived. My Saturdays turned into long jaunts of exploring used bookstores and record shops looking for overlooked gems, afternoons of aimlessly walking and finding amazing and unique treasures along the way. I found umbrellas and umbrella stands, cool books, music I had always loved, thoughtful, kind, amazing people who showed up to move me from point to point. But the most amazing discovery:

Myself.

I found him one Saturday afternoon headed to Generation Records, always on the lookout for the real hard to find gems: The Cars first album, London Calling, Kenny Burrell playing “The Man I Love,” Bill Evans playing “My Foolish Heart.” He was wearing jeans and an old beat-up pair of black puma sneakers that you can’t get anymore and are just too cool to let go. He was blasting music right into his brain via the airpods, had a friendly smile for just about everyone (except don’t f*** with him on the subway or walk slow in front of him).

I came home to my beautiful apartment, maybe the first place I’ve lived that was really me, all me. I unloaded the bounty from the Farmers Market and the books from the Strand and the boxed set of Mozart operas I had stolen for only $20 from the lovely people at Academy Music. I realized, on that Saturday, even though I was very much alone, and didn’t have any plans, that I didn’t mind. Actually, it was way stronger than “didn’t mind.” I realized then that I spent a day by myself, being myself for the benefit of no one but myself.

That sounds selfish—but it’s different. I think it’s actually called acceptance. You see, the person I fought the longest, the person I waged the hardest campaign against, was me. As long as I didn’t see or realize that, well, the odds of getting sober were pretty f***ing long.

I finally accepted myself. That’s what finally made the difference. When my ability to be an improved, swankier, wine-fueled version of myself finally crashed and burned, as I had always known it would, I was left alone with the person who actually had the answer.

Myself.

And the startling answer was: Be Myself. When people read the “Acceptance” passage in the Big Book (p. 417), the most common assumption is that this is about our relations with other people; that our relationships with other people need to be amended so as to allow for sobriety to take root and grow. For this alcoholic, it was the relationship with myself that first needed mending. I could not be happy until I accepted that I had been placed exactly where I was supposed to be. I could not be happy until I accepted myself.

I’ve had lots of nice perches in my life, but maybe only one home. It’s here, watching the sun come up over the East River, watching my beloved young hawk take up residence high above 88th Street, donning the beloved black sneakers on Saturdays and spending the day bopping around the city I love so much. There are lots of romantic cities; people fly off to places like Paris to get engaged and find everlasting love. I’m not sure I’ve loved living in a place as much as I love living here. It’s not the chinese food, or the fabulous restaurants or all the excitement and glitz and glamor. It’s what I discovered, walking around some kind of dirty streets in old sneakers and listening to old Steely Dan songs that no one else even knows anymore:

Myself.

Happy Friday.

February has been a whirlwind of a month. Between juggling projects and my daughters’ incredibly busy senior year of high school, free time has been in short supply. That said, I’ve made it a goal (for the sake of my own sanity—ha!) to squeeze in as much radio time as possible. Super Portable POTA Before … Continue reading Time Crunch: A QRP POTA Activation Challenge and Impromptu Two-Fer! →

I’m grateful for running by the water in windy conditions and seeing the waves majestically crash onto the shores. I’m grateful for how much the past nine days have taught me about my sober self. I’m grateful for the sun shining brightly as my trip winds down. I’m grateful for urban parks and how much of a refuge they are. I’m grateful for delicious homemade rajma. I’m grateful for a final hang with my cousin and her kids. I’m grateful for candidly connecting with her about our shared family traumas and how we find ways to constructively move past them in order to thrive. I’m grateful my parents trust me with their car and don’t have to wonder if I’ll drink and drive. I’m grateful for folks who stick by us alcoholics through the pre-recovery years for without their support, their love, I know I’d be dead before getting the opportunity to let the miracles happen. I’m grateful for playing soccer in the hallway with the kids, which made me feel like a kid again.

It has been a beautifully reflective week in my old hometown of NYC. I got to catch up with some cherished fellows, friends, and family. The wide-ranging conversations helped me take stock of how much has changed in sobriety, especially the ways I’ve grown in the past year.

A big part of the growth certainly came from changing geographies. Actually being in NYC it has kind of surprised me to realize the extent to which I have become fond(ish) of Colorado living. I add the “-ish” not to be catty, but because I’m still finding my community there, still assimilating into the area. However the progress I’ve made does give me hope that Denver will be a wonderful place for this stage of my life.

Now of course I dearly miss the people, the culture, the conveniences of NYC. While riding the subway home earlier in the week I was listening to some ’90s jams that I remembered were a part of my playlist (on cassette tapes!) back when I was a kid doing the same commute. It was poignant to grapple with the tremendous amount that has changed over the decades, and yet somehow certain aspects of life do hold constant.

Back to Denver though. I believe that if I’d moved without having a strong footing in AA it might have been trickier. I knew as soon as I arrived there I needed to find meetings I enjoyed and attend them regularly just like in NYC. Without that connection then I’d be isolated and to be an isolated sober person is dangerous. From a purely social standpoint, it is challenging to build a new community in your 40s. Unless you have kids, are attending school, or at a workplace that encourages outside camaraderie, people generally keep to their own busy lives. I’m lucky though because AA is kind of like having a college campus around the world. We are encouraged to build bonds in the rooms, to get outside our comfort zones and say “hello” to strangers as that interaction can help save their life and our own. Part of why Denver has been positive for me is that I have been able to slowly foster a few connections thanks to regularly attending in-person meetings and putting myself out there in environments that welcome such extroverted action.

Another action I’ve practiced a lot this week is “acceptance”, particularly around meeting people where they are. I’ve realized a precursor to embracing acceptance for me is refraining from judgement. Left unchecked my mind can be quite judgy (a clear 4th Step defect), which then precludes me from productively engaging with others. However when that judgmental thought comes and I let it pass quickly – understanding it’s there as one of many inputs my brain needs to assess a situation – then I can move onto acceptance and ultimately reach the end goals of internal peace and engagement in the next right action. Specific examples that arose this week when it came to exercising the above is when I met a friend’s new boyfriend, who I will admit I had a lot of ideas about even before he uttered a word. Another was around interactions (or lack thereof) with the new sponsee. A big one was seeing sights (like the evergreen grove from last week) that were symbols of my painful drinking past. The hardest was certainly my parents and their insistence on avoiding tough, but important topics of discussion. Luckily the know-how around choosing acceptance arrived fairly fast. Certainly consistent prior investment in AA made acceptance easier during a trip that could have otherwise been more of an emotional roller coaster.

As I write this I’m realizing that moving to Denver has served as valuable training ground for finding acceptance. I was (am?) a fish out of water there, separated from my familiar East Coast vibes where I had in all honesty become complacent on several fronts. Denver has pushed me to test whether what I am doing in sobriety is correct – or even sustainable. Investigating what routines, what thought processes, what ideas are worth letting go of and what are worth doubling down on for the longer-term. In a brand new setting my old antics weren’t seamlessly integrating in those first few months so I had to drop my stubbornness (another defect of mine) and soberly evolve in novel ways while still being true to me. This journey continues to be a work-in-progress, and probably will be for the rest of my life, but I’ve enjoyed the more immediate, semi-forced requirement to push towards exploration and experimentation. Because I’ve had to accept a plethora of new things in Denver, it has given me new perspective when coming back to NYC on how to accept things here that I was previously finding too overwhelming, too perplexing, or was simply too lazy to address.

So what am I trying to say with this post? Frankly I wanted to try writing without a thesis statement in my head save for what my quick trip to NYC has taught me. I think what I’ve landed on is – 1) I’m glad AA has helped me integrate into the social fabric of a new place where I had virtually zero connections; 2) Actively and successfully practicing acceptance in a new city like Denver has afforded me a certain fresh insight that makes practicing acceptance in NYC around old concepts that used to frazzle me much simpler. Hopefully that resonates with those reading.

Later today Harper and I are on a flight back to our home state of Colorado. The fact that I can have two places I legitimately call home is incredibly far from the directionless vagrant I was during my addiction only a few years back. It’s a genuine miracle, an immense blessing, and all of it is thanks to the guidance of AA. ✈️

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Sunrise Activation in the Windy City by Tim (W8TMI) I was recently traveling for work to Chicago, IL. I wouldn’t think of a big city as the first place for one of my radios to go, but the KH1 doesn’t take up much room and it’s a new toy I’ve been wanting to play with. … Continue reading Pedestrian Mobile at Pullman: Tim’s Sunrise POTA Activation in Chicago →

I am so grateful to be sober today. I’m grateful for AA and HP. I’m grateful that we are getting out, that we CAN get out, that we will be safe. I’m grateful for my friends, for my family and for not being alone. I’m grateful that everything lined up for us, that we have each other and that things will get better.

Good morning my friends! I hope everyone had a lovely weekend and for those of you who have off today, get some extra R&R in for those of us who don’t (; 

I was just reading today’s reflection and thinking about how my Daily Reflections book was my grandfather’s. It is literally falling apart, pages coming out, and an old dollar bill that he used as a bookmark that I also now use as a bookmark. My favorite part is seeing what he highlighted everyday, what resonated with him vs what resonated with me and the days he highlighted nothing wondering why. 

Above all else I think that’s the epitome of AA. Just one drunk passing down to another their experience, what they resonate with. I can’t have a conversation with my grandfather but I know he is here. I know he and God and my nana and my noono and my noona and my great grandfather Pearson all kept the dog alive, got us approved for the new apartment, will keep us safe in the next two weeks, during the move. 

I am not feeling better. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel now and I know I will be carried there. That me and Tim and the dog will be carried there by Higher Powers and by AA. AA has shown up for me in the darkest time and if my message can be anything today it is I know how dark it can get. But if you let it, AA will bring back the light. And that doesn’t mean you have to sit in countless meetings if you don’t want to. But let those AA friends be there for you. Let them carry you when you cannot carry yourself. That’s what we are here for. 

And when you are back on your feet you will be able to carry someone else. And that genuinely, is the most beautiful thing. 

Next week you will hear from me in bright and sunny California and I’ll have fear (yes I’m future tripping), I’ll be anxious but I will still have AA. Wherever I go I will always have AA. 

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xx  

Jane

I’m grateful for a weekend with my son. I’m grateful for pancakes at the diner. I’m grateful for a rainy, gray morning and the raindrops on the window. I’m grateful for that new family in Boston. I’m grateful for where I am and what I have. I’m grateful to be sober today.

LAST WEEK ON TFLMS:

song of the week:

TFLMS Weekend: Where Sobriety Isn’t Just a Consequence…

(last weekend)

By KO4WFP Note: This is the fourth article for my trip to southwest Georgia at the beginning of January 2025. If you didn’t read the previous article, it is available here: Doerun Pitcher Plant Bog WMA January 5th, Daisy and I hit the road again for one more POTA activation toward my goal of activating … Continue reading The Fun Continues for the POTA Babe →

On Thursday, January 30, 2025, I did something I hadn’t done in months—I activated the Zebulon B. Vance Birthplace State Historic Site (US-6856). Regular readers know that western North Carolina was hit hard by Hurricane Helene on September 27, 2024. The Vance Birthplace–nestled in the Reems Creek valley which experienced severe flooding–had been closed for … Continue reading Signs of Recovery: My First Activation at Vance Since Hurricane Helene →

I’m grateful for getting to see a gorgeous sunrise. I’m grateful my son is home. I’m grateful for knowing myself. I’m grateful for exactly what I have. I’m grateful for a Friday morning and a chance to see a sponsee. I’m grateful for things that grow and patience. I’m grateful to be sober today.

Mystery ?? Button

song of the week:

As I always say on Friday mornings, “this was going to be so different.” The song of the week was going to be an old Genesis song and I had pretty much written the whole thing in my head and it was going to be so good. What happened, you ask? I watched the sun come up while I sipped a few cups of very strong coffee and did a little of my morning R&R. No, it’s not rest and relaxation, it’s rumination and reflection, and it’s often not a great thing.

He may not know this, but Elvis Costello has profoundly impacted and shaped my life. The song of the week was a hit in 1977 and yours truly was 15 and in the process of having his heart broken. You see, there was this girl. Our last names both started with “B” so we met in the 8th grade when we ended up sitting next to each other (in a row) in a class that was being taught in one of the temporary building behind the junior high. The day we met, she was wearing a “Captain Fantastic” t-shirt and those big bulky glasses that were somewhat fashionable (maybe only in Iowa) in the mid-1970s.1

We became friends, lots of joking around and the walk back to the main building from the “temporary” was where a friendship blossomed. I use the phrase, “friendship,” only because that probably reflected the average (or maybe the median) of our collective feelings for each other. I was very much, head over heels in love. Sadly, and despite my best efforts, Northwest Junior High was not to be the situs of a great love story.

Of course, she knew nothing of this. At least until we got to high school. From my perspective, our lives were pretty enmeshed. We talked a lot on the phone (I would leave the house and walk to the pay phone at the corner of Melrose and Koser, so my brother and snooping mother would not be listening in2), we hung out together in school. We were both on the debate team and when we got to high school I helped elect her older brother as maybe the most unlikely homecoming king in West High Trojan history.3

Eventually, I mustered the courage to share my feelings with her and ask her to go out with me. In a thunderclap of a moment, I found out she had a boyfriend and he was older—already at the university. I mean, I was shaving by this point, at least about twice a week; I knew I was beaten.

That didn’t stop me from trying and it didn’t stop me from really, really, really wishing things were different. It’s possible I made a real spectacle of myself in the process. Into this stewpot of regret, drama and bereft sadness, along comes Elvis Costello singing “Alison.” One of the greatest songs about an ex-girlfriend that has ever been written.4 It’s so perfect in so many ways. The lines are all Elvis Costello super-clever,

‘Cause I don’t know if you were loving somebody, 
I only know it isn’t mine

This was my tragedy anthem. I played this album over and over and over. I sang this song in my head to myself over and over and over. It so perfectly captured the way I felt; the bereft, bitter, forlorn, but don’t worry about me persona I was already constructing. A persona which became an alcoholic dream home (or maybe hermit crab shell is more appropriate). I listened to this song, or sang it to myself on my long late night walks and felt really and juicily sorry for myself. A life already filled with romantic regret and failure and I could barely even drive.

I am going to admit that during the process of coming up with names for my not-yet-born daughter, I did throw “Alison” into the hopper, forgetting that my wife knew how much I loved that song because I still played it all the time.5 I was told that we were not going to name our daughter in honor of a song about an ex-girlfriend.6

For a variety of reasons, I have been unable to listen to this song for a while. Until today. I was looking for the song that was supposed to be the song of the day and Youtube “suggested” this and I listened to it for the first time in a while. Man, is it a great song. And this acoustic version by a very young Elvis is super moving and cool.

This song was instrumental (no pun intended) to the personality that was being constructed, consciously and unconsciously during my youth. It captured my outlook so perfectly, I came to love the feeling of being alone, the feelings of loss and sadness being bravely tolerated, the solitary life being silently applauded.7 All of that sadness and emptiness left a lot of room for drinking, and the drinking sure made the sadness and emptiness feel grand, creating a pretty effective alcoholic flywheel. That sadness and emptiness were like a huge blackhole, one building inside of me and exerting an incredibly strong, but unseen gravitational pull; a pull so strong it warped my personality.

I read this great book a few years ago, “Designing Your Life,” and I’ve mentioned it here before. It was written by two Stanford professors who teach design and the book is the application of the principles of successful design to one’s own life. To be honest, when I first read this book, 7 or 8 years ago, I was hoping it could be a substitute for the Steps and the Big Book—because I knew that was going to involve not drinking and I was still hoping to achieve a less drastic result.8

I’m struck now by how similar the approaches were. “Designing Your Life” encourages an inventory-taking process and one of the elements of this process is identifying the sources of gravity in one’s life. “Gravity,” meaning the things that cannot be avoided, the things that are true, the things that have to be accounted for. DSL (I’m shortening “Designing Your Life” from here on) gives the example of someone who wants to pursue a career in poetry, yet also has expectations about living in a swanky house and traveling around the world. You see, that’s probably not going to work out that way, owing to the relatively low salaries earned by your average poet. That design will not work. That life is not sustainable.

So, the process begins with an assessment of where you are in life, identifying the things you’d like to change, the things you’d like to incorporate. You figure out what can actually be accomplished, accounting for things like gravity, and you develop a plan for pursuing this life you’ve designed. You know what that process reminds me of:

God, 
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, 
the courage to change the things I can, 
and the wisdom to know the difference

“Gravity” has another meaning in this context. In the cosmos, gravity shapes the universe. The massive gravitational pulls of blackholes are capable of warping time and creating whole universes. I think “gravity” is commonly thought of as something that holds us back, holds us down, binds us to reality; but I think gravity is really the great destructor/creator of entire worlds.

In very simple terms, black holes work by sucking in all forms of matter with this intense and unseen gravitational force. The more matter that is pulled over the event horizon, the stronger the gravitational force being generated, until one “day” when the whole thing explodes and spews matter out at an inconceivable scale.9 Thus, are entire universes born.

Like Wile E. Coyote, alcoholics are bad at understanding gravity.

Among the great misunderstandings that we alcoholics have about gravity are :

(a) This does not apply to me; 
(b) I do not exert any gravitational force on anyone else.

Both of these propositions are demonstrably false. At the bottom of this alcoholic’s wine glass was the belief that I didn’t matter enough to other people; that I definitely should matter more to other people; and that I was entitled to be angry and resentful that I didn’t matter more to those pesky people. A corollary to this was the idea that my drinking was only my drinking and didn’t really “concern” other people.

I’m good, people. This is how I’m supposed to roll. Get over yourselves. Yes, I would like another…

Or words to that effect. I think most of us share that belief, that we just don’t matter enough to the people around us; I certainly hear a lot of people talk about it at meetings. One of the beautiful things about recovery is coming to understand and accept how much we do matter to the people we love. How much the way we live our lives can impact the lives of those we’re connected to. Of course, this can be a positive or a negative thing. I think recovery is actually about taking those negative aspects and reimagining them into positive things, things to be grateful for.

Understanding gravity has been a key to my recovery of my relationships with my children. I can see how my life as an alcoholic warped their own lives, how much they were pulled and shaped by their love and connection to me. For sure, while I was drinking, their love and connection to me brought pain and sadness and anger. Things are very different these days.

Recovery has been the chance to change that for the people I love, and for me. When I see my true self, when I recognize my own foibles, strengths, weaknesses and eccentricities, when I’ve done the work of taking my own inventory and realistically seeing what I can change and then courageously pursuing that change, that has an impact on the people around me. But it’s a positive impact, not an alcoholic asteroid impact, like the olden days.

Gravity is a beautiful thing. Gravity can bind us to each other and to the lives we were meant to lead. I find that gravity works on its own, it doesn’t need me at the controls. My job is to become stronger, strong enough to attract whatever it is that is meant for me. Gravity takes time to work and requires patience, but in the end it accomplishes what nothing else can: It keeps me exactly where I’m supposed to be at this moment. I like it here.

Happy Friday.

Activating on the Road:  National Forests and National Grasslands by Brian (K3ES) After a short break, with life getting in the way, this article continues my series on our 2024 road trip across the United States (Six Weeks and 7300 Miles:  Activating on the Road).  I hope to wrap up the series with a couple … Continue reading Maps, Miles, and Morse: K3ES’ POTA Adventures in National Forests and Grasslands Across the West →