SUNDAY GRATITUDE EXTRAVAGANZA: INDEPENDENCE DAY EDITION
| Five Things… [loosely connected to Independence Day ] | The Sober Library | The "Anyone Anywhere" Meeting Update | From the TFLMS Archive: "The Power of Grace and Not Hanging Up" | much, much more |
I’m grateful for changing things up on Sunday morning. I’m grateful for an early trip to the basketball court. I’m grateful to be the first customer at the coffee shop. I’m grateful when things appear out of the haze. I’m grateful to be sober today.
What Else Could It Be But the Independence Day Edition?
Owing to my general unfamiliarity with the calendar, this holiday kind of snuck up on me. As do most things, if we’re going to be really honest with ourself here. There are obvious parallels to be constructed around the whole Independence Day and the independence from alcohol, etc. Yeah, I’m not really feeling that either.
I do think the topic of how alcoholism has affected history is pretty fascinating. Seriously, a lot of the Founding Fathers were pretty serious drinkers. James Madison drank a pint of whiskey every morning before he started cranking out those Federalist Papers. Who picks up the tab for Madisonian Democracy?1 That made me laugh. Seriously, back at the end of the 18th Century, folks were drinking about 3x what the average person drinks today. Was the Declaration of Independence a little bit like drunk texting? Maybe.
Oh shit, We sent that to the British last night….
The early nineteenth century got even crazier. 1830 is sometimes regarded as the drunkest year in American history. Andrew Jackson presided over a Whiskey Rebellion and let’s not forget what else was being transported in those ships that formed that horrible “trade triangle.” I’m not interested in doing an evils of alcohol thing, but I think alcohol’s influence on history is pretty profound and not sure it’s really been a civilizing force. Coffee, yes. The idea of money happened in a coffee house…
Just saying.
1. One Nation Under Alcoholics…
The Founding Fathers also thought one drink was pointless…
2. Let Them Finish Their Beers, Then We’ll Attack
No—not the “mingling” strategy at an SAE mixer, the Battle of Trenton. Actually, they might have been sober.
3. Let’s Party Like it’s 1787
The 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention ran up a pretty big bar tab:
According to the bill preserved from the evening, they drank 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, eight of whiskey, 22 of porter, eight of hard cider, 12 of beer and seven bowls of alcoholic punch.
4. Unrelated and Also Entirely Apocryphal
And does this even have anything at all do with our topic?
5. George Washington Had a Brand
I guess today, it would be a picture of George Washington on a motorcycle selling his Tequila brand.
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
We finished the Big Book last week. All 164 pages of it! We’re taking this week off, as Tuesday is the actual July 4th and well, I think fireworks are always pretty cool.
We are back on July 11th and there is an open question about what we will be doing. We are looking at some different reading options and maybe even trying to put together a “Step Workshop,” where we would devote part of the meeting to actually working the Steps (probably One, Two and Three). I know this is a little different than the average AA meeting and that’ s kind of the point. There are lots of good meetings and I think the point is trying to find different ways to reach different people. I think it’s cool that it’s relatively easy to start a meeting and think Bill W. would very much endorse the idea of meeting diversity and experimentation.
So, if you have thoughts or questions or ideas, I’d love to hear them and if you don’t want to put them in the comments, you can email me direct at ThanksFLMS@Gmail.com. Seriously, let me know.
From the TFLMS Archives:
I’m not sure how to categorize that.
Seriously, write a book review and we’ll probably put it up.