Putting Numbers Against It
wherein I try to quantify my sobriety (daily gratitude list 5.23.23)
I’m grateful for another chilly spring morning. I’m grateful for the pieces I carry with me. I’m grateful for clarity and simplicity. I’m grateful for opportunities and excitement. I’m grateful for drinking way too much coffee. I’m grateful to be sober today.
Greetings and salutations.1 On Sunday, I wrote a little about the process of translating some of the concepts of the Big Book into slightly differently expressed ideas, that, for whatever reason, resonated more deeply with me. I think that’s a function of my learning style, I sometimes need to hear the same thing a few times expressed slightly differently before I get it.2I’m not trying to re-write anything, but I think making the Big Book and the Steps my own was what finally allowed me to internalize and integrate those life-altering concepts and prompts.
Part of my own process has also involved analysis and putting numbers against things, if possible. As me and the Sponsees work the Steps, we’re experimenting with all sorts of spreadsheets and different formats, which I’m happy to share here. It’s nothing too revolutionary, just a slightly updated version of the chart from the 1950’s that everyone re-mimeographs when it’s time to start doing that 4th Step Inventory.
I’m an inveterate list-maker and note-taker, so my approach to sobriety has involved an inexhaustible, yet strangely exhausting, series of lists and 47 jillion notebooks with the ravings of an alcoholic madman. Fortunately, my handwriting is so completely illegible, even I can’t decipher it and hence, I’m not too burdened with said ravings.3 At some point in my very early sobriety (2010-2019), I had this idea that part of process might involve replacing the shitty-quality brain chemicals released by drinking (upon which I was totally reliant) with higher, quality, sustainable ones—the sustainably-sourced dopamine and serotonin and oxytocin that wash over the brain when one is connected to universe and loving others and living happily.
I started keeping a list of things I could and should do regularly to try and get my brain off the highly processed, Mr. Hyde-conjuring stuff that came in those green bottles with the pretty lady on the front. That list was comprised of things that I knew I liked doing, once I was doing them. They were also things that I felt better after doing, as opposed to my usual alcoholic routines. So, I began putting a chart like this together every week and then tracking how I did. Here’s an example:
So here’s how it works: “GL” stood for “Gratitude List,” “MP’s” are the “Morning Pages” made famous in The Artist’s Way, “500 Words,” was my own command to myself to write at least 500 words a day. This list was from early November 2020, you can see the Gratitude List thing is just picking up steam! The methodology is pretty simple, I would list the activity and then the frequency I thought was appropriate for that activity. You can see, going to an AA meeting was an (x7) event, meaning it should happen seven times a week. You can also see this was a very lazy week and involved no trips to the gym and no yoga and missing the step targets. What was up, TBD?
I put a dot for each day I performed the specified activity and then gave myself a daily score and a weekly store.4 I have these for quite a while and have tinkered with the categories and the frequency some, but the idea is to track the things that I know are good for me. I haven’t put these all in a spreadsheet, but I know that I can look at weeks where things seemed kind of shitty and usually there’s a pretty shitty score at the bottom.
I’m not saying everyone needs to rush out and do this on the pains of coming non-sobriety. Part of the exercise of getting sober for me was learning and practicing mindfulness and developing a routine for living that was markedly different than the one that involved all of that drinking. Putting numbers against made it a more serious endeavor for me and it also started generating some insights about the things that generated those dark mood shifts and feelings storms. Spoiler alert: It was usually me.
And here’s an early stab sat a 4th Step Worksheet. The idea is to assign a weight or rate the resentments on some personal intensity scale. I’m not exactly sure what this does, except maybe give some ideas about which are the most important resentments, fears, or whatever the topic of the inventory might be. I’m still tinkering with how to incorporate the identification of character defects, or negative thinking patterns, as I like to call them.
I’m wondering what it would show if I did these regularly over time. I’m wondering if the scores will actually end up meaning anything? Here’s the thing, you don’t know what you’re going to learn until you start gathering the data. These exercises help me and that’s the only necessary point. Everyone’s path is different because everyone’s life is different. The point is to share what works with each other and let the laws of attraction preside, instead of resentfully requesting that everyone recover like me.
I love projects like this. Even if these produce no actionable data for anyone else in the world, even if this approach works for only one sort of eccentric and slightly crazy alcoholic, the point is it works for this eccentric and slightly crazy alcoholic. If it happens to help someone else, that’s super cool, but it’s been working for me, one day at a time, for several years now. So, I think I’ll keep it up.
Hopefully, you’ve realized the incipient greatness of the day based on the fact that the date turns into a for-sure money-winning three fives.
As an example, I have had a toothbrush for many years and am still completely unable to twist the head off and replace the battery without watching at least two YouTube videos. This happens roughly monthly.
This weekend, I stumbled across the shallow electronic gravesite for one of those projects where you write letters to someone and just don’t send them—oh my God. I was so alcoholic. When I get up the courage I’ll share some snippets because it does, ummm, illustrate the length of my journey…
If you want to apply additional weights to activities, have at it!
I love a good experiment 🔬
Lists are power! And I love the spreadsheet experiment!