I’m grateful for a really gray, dreary day. I’m grateful for a morning that features a fireplace and coffee. I’m grateful for seeing what can be. I’m grateful to see how hard I tried. I’m grateful for all of the things I had to learn. I’m grateful to be sober today.
Remember this?
Well, I guess we’re about to find out if absence does make the heart grow fonder. I’m sorry, I meant to announce our new schedule when I put out the Liner Notes on Sunday.
Except the transit of thoughts, ideas, tasks and what-not through my brain seems to be dramatically speeding up and too much gets left on the cutting room floor.1 Jane thoughtfully laid it out yesterday and we are trying to balance the schedule a bit.
First, I am super concerned about inundating all of you and feel like this gets to be a lot. That is amplified by this being in an e-mail newsletter format. I’m going to start experimenting with using more links in the email so that you can read things when you want and find things more easily. I also think that one of the weekend gratitude lists will be a digest of what we’ve written during the week so things are easier to find.
I’m not offended when someone unsubscribes and I try not to think about it too much, but I often do and wonder if we (I) did something wrong or could have done something a little bit better.2 I sincerely would like to know the answer to that question. Another thing that will improve the experience for everyone is using the Substack App. It’s super easy and this all looks so much better on the app than in your email inbox! Plus, it’s so much easier to read things when you want!
The other factor that has to be considered is that Jane and Tommy and I are doing this because it’s what keeps us sober. I want to make sure to always keep sight of that and if that means that these daily rambles continue indefinitely, well, then that’s what that is going to mean.3 Also, I do want to re-focus some of the rambling writing time into more disciplined writing time. I have a long list of things that I want to write about and sometimes the daily ramble comes at the expense of those things. But that's inside baseball.
Writing about relapses in the Liner Notes has me thinking a lot about all of mine. Like Daniel, so many of them came at such short intervals they almost can’t be called relapses. One of the things I finally recognized was how hard I worked at it; how much I wanted it. I have notebooks filled with me trying to find the way out and they are harrowing. There is so much pain and bewilderment. I was so aware of how badly I was hurting the people who loved me and I was aware of where I was taking myself and none of it was enough to stop me. I marvel at the passage in Bill’s Story where he’s told that the end is coming, there is nothing more to be done for him:
No words can tell of the loneliness and despair I found in that bitter morass of self-pity…I had met my match. I had been overwhelmed. Alcohol was my master...4 Trembling, I stepped from the hospital a broken man. Fear sobered me for a bit...
Big Book, p. 8
That’s the line: “Fear sobered me for a bit.” After the most grave diagnosis possible, Bill was able to stay sober “for a bit,” and soon enough, he was back at it. Bewildering, incomprehensible, demoralizing. I’ve been there and so has Daniel and so have a lot of people and it’s just impossible to understand or explain. The reason I started telling the story of A. the other day was not because I thought you would enjoy a story of doomed romance; It was to show that having all of my wishes granted was not enough. That’s how strong this disease is—nothing is ever enough.
What were the odds of someone like her stumbling into my life, recognizing what I was up against and be willing to do the whole thing with me? She only ever asked me one thing: You have to be honest with me. Of course, that’s the one thing I couldn’t do and, to be honest, it’s just the saddest, f****** thing when you think about it too much.
The point of telling the story about A. is to illustrate the point that even when everything I thought I had ever wanted was being presented on an elegant silver tray, it wasn’t enough to make me stop drinking. Not even close. That’s the mystery of relapse. Even with a semi-cleared head and all of the encouragement in the world and a stint at a fancy rehab in our back pocket, we end up back at Baltic Avenue again, for sure without the $200 in our pocket .
And then things changed and here I am. I am also at a loss to explain that. I will have to settle for digging out all of those stories and seeing if they make any sense, yield any clues. I do know it’s a mistake to focus too much on the failures because the real story is this: It’s October and later this month, I’ll have three years of sobriety.
Thanks for Letting Me Share
Is that a meat reference?
Please do not mistake this as a back-handed call for compliments.
I have decided my greatest “word enemy” is “that.” I use it way, way, way too much and that needs to change. Oh, shit.
This is very similar to Pedro Martinez saying “I tip my hat and call theYankees my daddies.”