SUNDAY GRATITUDE EXTRAVAGANZA: NOM de GUERRE EDITION
| Five Things… [Nicknames That Changed History ] | The "Anyone Anywhere" Meeting Update | From the TFLMS Archive: "We Have Met the Enemy."| Much, Much More |
[So nice, I’m publishing it twice!. Happy Sunday! TBD]
I’m grateful for a busy, quiet day. I’m grateful for what’s here. I’m grateful for the coffee in my cup, the fire in the fireplace and the peace in my heart. I’m grateful for the holidays. I’m grateful to be sober today.
MY RECOVERY NOM de GUERRE
As I like to say on Sunday mornings, Happy Sunday.1 I’d like to share a little bit of what passes for the creative process over here at The Extravaganza.2 At some point in the week, usually about twenty minutes after I push the button that delivers The Extravaganza to your electronic doorstep, I begin to have thoughts like,
Ummm…. What nonsense will I come up with for next week?
At some point during the week, usually when walking somewhere with music playing, an idea will pop into my head and I will actually pull over and make a note on the near omni-present Google Keep, and think something like,
Well, if nothing better pops up, that wouldn’t be terrible.
And that’s how we got to the Nom de Guerre Edition. That doesn’t really tell you too much about the idea, and I’m realizing that it did arrive in the cranial dropbox after about my seventh coffee that afternoon.3 I guess I was thinking about the re-invention that’s a necessary part, maybe the point, of recovery. I’ve mentioned many times that I attribute my difficulty getting sober to a lack of imagination, I could’t imagine a life that wasn’t mediated by drinking.
People will tell you that’s where desperation and the bottom come in, it’s the whistling in the ears and the coming thud that’s necessary to convince me that the life mediated by drinking wasn’t going so well either and probably shouldn’t be considered a long-term option.
But the Nom de Guerre thing? Literally “Name of War,” it’s the name, maybe the nickname, you choose to fight under. Here’s where a number of strands come together. First, I love nicknames and have come to believe that I’m pretty good at formulating them (or possessed enough coercive authority to impose them). I like to think they capture something of the particular essence of each person, and then painfully contort that thing that was captured into something that’s maybe just the slightest bit embarrassing. My law school roommate is known forever, to quite a few, as “Joel the Wonder Dog.” If you knew him, that was him.4
There are a few basic rules of nicknames:
You can’t give yourself a nickname
It has to consist of actual words
It can’t be too flattering
It should both inspire and embarrass
We can’t all like our nicknames
Other than that, go to town.5 Going back to the re-imagining thing. I think the most important part of recovery is when you start to glimpse what the future could actually be. For me, that realization came one night in sober house during a spirited self-conversation, not too long after arriving here in NYC. It was, very simply,
Maybe this doesn’t suck that much. Maybe this could actually work.
I think that’s a thought that comes as you bounce up off the bottom. I think that “willingness” is more than just not having any choices left, I think there’s a positive element to it. For me, the thought that this could maybe work quickly mushroomed, courtesy of my very alcoholic brain, into a frenzied, well, then “let’s go f***ing do this.” Part of what happened next was that I started to see where my alcoholic persona didn’t really fit me. The image that I worked so hard to project to the world, wasn’t me. Of course that was the entire point, and when that is the entire point, promoting a version of me that wasn’t me and then getting upset when people didn’t see they had to look past the pretend version of me to see the real thing, you kind of have to drink.
This process is about re-imagining what life could be if you could recover that person. The real person that was down there all this time. While there may be some wreckage strewn about, “Gilligan” has scavenged some parts that the “Professor” could use to build a radio and maybe “Skipper” can help.6 I don’t want to keep making recovery sound like a war or something violent, I’m just trying to capture the notion that approaching recovery like a great adventure, a bold campaign seems a lot more interesting than helping “Humpty Dumpty” glue eggshell pieces.7
A bold adventure requires a nickname, a Nom de Guerre. Also, there’s the whole anonymity thing, which I’m going to tell you is not quite as strong as you think it is. It’s not that hard to figure out who people are from that first name, last initial thing. If anonymity is the goal, well, wouldn’t a spiffy AA nickname be better?8
Obscuring who it is getting sober isn’t really the intention, but think of your recovery nickname as a branding exercise. If you’re going to re-imagine your life, a life with a considered and maybe substantially changed relationship with alcohol and substances, what should you call it? Who is that new person? Maybe better to ask, who is that person who emerged from all the smoke and mirrors?
I would think seriously about coming up with a spiffy nickname, a Nom de Guerre for that person. Me being me, and taking roughly everything just about two steps too far, I’d also come up with some “Walk-Up Music” for that person.
I can hear the question forming, “Are you suggesting that it’s ok to nickname ourselves?” Well, generally no, but I don’t think that’s what’s really happening here. I think this is giving a name to the object of the entire enterprise:
Finding that person, that life, that got lost a long time ago
If you want to forego the personal nickname and establish a project or operation codename instead, I’m all for that.9 It’s hard to dream about something that doesn’t have a name. So name it in a way that reminds you what the point of this is, or to encapsulate the essential spirit of the person you are recapturing. Note: maybe think twice if the nickname of that person is really “Sparky.”
I have a nickname that meets all of the rules that I have established.10 Given me by a 7th grade math teacher/basketball coach, it celebrated a very ungainly moment and the fact that my hair was a little out of control back then and it also suggested that there was something slightly comical about me. I mean, it does have that ring of familiarity, doesn’t it? The words “f***ing,” and “shaggy,” both part of the spawning Ur-utterance, fell out of use somewhere around 1975, leaving a secret-ish nickname that has these initials T.B.D.11
I didn’t really have a plan when I started writing this, other than to try and stay sober. At some point, I had to decide what I was going to call myself and, well, the old nickname does capture things pretty accurately: It captures a certain awkwardness and too-eagerness, a lack of concern about how things might look, the fact that I was mostly interested in getting the ball that was headed out of bounds, not great at anticipating actual, looming consequences, but pretty good at getting up and shaking things off afterward, less and less focused about what happened and more curious and excited about what’s coming next. Kind of friendly. Likes to get scratched behind the ears.
It’s easier to find someone who got lost if you know their name.
1. Look, They’re Standing Like Thomas J. Jackson!
No, “THIS,” was way more inspirational.
2. The Iceman Cometh
Maybe the part about “changing history” was an exaggeration. But seriously, this is a pretty perfect match, nickname wise.
3. Is This Really the Best Way to Develop a Nickname?
4. I Guess it Could be Worse
If you’re not happy with yours, look at what might have happened… The guy who lost an ear being called “teacup?”
5. It’s Hard to Out-Do “Turd Blossom.”
But I’m glad so many have tried.
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. 12
The “Anyone Anywhere” Meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous
We took Independence Day off, but we are back at it, 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:
Yeah, I noticed it’s pretty similar to the “Happy Saturday” thing, too. It will change when someone gives me a better idea.
Would it be cool to live inhabit a universe where people said things, “Yeah, I work at The Extravaganza?” And it meant this. Yes, it would.
Yeah, I’m an alcoholic.
Yeah, it wasn’t even really ironic.
All acceptable nicknames.
Not a great nickname, but ok.
I’m going to remind you here, you can’t give yourself a nickname.
Professionally, I often insist on coming up with the secret project codenames. Ask me how Project Orpheus turned out sometime. Better yet, Operation Cannon Ball Run-those are both real things.
Yeah, I’m an alcoholic.
T.B.D. isn’t something that happens later, it’s me right now. How’s that for enthusiasm?
Seriously, write a book review and we’ll probably put it up.