SUNDAY GRATITUDE EXTRAVAGANZA: GONE FISHING EDITION
| Five Things… [About Fishing ] | The "Anyone Anywhere" Meeting Update | From the TFLMS Archive: "Home Alone for Christmas: Loneliness and Alcoholism" | Much, Much More |
I’m grateful for a rainy Sunday morning. I’m grateful for the music playing. I’m grateful for moments when I see things the way they are. I’m grateful for letting what needs to happen, happen. I’m grateful for the lessons. I’m grateful to be sober today.
The Fishing Edition
Not so sure why this took so long to happen, particularly when we’ve trekked the creative desert lo these many Sundays, with trifling oases like the Sleepwalking Edition or the Watching the Detectives Edition, or, maybe, if one was really, really thirsty, even the Ampersand Edition.
I grew up fishing. Some of my earliest memories are fishing with my dad and my grandfather. Not to go crazy with links, but the story of my first fishing trip is here:
My grandfather was a pretty accomplished fly fisherman, tied his own flies and, most importantly, caught fish. As I think about this, there are so many similarities between fishing and recovery, it’s hard to even know where to start. Well, here, a pretty obvious one. Fishing is also based on attraction. One doesn’t go to the stream and command the trout-y denizens tucked in the quiet spots to leap into the net, attend these meetings, think exactly the way I do.1
Then you can recover like I did.
These are the thoughts and methods of someone who is not going to catch many fish. You need to use your skills to figure out what makes the fish tick, not make him wear your watch. You could say the fundamental skill of fishing is trickery, and that is true to some extent, but before we begin the debating the ethics of angling, the point is to make the fish want to get caught. I mean, they don’t know they’re going to get caught, but they see something that looks pretty tantalizing, and it’s floating towards them just like a crippled mayfly actually would, that’s when they bite.
If you have decided you want what we have…
Big Book, p. 58
I’ve been going through my old notebooks and it’s an amazing experience. It’s a little like reliving things, and that can leave a pretty surreal and unpleasant taste. For example, there are a series of entries on January 22nd of 2017:
Feel so much energy and enthusiasm and optimism, especially, but things need to change. I need to develop a better work environment, more and better leisure activities and a different mix of AA meetings and activities.
And then this funny passage, the last of the flurry on January 22nd:
There is this belief that I still have running room left! The belief that I could still get away with it.
The next entry goes on for several pages. It’s dated February 18, 2017:
So, the wheels came off during the last week of January…I was drinking and [got] caught and I lied about it. I’m back in rehab…
How’s that for the classic, pithy archetypal story of alcoholism? I’ve nearly got it, a little tweaking of all the areas where my life is still a bit deficient, and then that sobriety thing should probably just happen. Well, things didn’t turn out that way.
This particular notebook also has a number of entries related to fishing trips. In particular, one I took to Yellowstone and the Paradise Valley in Montana one October. There was a lot going on in my life and had just managed to secure a sabbatical from my employer—the first week was going to be a voyage of self-discovery and fishing.
I had fished a fair amount out there before and wrote this one evening:
I thought I was fishing a new stretch of the river today…but as I worked my way upstream and was analyzing the next pool, I realized I had fished here before. Funny, I thought I was taking a completely new approach—and I found myself in the same place I’ve been before, even fishing the same flies as I fished before. Hmmmm that sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
I read that and think how locked in I was—how set I was on a very particular narrative. So much so, I didn’t even realize I was living the same story again and again. There is a long discussion on the pros and cons of dry flies vs “nymphing,”
Then I wrote this summary:
Lessons from Fly Fishing
1—Takes a great deal of skill to hook the eye of a wading boot in precisely the same place 3 times with a size 20 fly.
2—Untangling knots never involves tightening—it’s an exercise in loosening and unwinding.
3—The more you fish, the more you see. Maybe it’s the more you fish, the more you notice. My eyesight may be getting worse, but I can see the fish better than ever. I know when the fly isn’t riding right. I know when my cast or my drift are funny.
It’s Number 2 that is worth noting, it was something that helped me get sober. When you fish, particularly fly fishing, gossamer thin leaders and tippets attached to tiny puffs of fur and feather masquerading as aquatic life, whipping through the wind on their way upstream, can generate these unbelievably complex knots. Sometimes it’s a huge toupee sized mess and the only thing you can do is cut the line, restring, re-tie and start again. If one is to approach that mess with the idea of actually untangling it, saving the whole thing, there is only one rule:
Never pull the line tight
Pulling it tight, collapses the knot black hole-style, it soon becomes so rock-like, nothing can tease out the single threads. It’s messy, awkward, there’s line everywhere and figuring out which piece of line will loosen that other knot? Also, you may be standing in the stream with the current constantly pushing you. It’s probably also windy, because it always is. Untangling that knot takes a lot of effort and concentration and patience more than anything else. There is no hasty way to accomplish this. My new things is not to hit everyone over the head with things, but does this process remind you of anything?
Finally, fishing, it’s about realizing what is. I can’t catch fish with what I want to put at the end of the line—I mean, I’ve spent a lot of time trying that. It comes down to this—if you want to catch a fish, you need to figure out what the fish is after.
1. Fly Fishing Doesn’t Have to be Boring!
For some reason, fly fishing does seem to draw alcoholics and can even lead to some pretty amazing spectacles.
2. Hemingway Loved Fly Fishing
Everyone thinks about “Old Man and the Sea,” but that’s meat fishing. Ugh. Big Two-Hearted River is what you want to read.
3. Is This Even About Fishing?
4. Is Fishing the Most Alcoholic Pursuit?
The numbers are kind of staggering.
5. Just A Really Nice Story About Someone Fishing Their Way to Sobriety
For us, reading and writing have been a big part of recovery and sobriety. We thought we’d start sharing some of our favorite books on the topic of recovery, addiction and general happiness and telling you how they helped us! If you have ideas, thoughts, comments, suggestions or if there are some books that you’d like to chat about, well, we’d love to do that with you. 2
The “Anyone Anywhere” Meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous
It’s the “Anyone Anywhere” meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, this Tuesday evening at 7pm. We’re changing the format slightly, owing to the fact that we finished the 164-pages of the Big Book. So, on to the next great frontier in alcoholic literature. It’s 1/2 AA Meeting, 1/2 Alcoholic Book Club and 1/2 something else I haven’t figured out yet.
Hope you can join us!
From the TFLMS Archives:
I believe it is more appropriate to help people find their own way back, as opposed to forcing them to take my exact route. Also, my exact route might not lead to their home.
Seriously, write a book review and we’ll probably put it up.