I’m grateful it’s Friday. I’m grateful for letting life happen. I’m grateful for the yellow sun this morning. I’m grateful for what writing a gratitude list can do. I’m grateful for all of the chances. I’m grateful to be sober today.
Song of the Week:
Knowing what the topic was for today, in advance, which I don’t often know, the idea for the sotw got formed and lodged somewhere in my brain. It was going to be “Changes,” by David Bowie, and that’s because today’s topic is about some changes. But then I sat down and thought these thoughts:
Choosing the sotw to deliberately coordinate with the title, well, that just seems kind of suspect. As usual, the French have a pretty apt term, “that’s some weak cheese…”1
It makes this all seem more ominous than it needs to be.2
I don’t really like “Changes.”
So, here we are with the much cooler, “Fame.” I’ve listened to “Young Americans” and “Suffragette City,” more times than I could count, but somehow they don’t really seem like sotw material. But “Fame” is a pretty groovy song and definitely a more apt vibe and this week’s song.
So, not to make this too portentous, we’re going to be changing things around a bit, the time has come for us to adjust the writing schedule. You probably don’t know this, but today’s post is our 989th. Feel free to let that settle in. Sometime in the next two weeks, we will publish our 1,000th post.
Not to toot our own horns too much, we did all sign up, very voluntarily, to be part of a daily gratitude list gig. That daily part can definitely get you. Also, I’m not sure who decreed that it must be a morning practice—but it happened that way and here we are. And look at us! According to Feedspot’s “100 Best Living Sober Blogs” “Thanks for Letting Me Share” comes in at a blistering #5!!!!!
This is all very gratifying and we’re grateful for how this enterprise has grown, we’re all very, very proud of it. It takes a lot to publish this on a daily basis, and the support and recognition feel really nice. Both Jane and I have been writing—a lot—over the last two years and I think both of us are feeling a little bit crispy at the edges. Sean is raring to go and still has interesting insights to share, so he’s good. Jane and I are both cutting back to one day a week. So, without further ado, here’s the new schedule:
Monday: Jane’s Diary of a Sober Girl
Wednesday: Sean and his adorable dog, Harper
Friday: TBD
Saturday will remain home to the Saturday Gratitude Round-Up—namely a digest of the week’s posts, designed with you alcoholics on the run in mind. And then there’s Sunday. No determination has yet been made about Sunday. In my dream world, the Sunday Gratitude Extravaganza would be a magazine-style thing with lots of different contributors and interesting features and such. Maybe even an alcoholic crossword. For sure, an alcoholic dating advice column.
This dream could certainly become real—it would simply require some additional person-power. If we had interested contributors and volunteers, well, we might just end up cooking with gas. And, on that subject, let us now discuss Breakfast with an Alcoholic. The much beloved and now be-stilled podcast. It is one of my fondest wishes to revive said podcast—it was something I loved, the story about how it started is very special to me, it’s been a big and very fun part of my recovery, and you all even seemed to like it.
The thing that is holding the podcast back from greatness is the absence of regular guests. It’s a lot of work putting together and managing a schedule of alcoholics. The editing is time-consuming, too. Anyway, with help, even a little help (in the form of helping find chatty alcoholics, or even being one thineself), it could be enough to help us get the show back together. Don’t you miss the Alcoholic Lightning Round? I do.
Now, you ask, what about the Daily aspect of this whole “Daily Gratitude List” thing? It seems like maybe Tuesday and Thursday and potentially Sunday have been omitted. Well, that’s where nifty features like the “Notes” thing is going to come in so handy, because Jane, Sean and I are going to be putting our gratitude lists there and sending them out all the f—ing time. For this to become part of your new normal, you’ll need to download and then learn to love the Substack app. Actually, that was not meant as shade, the app is really, really good and it makes reading newsletters a really great experience. Here’s the link:
Now for the mushy part. It’s hard to overstate how much the chance to write this means to me, how much it has meant and continues to mean to me. It’s really hard to express just how grateful I am to be able to share this with all of you. Writing this, nearly every day for the last three yers, has been the most important part of my recovery. Of course, you all were the ones giving the real gift: Reading our stuff, supporting us, subscribing (!), saying all the nice things in the comments—that all has meant quite a bit to me, and to Jane and Sean, too.
I think one of the most important things that I’ve gotten out of writing this is the conviction that gratitude may be the most important component of both sobriety and happiness. This started as an exercise in sharing a daily gratitude list and look what happened—and the same thing has happened in my actual life. Once gratitude takes hold, it’s harder than mint to get rid of. Gratitude is truly transformative, also kind of stubborn.
One thing I’ve hoped, and still do, is that we could convince more of you to share your stories, your writing, your own gratitude lists. The three of us pretty firmly believe (if I may speak on behalf of the band) that writing has become a really important part of our sobriety, and if you’d like to give it a whirl, I know a place that will probably publish it.
Of course, there is always our AA meeting on Tuesday nights—We are a small but mighty crew, we have a newly elected char and an unbeatable format: We read the stories in the back of the Book and they are fantastic (and also kind of short, for those with challenged attention spans). This is less AA Big Book Study Meeting and more Alcoholic Book Club. We’re there Tuesday nights at 7pm and the info is below:
"Anyone Anywhere" AA Meeting
Tuesday, April 23 · 7:00 – 8:00pm
Time zone: America/New_York
Google Meet joining info:
https://meet.google.com/dpt-zrog-btv
Well, I’m not sure why this feels awkward and I don’t want to overdo it, but I love writing for you all and have loved doing it every day for these last few years. Thank you for reading all of this. It means a lot to me and so will having the opportunity to write this once a week. Think of all of the time for activities!3
Happy Friday!
I just made that up. It’s possible they say it in France, but given my command of the French language (none), I wouldn’t know.
We’re alcoholics, after all.
This is kind of stolen from “Step Brothers.”