Chinese Food, Serenity and Five Years of Sobriety
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.
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,
You better stay away from him, He’ll rip your lungs out, Jim, Hah, I’d like to meet his tailor
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.
The subject of these self-conversations? Random thoughts, stray observations. A lot of it isn’t actually that interesting.
You really don’t have a sense for how much time I spend thinking about this during the week. Maybe you should start listening more carefully.
In the olden days, there was another version of this self-remonstrance, just replace “song of the week,” with “girlfriend.”
They seem to genuinely enjoy it when I always ask, “so, what’s good tonight?” The answer is almost always, “the pepperoni, boss.”
Congratulations on four years, 11 months, and twenty-some days! This is a beautiful message of hope!