I’m grateful for a bright sunny morning and Mozart playing in the background. I’m grateful to be healthy, awake and drinking coffee. I’m grateful for the ease and peace in my life. I’m grateful for the sense that things are where they’re supposed to be. I’m grateful to be getting reacquainted with myself. I’m grateful to be sober today.
If you were interested, today’s date also works as a multiplicative series backwards.1 If you’re not interested in doing math backwards, then watch this forwards2:
Today is one of those days where things are just kind of good. The coffee is good. The music is good.3 Things are just kind of good. I’m in a Big Book Study Group and we have our Zoom sessions on Tuesday nights and they are led by none other than “Your Sponsor,” Tommy.4 I think I speak for the group,5 this is a highlight of my week. First, I think the Big Book is just amazing and I have a lot of books. It makes me laugh out loud. Like the sentence about resentment and anger being the “dubious luxury of normal men.”6
One of the challenging things about Alcoholics Anonymous is realizing that it is not focused solely on stopping drinking. For sure, that is the point.7 The way it works is much more mysterious and requires more than a little faith, but it basically involves finding a way to live a happy, productive live free of guilt and shame and resentments. Those are the things, coupled with egoism, that block us from connection to the Universe and to our true selves. Those are the things that kept me drinking:
It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness…But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.
Big Book, p. 66
It turns out that finding a way to be happy is a pretty important part of sobriety. I don’t mean that it’s all fluffy clouds and puppies.8 I'm going to let you in on a secret that I have learned, you would probably describe the way I learned it as, "The Hard Way." Stopping drinking sucks. Being sober is pretty groovy. They are different things. I failed every single time I tried to stop drinking. Getting sober requires a lot of hard and sometimes kind of unpleasant work, but it's also how you get all of those "extravagant" promises. Like being happy and things just feeling kind of good a lot of the time. That's definitely progress for this alcoholic and, to be honest, it doesn't feel that far from perfection sometimes.
Thanks for Letting Me Share
This is the kind of stuff we did at the dinner table growing up. My dad was very big into, “What’s the next number in this series…”
Hopefully, you’ve picked up on the word “watch” and realized that the great wheel of progress has brought video to Thanks for Letting Me Share.
It’s a pretty sublime recording of Symphony No. 40 (K.550) by the Dresden Staatskapelle.
When I endorsed Tommy’s idea of being called “Your Sponsor,” I never intended for it to be some kind of a “Dear Leader” type of thing. Just wanted to clear that up.
Are there more dangerous or dreaded words in the English language? Maybe, “You’re going to feel some pressure, just keep breathing.”
He says “grouch and the brainstorm,” I like mine better.
Take it from me, it works if you work it.
Although I did see both of those things yesterday.
Amen to “stopping drinking” and “being sober” being two different things.
"..when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit." I like that image. How often do we choose that which keeps us living in darkness? This morning I've been thinking a lot about forgiveness and how withholding it keeps you in the dark. Release & Gather is my motto. We can't gather the good until we release what's holding us back.