I am so grateful to be sober today. I’m grateful for seeing my family, for my parents landing safely in Seattle, for my friends, for our pup and for rest. I’m grateful for AA, doing service, for my sponsor and her patience, love, kindness and tolerance. I’m grateful for being honest, for beautiful weather, and for coffee.

Goooodd morning my friends (: As always, I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and is ready for the fresh week ahead.

I personally have a horrible case of the Sunday/Monday morning scaries after having a 4-day weekend. The thought of logging on to work today truly makes me want to crawl into a hole but yah know, bills mut be paid so to work I go.

Last week was filled with lots of emotional and spiritual lows so scaries aside I’m really hoping that this fresh week is much better than last.

That said, I spoke at a meeting yesterday which was a great opportunity to get a lot of my shit verbally out into the world – needing to reground myself yada yada yada all the stuff you guys have heard me share here a thousand times.

But what came out yesterday that is really important for me to remind myself of as my email starts to blow up and slack and work and all of the to do’s – getting and staying sober is my proudest accomplishment.

I’ll never get an award for that, but I get to keep it close to my heart and share it with other people every single day and no one can ever take that away from me.

So, while I struggle with who I am and where I want to go in life it is important for ME to remember that the hardest thing I ever did was stop drinking and seek help. And every day there after I have said no to drinking and continued to at least know help is available to me even when I don’t want to take it.

Every day we go out into the world as sober people and continue to not drink or use. And if we can do that, we can do literally anything else. I am proud to navigate life with zero substances to lean on. I am proud to help other people do that. So essentially there are no issues and everything else in my head (news flash Jane), and that is okay.

As long as I’m not drinking it’s all. Very much so. Okay.

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Xx

Jane

I’m grateful for really dark, really early morning. I’m grateful for coffee and my fireplace. I’m grateful for friends and meetings. I’m grateful fora day of the the usual nonsense. I’m grateful to be sober today.

LAST WEEK ON TFLMS:

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

I’m grateful for a really beautiful morning. I’m grateful for a full heart. I’m grateful for podcast recording sessions. I’m grateful for remembering in the nick of time. I’m grateful for a big long breath. I’m grateful to be sober today.

Mystery ?? Button

song of the week:

Last weekend, I listened to a certain song and decided, “ah, this is the song of the week.” I probably said this out loud because I do a fair amount of talking to myself aloud.1 Then I spent the week composing this week’s essay in my head and it was going to be really good. There were all of these clever connections between this song and recovery and stuff—it was going to be so good, and really thoughtful, too.

Speaking of good and thoughtful, have you listened to the podcast?

All week, I’d hear some other great song, and maybe listen to it twice if I was really feeling it. I’d start to think “oh, this could be a good song of the week.”2 I might even start writing the first paragraph or two in my head and come up with some snappy lines, and then I’d remember, “wait, we have a song of the week.”3 And I’d go back to the “song of the week,” a little ashamed of even having thought about finding a replacement.

I’ve been working pretty hard the last few weeks, which is good because I’m building a law practice and busy means it’s working. Also, I really like it, so even when I find myself getting home late, stopping by for a quick chat with my pals at Gotham Pizza and then home to finish a few things up, I don’t mind that much.4 I woke up this morning feeling just generally really good. Happy. Sore from a lot of walking and standing around swanky parties working potential clients. I practiced the elaborate coffee worship rituals that take place in the very early mornings here and began scrolling through the playlist to start listening to the intended song of the week again.

Then I spied this song, which I hadn’t played in a long time. I played it on the big stereo in my den. That was the mistake. I realized that I didn’t just know the words, I know the intonations and the breaths, even the “huhs,” and “dahs,” like, “huh, draw blood” at the end. Yes, I was singing along. Also, you have to say this line out loud to really appreciate it:

Little old lady got mutilated, late last night.

Also, I had a snowball fight with Warren Zevon’s band in 1982 (?) on the University of Wisconsin campus. This is a true story. It was a super cold night and my pals and I had just seen Warren Zevon perform live at the theater at the Student Union. We might have been standing in a secluded area outside the union behind a kiosk (it was a windbreak so that a certain kind of cigarette could be ignited for the cold chilly walk home). This happened to be directly across the street from where the tour bus was parked. Hypothetically.

We were minding our own business and being reminded about this one Jack London short-story where the guy fumbled his last match and couldn’t get a fire lit and that meant he was going to die. Our situation, though not actually life-threatening, did seem just about as dire, as my friend Jack kept running through a dwindling supply of matches, saying “shit,” every time the wind put another one out.

Suddenly, a snowball hit my friend Glenn in the back shoulder. Pretty hard. It made a noisy “thwumpff” when it impacted Glenn’s parka. He immediately retorted, “what the f***?” We began scanning the area to see where the fire was coming from. It wasn’t hard to find the culprits. It was the guys from the band, standing next to the tour bus, shivering in street clothes and laughing as they readied another salvo.

You know how I roll, “f*** me? No, f*** you.” It was on. I’m just going to say, even as college sophomores or juniors, whatever we were, we still spent a lot of our time on snowball fights. Winter lasted for a bit in Wisconsin. Also we had cold weather gear on. The fight was savage and brief. The band took cover behind the tour bus and we resorted to lobbing snowballs on super high trajectories, like mortar rounds, but it was a low percentage shot. Then a kind of plaintive voice called out for mercy from behind the bus. Well, maybe it wasn’t a call for mercy, I think the guy actually said, “Hey, do you guys have any extra weed?”

Extra? Anyway, in this hypothetical story, it might have happened that while the guys in the band didn’t have weed, they did have a lighter. We were not invited onto the tour bus, so we stood awkwardly for a few minutes sharing a hypothetical few puffs asking really awkward strained questions that were mostly ignored. Then they got cold and took the hypothetical thing that had been generating the puffs onto the bus and said, “thanks,” without really looking back.

That night shattered some illusions for me. They were rockstars and they didn’t have weed? Hmmm, maybe the lawyer gig would be better after all. Anyway, all of that is to say, I heard the siren call of this song and completely forgot about the other song of the week, old what’s her name? Watching the video, I’m reminded how insanely cool and weird Warren Zevon was. I loved this album—there were so many great songs—all of which had this zany anarchy to them. The famous line, “Send Lawyers, Guns and Money,” was a favorite as was the song where “Johnny” kills his prom date and “makes a cage of her bones.” Good stuff.

While I was listening and singing along, I’m reminded how many days a week I wake up in a pretty good f******* mood. It’s not that anything special is happening, I’m just happy, content, kind of in a groove. Is everything where I’d like it to be? No, but things are good. There is calm and content and peace coursing through the byways that used to run at about 14% alcohol by volume.

The song restarted again, and I just felt this deep sigh come out, my shoulders relaxed and I felt that tingly feeling that says things are really pretty good. Things are good. Maybe I haven’t mentioned this, I’m going to have 5 years of sobriety next Tuesday. Ha, that sounds amazingly banal.

“I’m going to have five years of sobriety on Tuesday.”

Maybe that’s how it should be. Sober anniversaries are very special and very odd events—at the same time. Those early anniversaries were so meaningful, they were like Boy Scout merit badges and I proudly raised my hand at meetings when they asked if anyone was celebrating an anniversary in October. Now, my anniversary kind of sneaks up on me. I agreed to speak at a meeting on Monday a while ago, and just realized, “oh, that’s right before my anniversary.”

I never believed this was possible. There were literally thousands of afternoons and evenings spent on barstools where I convinced myself that this was the only life I could lead. A life of quiet desperation, resentments seething inside like huge ocean storms and requiring prodigious quantities of Elizabeth Spencer to calm the seas.

This morning, I laughed at the lines in this song, laughed some more when I watched Warren Zevon’s ironic and goofy way of singing this song,

Here’s all I have for you, life is good, Life is funny. Life is sweet and surprising. Life is beautiful and meaningful, especially on these dark mornings when I’m the only one in the world watching the sun come up. It’s possible other people in the city are up and watching, too, but it feels like it’s a show being presented for my benefit. That’s how life feels to me these days.

The funny thing about sober anniversaries is that they kind of commemorate one of the worst days in your life. I mean, in retrospect, October 22nd is a fantastic day, the day my life changed for good and in a way I could never have imagined. But October 21 was not one of my better days. I’ve told the story before:

Maybe I’m a bit of a curmudgeon, but my sobriety date doesn’t feel like a birthday to me—it’s way more complicated than that. For sure, it’s a day that marks the beginning of a new life for me, but it’s also a little like visiting a cemetery and paying respects to everything that had to happen and had to end. I think it’s important to remember what came before the sobriety date, because that makes me even more grateful for everything since that day.

Ha, that’s from exactly two years ago, today. I know how much has changed in my life. Even from where I was just two years ago. I can feel the difference every day. I do feel the difference every day. I don’t crave alcohol, I finally came to see all of that time sitting on barstools throwing off sauvignon blanc-infused witticisms to no one in particular, didn’t really count as living a life. When I think back to those days, those years of fight and struggle and shame and fear and desperation, it feels like being closed in a very dark, very small space.

Now that I’m talking about it, everything suddenly makes a lot of sense. When I listened to Werewolves of London this morning, well, it started feeling like a day of hooky, like those days in high school when I’d call the attendance office, imitate my Dad and excuse myself from school. That kind of day. A deep breath, laugh a little, nothing is that serious kind of day. I realize I need a day like that, maybe an entire weekend like that. Because as nonchalant as I was just a few paragraphs ago, the weight of everything that has happened over the last few five years sometimes feels enormous.

When I used to hear people at meetings say things like they were celebrating five years, that just seemed impossible. I could never even manage ninety days of sobriety during those years. On Monday, when I qualify at this meeting, I’m going be one of those people who says those completely impossible things. I will say that on October 22nd, I’ll be celebrating five years of sobriety.

I’ll be boasty for a second and say that I’ve achieved a lot in my life. But out of all of the things I’ve accomplished, nearly all of them seemed at least somewhat possible from the very start. There’s only thing I’ve done that did actually seem impossible, not just hard, impossible, at the start. You think I’m going to say something like getting sober was the thing I did that seemed impossible at the start.

No, the thing I did that seemed completely impossible at the start was this: I started to live my own life, the one that was meant for me.

I stopped listening to what other people said, I stopped listening to what I imagined people were saying. I stopped listening to the nonsense I said. I started listening to my heart. I stopped pretending and started just being. I worked to empty my mind and let my soul be filled. It was when I did those things that my life began to change. It’s when I continue to do those things that my life continues to change.

I didn’t get sober by stopping drinking. I got sober by finally embracing the life I was meant to lead; there is no purpose for drinking in that world. Maybe some of the things I used to have or used to want are no longer within my grasp, maybe some of those losses are hard to accept, even today. Five years of sobriety isn’t five years of unicorns dancing and bowls of Lucky Charms being magically refilled by loving leprechauns. It’s been five years of happy times and true sadness, connection and loss, grief, acceptance and even some loneliness.

But it’s been five years of being myself, which sadly, is a too-small percentage when the denominator is at least 60. But here’s the thing, my historical happiness batting average doesn’t matter so much. These five years have given me joy and beauty and laughter and love that I could never have imagined. These five years have built me into a person that I could never have imagined. These five years have gotten me exactly to where I needed to go, and exactly how I needed to get there.

These five years finally let me see that I was enough for the world, just as I was. I could finally see that I didn’t have to pull off elaborate scenes and shows to demonstrate to others just how much I deserved their love and admiration. I could just be myself and the right things would happen, the right people would show up.

Tonight being Friday, one of those right people I’m counting on showing up is the person who delivers the delicious Chinese food that I reward myself with on many Friday nights. These five years have taught me that the greatest gift is simply sitting quietly by myself and realizing that this is exactly where I’m supposed to be. These five years have taught me that I have everything I need and that things meant for me cannot be avoided. I feel like this might be what they call “serenity.”

Tonight, I’m hoping that one of things meant for me is dumplings and hot & sour soup.

Happy Friday.

I’m grateful that the last two meetings I’ve attended have had the topic be “gratitude” (and it’s not even Thanksgiving!). I’m grateful for the positivity and hopefulness in the shares resulting from this topic. I’m grateful for the reminder that surrendering doesn’t mean giving up, but rather to simply stop fighting. I’m grateful for being in a position in life to help others and be solicited for advice. I’m grateful for running through a heavily tree-lined neighborhood and getting color overload from the changing leaves. I’m grateful Colorado sends educational pamphlets detailing the myriad of ballot measures so voters know about what’s happening. I’m grateful to live in a democracy where we have the freedom to speak our minds and be our authentic selves. I’m grateful for the interior design compliments I got because it’s a passion I’ve only recently discovered in sobriety. I’m grateful to be in a time period where I can hear sober fellows share about their experience living through the AIDS epidemic and what attending AA meetings was like then. I’m grateful for the Godiva milk chocolate gift bag my partner’s patient gave him because they’ve been a delicious treat to cap my dinners these past several days. I’m grateful to be able to reflect on my past and feel all the emotions without spiraling.

I think I’ve shared here that when it comes to family my relationship with them is tricky. While they’ve done incredible things to reel me back from the brink, they’ve also done more than a few things to place me there. The process of me grappling with this reality had been a cornerstone of my drinking. I come from a large immigrant family that while growing up in NYC was very tight, very involved in one another’s lives. During childhood that was awesome because it meant I had an instant friend group in my cousins. We would have tons of fun hanging out at each other’s homes, having sleep overs, playing table tennis, going on vacations – basically all the cool kid’s stuff.

However as we matured our lives diverged and relationships grew complicated. A slew of deaths changed the overall dynamics, as did marriages and increased geographic separation. Our parents generation also splintered and that heavily influenced how we interacted (or, more accurately, did not). For myself I hid away from everyone because I didn’t want to reveal my sexuality. There was one cousin though, we’ll call her “Anjali”, who made it her earnest goal to maintain ties despite the fissures that had formed. Over the years she has emerged as the only one who is truly making an effort to repair frayed relations.

As my alcoholism grew worse, it was Anjali who came to know of it first after my parents. We had a few tumultuous years where my drinking did a number on our relationship, but to her credit she stuck with me. Her understanding of this disease based on outside experiences was helpful because unlike other family members she brought an empathy to the chaos that nobody else did. It was her who on a frigid February morning drove me to the sober home on the UES where I finally started my journey in AA.

I bring Anjali up because she visited me in Denver this past weekend. To be honest I had been quite nervous for a few weeks prior to us meeting up. Thanks to what I’ve taken away from the 12 Steps, I know the importance of setting up healthy boundaries. Having genial, but sporadic communication with family is part of that boundary setting for me right now. Every time they enter the picture, even good ones like her, I feel angst. Distance allows me to avoid being part of the gossip that inevitably makes the rounds. As a sober gay guy who comes from a devoutly religious community I can certainly provide plenty of fodder. So it was before I even met up with Anjali that I was bringing all this baggage, all this agita into the mix.

Unsurprisingly our time together on Sunday was a blast. We reverted to our old happy childhood ways as soon as we saw each other. I was ambivalent about taking her to my house initially so we instead went to the Botanical Gardens and caught up. After some deep, honest conversation about where we are both at in life I decided to introduce her to my partner, who had till that point never met a member of my family. Upon reflection it’s super meaningful that Anjali was the one to embrace him first. I’ve spent decades fretting about and drinking over sharing my life as a gay man with any family. To have this moment where it came together with such joy, such positivity, such receptiveness was heartwarming. After hanging on the couch for a few hours we grabbed dinner, caught the fantastic SNL episode hosted by Ariana Grande on TV, and then I drover her back to the hotel.

I’m still processing the events from Anjali’s visit. She and I have been through a lot. There are only a handful of people who have stayed in my life that knew me when I was drinking. She thankfully is one of them. When I see her now it is a helpful reflection for me on just how far I’ve come in sobriety. The bad events of my life while drinking will of course never disappear, but there is a way I can carry that history as I move forward with understanding and peace. Through conversations with people like her I can remember opportunities for redemption and rebuilding exist. Our connection is a lifesaving gift for me. I love being sober. I love being in AA. Doing the hard, painful internal investigation is worth it because it means I can experience beautiful moments like this.

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I’m so grateful to be sober. I’m grateful for a short work week this week, for a day to myself and a day with my family. I’m grateful for Timmy’s birthday tomorrow, for our friends and for our life together. I’m grateful for a slow morning, for a sleepy puppy, for coffee and a house full of groceries. I’m grateful to work from home, for comfy sweatshirts, for the fall, for my sponsor, AA and service.

Goooood morning my friends (:

As always, I hope everyone had a lovely weekend, you’re feeling ready for the fresh week ahead.

I am off from work this Thursday and Friday and truly the fact that I only have to make it through three days is everything I need to make it a good week.

I know last week’s post wasn’t necessarily the most positive and quite honestly, I still feel pretty much the same as I did last Monday. God didn’t come down and whisk my blah feelings away in the past week BUT I’ve done tiny little bite sized things that feel like tiny little steps forward.

Instead of continuing with The Artists Way my sponsor and I started reading the 12/12. Which feels like a nice way to quickly go back through the steps and really hit on the ones I need the most. I need to expand my conception of God; I need to revisit turning my will and my life over. I’m going through a little bit of an agnostic period which I NEVER thought would happen. And it’s nice to remember that even when I’m unsure HP is always there.

I need to do a fresh Step 4 and 5. Take a new look at my defects, get back on the horse with 10 and 11.

My sponsor has me writing why I’m still in AA today and how I am powerless currently. Because yes yes I know I’m powerless over alcohol. But in this current moment, I’m also powerless over my fear. And that fear is as big as I’m going to get fired and be homeless on the street with my dog, to as little as Tim is going to hate me because I haven’t gotten him anything for his birthday other than dinner tomorrow.

All in all, it feels like a step in the right direction. Back to basics in a way. And my sponsor reminded me yesterday that I didn’t get sober to be paralyzed by fear all the time. I got sober to have a life but what kind of life is one that is filled with terror.

So hopefully this leaves everyone on a more optimistic note that last week. Because I am feeling just a tiny bit better than last Monday. And that’s the thing, it always gets better even if it starts small.

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Xx

Jane

I’m grateful for a really good day. I’m grateful for resting up and catching up. I’m grateful for an early morning and delicious coffee. I’m grateful for exactly where I am. I’m grateful for what I’m getting a chance to build. I’m grateful to be sober today.

]

LAST WEEK ON TFLMS:

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

(last weekend)

I’m grateful for the way the colors change in the sunrise this time of year. I’m grateful for Fall. I’m grateful for walking home from the office. I’m grateful for confidence and ease. I’m grateful to be sober today.

Mystery ?? Button

Song of the Week:

I realize I’m a touch late, calendar-wise, on this selection for song of the week. I have loved this song since it was released way back in 1978. I remember hearing it on the radio while cruising the streets of Iowa City in my friend Mark’s green Ford Pinto.1 I didn’t have a girlfriend, so it seemed kind of romantically aspirational.

First things first: Have you listened to the podcast?

Over the years, when I would hear “September,” I could find myself wishing for someone that I met on the 21st night of September, and then it would be December and the love that we had found in September would have bells ringing and souls singing. I would imagine how this would be our song and we’d share it and the heady memories of those early, falling in love days, whenever we’d hear it. Which would be good, because it is played everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.2 There would never be a cloudy day.

The problem is that I have really struggled wanting to listen to this song for a long time. See, I met someone a long time ago, 2013, I think, and our first date was at a really cute Thai restaurant on 14th Street in DC. If I recall correctly, it was the 21st night of September. She was quiet and funny, she had a very shy smile that had a way of slowly lighting up her face. She liked to laugh and she had a way of surprising me with ways of looking at things that I’d never considered. She had a really cute way of looking at me over the tops of her glasses.

We laughed through dinner, and I walked her home afterwards. It was a clear, crisp night and you could see the stars. We both lived in the same neighborhood and the restaurant was also in the neighborhood, yet, I managed to get horribly lost on the way to her house—which was only a 5-minute walk away. 15 or 20 minutes later, we reached her house and she didn’t seem to mind the circuitous route.3 She asked me in, and I was then ambushed by four of her kids, who were given the opportunity to give me the once-over.

I walked home smiling, it had occurred to me at some point in the evening that it was the 21st night of September, so I thought that was a very good thing. There was one slight problem: I had told her I was an alcoholic and didn’t drink, she had a good friend in the Program, so she knew quite a bit and she was okay with it. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I was still drinking.

In fact, prior to dinner with her at the cute Thai restaurant, I spent a bit of time at the Thai restaurant across the street guzzling back a glass of wine.4 Was I technically drunk when I told her I didn’t drink? Maybe.

Nevertheless, things with K. proceeded and we were pretty much living together a few months later. My dog Kayla was still with me and gamely shuttled back and forth with me. She loved all of the attention and she was drawing close to the end of her time, I think she was 14 at the time.

K. really loved me. We did lots of great things and she so wanted a future with me. I was drinking every day. Not just some days, or most days, every single day. I’d go to the office and drink at lunch. I’d stop at the Logan Tavern on “my way home,” in the afternoons. I’d leave the office around 4 and head to the bar. Around 6, I’d text that I was wrapping up. I’d have another glass or two and then head home for dinner.

Of course, I talked about the meetings I went to, all of the great sober thoughts I was thinking. I wondered how she didn’t know how much I was drinking. I wondered why I was lying to her every single day. I wondered why I couldn’t even contemplate not drinking. The problem was that I kept trying to find the answers in the bottom of wineglasses. Trust me, I was a very diligent hunter. I turned over a lot of glasses of wine looking for the truth.

Kayla the dog got cancer. Her long-time companion, Buddy, had died of the same kind of cancer a few years before, so I knew the deal. There wasn’t a cure and the best we could do was make Kayla as comfortable as we could for as long as we could. She was 15 by this time, and I was secretly hoping to be able to coax her to 16.

I began roasting a chicken every Sunday—it was mostly for Kayla. I had decided that it was no more dog food for her—she ate roasted chicken and green beans most of the time. The treatment I was giving Kayla actually started to incense K.—I think she felt under-appreciated, and at one point asked why I never roasted a chicken for her. My drinking was definitely escalating and I think she knew something was wrong. There was a lot of tension in the air, lots of minor arguments.

Kayla was coming to the end of her time and I was pretty drunk for most of mine. Finally, one night in early March, a silly fight boiled over on the street outside of K’s house and somehow, I don’t actually remember the details or the conversation, we broke up. I don’t remember anything else about that night, but I do know that the next day I felt pretty free to drink. And drink I did.

I’d been to the doggie-oncologist earlier that week and she had told me it was time to start thinking about the end. Kayla wasn’t in any pain, but that wasn’t going to be the case for much longer. I had let things with Buddy go a little too long, and he was in real distress at the end, and I didn’t want to see that again. I made an appointment at the vet.

I drank most of that week. In the evenings, Kayla and I would walk to one of the neighborhood joints and we’d sit outside, even thought it was still a little nippy, and I would order two cheeseburgers. I’d walk Kayla home, get her set up in bed and then I would head back out to one of my spots and drink and drink and drink. I would look at my phone and scroll through K’s Instagram, trying to figure out if she was already seeing someone.5 I watched stupid videos like this as I wallowed in self-pity; losing my dog and my girlfriend in the same month sounded like a country song and a good reason for a few more glasses of wine:

Kayla’s vet appointment was on a Tuesday afternoon. I left the office and drank for a while to steady my nerves for what was coming. I went home and even though Kayla was pretty slow and pretty drugged up, she was still excited when I pulled the leash off the hook by the door. We walked to the vet’s office, also on 14th Street, a few blocks above the cute little Thai restaurant.

Kayla was very calm, she got a healthy dose of something else to make her even more relaxed. I got down on the floor with her, she put her paw on my shoulder. I stroked her soft, soft fur and thanked her for being such a good dog, for being such a good friend, for staying with me for so long. I heard that soft, soft snore, the one that had kept me company at night for a long time, and then she was gone.

I really didn’t want to cry in front of anyone, so I rushed out of the vet and headed home as fast as I could go. I made it home and the tears didn’t really start until I took the empty leash out of my pocket and hung it up on the hook next to the door. The next few weeks were a pretty desolate time. I was truly alone—not even a dog—and I drank. A lot.

I spent a lot of time fixated on my own pity, that does help create the right ambience for a night or week of drinking. I made a few efforts to get K. back—laughable, horrible emails that I’m sure I was drunk when I wrote. I really wasn’t able to even consider what I had put her through, what I was putting her through. Like every still-drinking alcoholic, I couldn’t understand why my promise to “do better in the future,” wasn’t enough. The reason it wasn’t enough is that she had figured out that I had lied to her pretty much every single day. Every time we talked about the future had been a lie; Every time I had told her what she meant to me was a lie. Everything was a lie.

At one point, she gamely suggested that if I “went somewhere,” and got like six-months, maybe we could talk. I was incensed! All that rehab and AA stuff is nonsense—I can do a better job myself. There’s another lie. Finally, on September 21st of 2015, I sent a drunken email, full of remorse and regret and it was the anniversary of our first date and shouldn’t that mean something? It did. It meant I got an email from her daughter asking me not to write her mom any more emails.

We alcoholics have a hard time accepting what we did. I’m not advocating for more feelings of guilt and shame, I’m advocating for more feelings of empathy, for the people who loved us and tried to stick with us and did the best they could until the tide of alcoholic chaos inevitably swamped the boat. It always, always sinks the boat.

We get a few weeks of sobriety, maybe just a few days, and we are full of wisdom and self-awareness. Now I see what was going on—I’ll just make a few minor adjustments and we should be good. That’s why the wheels have to come off for so many of us. It takes real catastrophe to shake us out of our alcoholic torpor; It takes the extreme winnowing of options to persuade to choose the course that was always there in front of us.

Yesterday was a beautiful Fall day and the evening was really lovely, too. I was walking home, tired from another long, but satisfying day at the office. I was looking forward to leftover Thai food, and doing my usual fast-walking, tourist and slow-moving pedestrian dodging, and Spotify decided to throw “September” at me as a recommendation.6 I listened to it for the first time in a long time.

I think that’s true. Happy Friday.

I’m grateful for elevation gains during my run returning to their normal levels after some foot issues. I’m grateful for my health. I’m grateful for knowing earlier when I’m stepping out of bounds so that my subsequent clean ups are less messy. I’m grateful for the beautiful, calm, cooler weather we’ve been having in Denver, especially given how crazy it is in certain parts of the country. I’m grateful for the mantra “take the next right action” being a formative part of my decision-making these days. I’m grateful for thinking about how I can be of service in ways I’d previously never have entertained because I was so absorbed in self. I’m grateful for the quip around not needing to get back to basics if I’m simply practicing the basics on the regular. I’m grateful when pearls of wisdom I heard at meetings from weeks earlier come back to impact my life in the present.

My latest (and hopefully last) relapse was on November 17, 2021 in San Francisco. I drove down to the Safeway in Pacifica, which is notably right next to the “world’s most beautiful” Taco Bell. I went inside with the understanding that I’d get food for some upcoming hikes in Big Sur and Santa Cruz later that week. When I entered the Safeway the well-packed alcohol aisle was right in front. As I procured the goods I needed from other parts of the store, I kept circling back to it with intrigue. That aisle tugged at me like a silent siren song. Before checking out I finally decided I would grab a Tito’s vodka bottle to prove to myself that AA was working. I stuck with the 750ml rather than the usual 1.75L because why go for my usual size and pay more when I won’t be drinking it anyways, right? At that stage I was nine months sober – the longest I’d been without a drink since my mid-20s – so I wrongly figured this would be a fine test of resolve. I ended up drinking most of that bottle in the Safeway parking lot sitting in the backseat of my rental car. Thus began a bender that lasted until my return on December 7th.

I’m remembering this because I was watching a home tour on YouTube last night, a favorite activity of mine as it helps me wind down and inspires ideas for my own space. Yesterday’s video featured a beautifully restored Victorian in Noe Vally, which was one of my favorite neighborhoods when I lived in SF. After a few minutes into the tour I had to stop. Seeing some of my old stomping grounds and hearing the owner talk about her life there made me a little sad.

While I haven’t returned since my relapse, I maintain a fond place in my heart for the Bay Area. In my 20s and early 30s SF was where my career truly took off. It was where I was able to live more openly as a gay man than ever before. It was where for the first time I created a chosen family that loved me despite my shortcomings. It was where I felt the desire to be more adventurous than I ever had growing up. However it was also where my alcoholism matured. Drinking was not a crucial part of my life before moving there, but it became one quickly as my anxieties grew from the double-life I was leading. To family back in NYC I was the strait-laced, quiet, humble kid who did as he was told. To friends in SF I was mostly that, but I’d obfuscated core details about my past because I was ashamed, conflicted, and confused. I didn’t want my two worlds to meet since it meant I’d have to honestly confront family about my sexuality and that was too scary, too untenable a situation. I rationalized everything by telling myself I’m young so I can punt on the issue for future me. The problem is the lies became too big as time passed. As my alcoholism entered into unmanageable territory the truth started messily spilling out. Friends who were like family absconded while family (sorta) remained, but in some pretty toxic ways. Towards the end of my time in SF I was totally hollowed out. Unfortunately there were several more years of deeply painful experiences before I finally found these rooms.

Despite life taking an unfortunate turn in SF, I do miss it. I miss those friends. I miss the epic nature at my doorstep. I miss promising career opportunities. I miss the Middle Eastern coffee shop on Leavenworth. I miss the rollercoaster-shaped hills. I miss noticing the fog disappear to reveal the Golden Gate. After watching a few minutes of that YouTube tour and now writing this, I realize I needed to wallow a little bit. Getting these thoughts onto “paper” and not having them rattle around in my head with reckless abandon is therapeutic.

What I’ve managed to rebuild over the past few years is pretty remarkable. It’s such a blessing that I’m writing about these solemn memories without a drink by my side. I’m no longer desperately mixing vodka with orange juice or milk to black out from the sadness. Because of honest investment in AA since that Safeway relapse, I’m able to feel down, but simultaneously balance that thinking with healthy perspective. The darkness in fact is already passing as I type away on my iPad. Thanks to tools like writing a Gratitude List every evening I’m able to build a muscle that allows me to see silver linings readily, which is especially helpful during rough patches. Thanks to engaging in long-form writing here on Substack, I have an outlet to constructively process matters and not let them sit in my head without analysis. Thanks to regularly attending Meetings, I have fresh reminders that I don’t have a monopoly on pain and I can borrow strength from other people’s stories to teach me how to find strength inside myself. Thanks to engaging in esteem-able acts more regularly, I’ve developed greater self-esteem. Thanks to believing in a Higher Power, I can put my present into the context of what I’ve gone through and genuinely appreciate today’s miracles.

I don’t know whether the nostalgic complexity around my relationship with SF will ever fully subside. “Time takes time” as they say in the rooms and I have benefited from that fact. However, I think because of the conscience I’ve developed in AA the residual pain will never fade. Engaging with that past is an important reminder of who I was, how far I’ve come, and how dangerous it would be to entertain retreading that ground (metaphorically speaking). Back then I was a lost kid with no framework on how to lead a sustainable life. My reliance was solely on faulty instincts that only got me short-term results. But SF was ultimately just the exterior setting. Fixing myself from within was what I needed to figure out regardless of geography.

Someone at a Zoom meeting I used to attend would regularly say recovery is an “inside job“. For a while I never truly resonated with that statement, until now when I’ve come a little further in sobriety. As a man who is turning 40 next year, I am in a phase of perpetual learning thanks to engaging daily with the 12 Steps. That’s quite exciting, even if the process of engaging isn’t always easy. I’m like an investigate reporter who is able to get out of my head during tough moments and ask myself, “Why am I reacting this way?” or “How can I choose the easier, softer, gentler path?”. Thanks to wisdom accumulated from the Steps, fellows, the Big Book, and other resources that permeate my alcohol-free mind, I am usually able to arrive at reasonable conclusions. I believe this thought process is what is meant by recovery being an “inside job”.

As far as SF goes, I hope to visit again one day. It’ll be interesting to reflect on the passage of time by finding out what has changed in that city and what has stayed the same. There’s no rush though. It’s not like anybody is waiting for me. There is also a real possibility I’ll never return. Whatever happens I know the action I take will be motivated by sober, thoughtful reasons that are meant to protect my serenity and deepen how I understand my journey.

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It is good to be back, standing here on the precipice of Season Three of Breakfast with an Alcoholic 1(BWAA—because it gets to be a lot of keystrokes to type that out). I (we) hope you’ll excuse the long-ish hiatus; quite a bit has transpired in the interim, and now, here we are again.

You may correctly ask, why should I invest any percentage of my free time to listening to all of this talk about the Planet of the Apes and what-not? That’s a very fair question, especially given the content of the newsletter, the best answer I can give you, which also has the benefit of being true, is that we are going to try to share “precisely how we have recovered.” These are are also some of the opening words in the Big Book.

Who is the “we?” The “we” is me and two faithful and pretty sober Sponsees, Daniel and . They’ve been on the podcast before, and writes the Wednesday newsletter, and lo and behold, they both have more than two years of sobriety. As we were batting around ideas for “Season Three: Love Among the Willows,”2 we hit upon the idea of walking through exactly how we got sober again. We thought going through the Steps and some of the more important parts of the Big Book, maybe even re-doing some of the work we did along the way, might set a good example, and it might also have the accidental effect of deepening and widening our spiritual lives.

Now, it’s not going to be exactly like it was last time. Daniel is newly-married, Sean is happily living in Denver and I’m living La Vida Lawfirm—so there is significantly less of that desperate, lost, “how am I getting to tomorrow” feel to it. But, for sure, going over the work I did to get sober, looking at the things I wrote and thought back then, and seeing where I am now, demonstrates the power of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Our plan is to march through the Steps, we’ll share some of our work and we would love it if you’d like to share some of yours. It’s also completely cool to follow along at home, or with some alcoholic friends and loved ones (I’ll include outlines to make that easier and also copies of some of the the templates for 4th Step Inventories, etc). For this first episode, here was the outline we followed. I think these make for pretty good writing/discussion prompts:

How did you come in?

Brief history of use

Brief history of terrible stuff we did

What happened? How did you come in the first time?

Did it work?

Why not?

How Were You Introduced to the Big Book?

Did you read the book on your own?

What were your initial thoughts?

Did you work the steps?

What happened?

And now?

Have things changed?

Has your view of the Book changed?

How has the Book changed you?

How did this happen?

That’s the ground we attempted to cover in Episode 1. Speaking of “Coming In,” you may not even know about the Field Sobriety Guide:

Episode 2, which we’re aiming to release in about two weeks, is going to focus on the first chapter of the Big Book, “Bill’s Story.” I know I write a lot about “Bill’s Story,” but there is a reason it’s the first thing in the Big Book. For me, really understanding Bill’s Story, and then setting his story against the outline of mine; Well, let’s just say the stories followed a pretty eerily-similar narrative arc.

I had read Chapter One aloud with my Sponsor, and was working on my homework: Outlining and then writing my story in the style and manner that Bill wrote his. That’s going to be where we start next episode. We’ll delve into Bill’s Story, talk about what we took from it and how it connected to our own sobriety. Ultimately, we’ll write our stories the way Bill wrote his (this refers to the style, not the pencil brand or typewriter or whatever) and then share them. This reading of the story aloud is very, very impactful. mentions this in the podcast, how emotionally cathartic it was to share his story with other alcoholics.

The assignment for Episode Two of “BWAA Season Three: The Great Dread,” is to read Chapter One of the Big Book (it’s available online), it’s only sixteen pages, but don’t speed-read it. The nuances of the story, the insane, implied details are what make this such a vivid, insight-producing bit of prose.

Understanding Bill’s Story is what helped me understand my own.

So there’s Episode One of Season Three. It’s great to be back, and we’re here to stay this time. We’d love your thoughts, comments, suggestions:

TFLMS Suggestion Box

I am so grateful to be sober. I’m grateful for a long weekend, for rest, for books, for my friends and my family. I’m grateful for our puppy, for our apartment, for AA and my service commitments. I’m grateful for a fresh week, that things change, for the Fall and for coffee.

Gooood morning my friends,

As always, I hope everyone had a lovely weekend and you are feeling refreshed for the week ahead!

Today’s a short one because a) I’m tired of hearing myself talk about the same thing over and over and over again and b) I started writing just a tad too late.

Know given I am tired of hearing myself talk about the same thing my question is – what do you do when you’re stuck in your in shit, you have all the tools, you are uncomfortable and yet there is no motivation to fix it.

Maybe motivation isn’t the right word, and maybe not enough energy is a stupid excuse. My cup is so so empty and three days of rest didn’t quite fill it up like I wanted it to. But more than three days just isn’t a possibility right now.

I am tired and I am isolated, and Timmy told me he’s worried about me which is something I must take seriously because he has never said that in all the time, we’ve been together.

I keep thinking about ‘this too shall pass’ which I really hate because I don’t want to WAIT for it to pass, I want it to pass right now.

And I’ve been thinking about the person I was when I first got sober, who made a million meetings and had a million service commitments and at one point had four sponsees at a time and I miss that. I miss that little AA flame, and I want it back.

I don’t think I every really gave myself time to adjust to all of the things that have changed in the past year or maybe I did and I’m just full of excuses I don’t know but I’m so.tired. Of going round and round in this circle.

They say you can reset your day at ANY point in the day. Might that also apply to a year? It’s October already but I can reset at any point.

I feel very alone, and I know I’m not actually alone, but I have definitely forgotten just how many people I have and how good it feels to even just talk to a sober friend you haven’t talked to in a while.

So, I’m stuck in my own shit and I’m too tired to get out of it. This will pass and it’ll be okay but truly I’d really love it, if it just passed.

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xx

Jane