SUNDAY GRATITUDE EXTRAVAGANZA: More Rainy Days Edition
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I’m grateful for a lot of sleep. I’m grateful for an even rainier day. I’m grateful for firelogs. I’m grateful for what I can see. I’m grateful for letting go. I’m grateful to be be sober today.
Even Rainier Day Edition
Welcome to the Sunday Gratitude Extravaganza. It’s raining here in in New York. I think it’s been raining for several consecutive weeks now. I’m mostly ok with this, having perhaps been a Labrador Retriever in a prior life. However, while there definitely is such a thing as “Lab Weather,”1 this perhaps is beyond that point. I feel like Buddy and/or Kayla, if they were here today, would give me the “are we really sure it’s necessary to do this” look if I started to gather leashes and rain apparel. This sort-of plaintive look often preceded events they would have preferred to doze through.
Of course, this is one of the superpowers that drinking used to claim. Not the ability to induce sleep at critical moments, but the ability to relegate lots of the unpleasant stuff in life to the somnolent consideration bin. I am very, very familiar with the feeling of the world, outside of about 18 inches around me, completely going into that gauzy focus that meant I didn’t need to consider it anymore. I wasn’t addicted to the taste of wine, or the scent of it, or the way it looked in a glass or how it accentuated flavors in food; I was addicted to how it made it possible for me to ignore/forget all of the stuff in life that I was just incapable of dealing with.
When people trot out that line about how they now “live life on life’s terms,” the snarky part of me wants to point out that only alcoholics and addicts feel it necessary to triumphantly proclaim this; the rest of the world, the civilians all around us, they just call that “living.”
Non-alcoholics are often surprised when I talk about the actual definition of addiction, I draw upon Dr. Ruth Fox’s very clear and cogent version, written way back in 1955:
The primary addict, from his first introduction to beverage alcohol, uses it as an aid to adjust to his environment.
Alcoholism: Its Scope, Cause and Treatment, p. 142
This alcoholic realized very early on just how effective and useful drinking could be; it made it possible to look past the difficult stuff that crowded my head. It would be a mistake to think that made me “happy.” As the outside world subsided and was replaced by my own AI-generated version, the prime directive wasn’t “be a happy, carefree drunk,” it was “get angry, baby”—then we’ll need to drink some more. In case you were wondering, “AI,” in this case doesn’t refer to my buddy ChatGPT or their ilk. I am referring to my “Alcoholic Intelligence.”2
I’m not an actual doctor.3 I’ve been coming up with my own theory about how alcoholism works, it’s based mostly on my own experience, so your mileage may vary, but the gist of it is, I think my brain is mostly a machine. While I do think there are ghosts in my apartment, I do not think there are ghosts in my brain creating stray thoughts. My understanding is that the brain, as an organ of the body, mostly interprets and communicates via electro-chemical signals. So, those troubling, lightning fast thoughts that couldn’t be controlled, that spiraled all over the place, that produced all sorts of physical symptoms and feelings, they came from a malfunctioning machine. A powerful machine that can make you think these stray thoughts are true. They even produce physical evidence; Think about the icy feeling you get in the stomach when you realize something terrible. Somehow, even erroneous thoughts can produce strong physical sensations. Meaning they are real. Wrong, but real.
I’ve written about how my AI “flips bits” sometimes; my AI just produces some really weird, very difficult to explain or fix, wrong thoughts. And then I had this very weird interaction with ChatGPT the other day. I was perusing the platform formerly known as Twitter and came upon this absolutely idiotic thing:
Ok, so this is stupid and wrong.4 “Kick,” immediately popped into my head. I was using my robot buddy ChatGPT, for some help on other stuff, but thought, I’d ask for the whole list of “words that start and end with the letter '“k:”
Sure, here are some words that start and end with the letter "k":
1. Kick
2. Kook
3. Kiosk
4. Knack
5. Kink
6. Kneecap
7. Kudos
8. Kernel
9. Kettle
10. Kayak
Ummm, hey robot, that doesn’t seem quite right:
To be fair, I did forget the question mark on “Kudos ends with a “K?” But look at the crazy, obviously-wrong answers. I love the part where the current state of the art, Artificial Intelligence, the thing that will make human thinking obsolete says, “ Here’s a corrected list without errors.”
Here’s what struck me, beyond the absolute lack of an answer to explain this ridiculous, obvious mistake; It’s how ChatGPT seems to adopt the old passive aggressive, “yes, mistakes were made,” clenched-teeth defense.5 I know that many people in my life were not satisfied with the response, “I’m sorry, it’s a disease and I did the best I could.” To be honest, I was not satisfied with that response. I had someone say to me once, that I presented my alcoholism as kind of a “take it or leave it” deal. My response, “It is.”
So then you go down this logical rabbit-hole, if it’s a disease, then how do you control it? It’s not like there are any new miracle medications.6 If the hallmark of the disease is that you can’t control your drinking, then how do you control your drinking? This is where I got stuck—for about ten years.
When I began really studying the Big Book and working the Steps, I quickly came to realize that the weird, unprovoked, usually just plain wrong, thoughts my own AI generated had a lot to do with it. I’ve come to realize lots of my “instincts,” and “conclusions,” and “suspicions,” are like ChatGPT, simply unable to see that “Kneecap” has never, ever ended with the letter “K.”7 As I did my 4th and 5th Steps, I could see the real pattern emerging:
My AI produces consistently wrong answers to really easy, obvious questions.
I get why this was frustrating for the rest of the world. I get why my inability to stop drinking was incomprehensible; I certainly get why it was so demoralizing for me. There’s obviously some re-programming that needs to happen, but it is also necessary to realize that this particular species of AI might never be totally fixed. So, the other important thing to keep in mind is that my mind often produces very wrong answers.
That’s why I think that it’s “working the Steps,” perpetually, instead of “I worked the Steps.” The Steps, for sure, helped me see and think about the world differently, they also helped me see myself and my AI are just going to get some stuff wrong. This is why developing the interlude between thought and response is a critical tool of sobriety, that pause gives me the time to see that my AI just got it wrong again, “Kneecap” still doesn’t end with “K.”
I don’t know why my brain does this. That’s the disease part of this. I certainly didn’t dream this up myself; I’ve heard way too many other alcoholics describe exactly the same thing. Here’s the thing, that AI isn’t malicious, it wasn’t out to ruin my life. It was just very stubborn and weirdly determined to generate exactly the right set of thoughts and feelings (involving chemicals like dopamine) to create the need for drinking, and then more drinking.
Ultimately, it wasn’t a drug that turned off this machine, or that made it start doing the math right. It was simply recognizing that my AI just gets some stuff wrong. Drinking to solve or alter those self-created, erroneous thoughts is the thing that no longer makes sense. My AI still doesn’t get that, but I do.
The Field Sobriety Guides are Here!
TFLMS Field Sobriety Guide: No. 01 Am I Lost
I’m excited to announce that Field Sobriety Guide No. 01 is currently ranked as one of the top 585,000 books in the world. You can change that by simply clicking that link!
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. 8
Now, here’s something new. You may have heard me mention something about writing your story in the style of Bill W’s: and this is where we are going to do it. If you want to write your story and share it, I’ll be happy to put it here for other folks to read. If you’d like to record yourself reading your own story (I highly, highly recommend this), I’ll put it here, too.
The “Anyone Anywhere” Meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous
It’s the “Anyone Anywhere” meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, this Tuesday evening at 7pm. We’re ready to go and hope you can join us this Tuesday! It’s 1/2 AA Meeting, 1/2 Alcoholic Book Club and 1/2 something else we haven’t figured out yet. We’ve been reading the “Stories from the Back of the Book,” and they are all so great. It’s a fun way to learn more about the Big Book and reading these stories out loud is a little like listening to the legends of AA share.
Hope you can join us!
From the TFLMS Archives:
I say there is such a thing mostly because I say that. I’m not sure it’s much of “thing” beyond that.
It’s possible this is one of those wincing, not-so-clever oxymorons.
Although, as I have often pointed to people who are commonly referred to as “Dr,” professionally, my degree does say “Juris Docter.” I get it’s spelled funny, but still…
We’ve reached a nadir of civilization when saying stupid, wrong things generates interest and worse, value.
I’m very familiar with this particular mode of defense.
Why more people don’t take Antabuse in early sobriety is a mystery to me, it’s been around and safely used for 70 years. Many doctors have never heard of it.
The same with “Kettle” and “Kudos.”
Seriously, write a book review (or we might expand into movies!) and we’ll probably put it up.