SUNDAY GRATITUDE EXTRAVAGANZA: TFLMS YEAR IN REVIEW
Wherein we bid a fond-ish "AMF" to 2023
I’m grateful for the year that’s almost gone. I’m grateful for where I ended up. I’m grateful for the lessons I learned. I’m grateful for learning more faith and trust. I’m grateful for the power of self-love. I’m grateful when doors unlock. I’m grateful to be sober today.
THE TFLMS YEAR IN REVIEW
It is the last day of 2023. I’m not quite sure how to characterize the year that is about to be last year. I will say, I’m generally not fond of the odd-numbered years, and this also applies to my personal age, which for many reasons is going to hover at “60.”1 Where did the year start? In Paris, of course!
January
Let me interrupt the moment of panic. Lest you fret that I’m about write a paragraph about each month this year and then include links to four essays from each month and then sit back and let you spend the balance of 2023 reading nonsense that may just prove the Infinite Monkey Theorem. No, January was the starting point and January started with me looking out a tiny garret window and watching fireworks around La Tour Eiffel.
There wasn’t much certain about my life in January. But as I strolled around Paris, I was filled with hope and optimism. That, for me, is the greatest gift of sobriety. The ability to walk anywhere and feel that no matter what happens, things will probably be ok. I’ve often said that it was a failure of imagination that delayed my sobriety, my inability to imagine a life that did not require drinking. I’ve also learned that my ability to imagine something doesn’t make it true, or even likely to happen.
I’ve had the opportunity in 2023 to spend a lot of sleepless nights, waking up to thudding, OMG realizations, maybe like the one hinted at in this song (how has this not been a sotw?):
You know, where you suddenly realize that some mistake, some as-yet-undiscovered misdeed is going to pull the string that leads to the great unraveling, the destruction, the end. I’ve had that sense dancing in my head since I was a kid, I think that is just the way the wiring works for this alcoholic.
One thing I noticed in 2023: None of that stuff actually happened.
All the horribles, the things that I couldn’t bear, the things I wouldn’t be able to handle, the things that would expose me for the fraud I am, the things that would ruin me, well, they didn’t happen. I’m here, still standing, and with relatively bright prospects, all things considered. How did that song go?2
I’m standing in the middle of life, with my plans behind me.
Everyone is always eager to sum up what happened during the year gone by in a pithy, tidy way. I’m not sure I have a Top 5 learnings to share with you, I was about to say there were no white-light moments, and then I kind of remembered this:
To be fair, it wasn’t a white light or a burning bush, for that matter. For whatever reason, the Big Guy chooses to communicate quite elliptically with this alcoholic, often when I’m in the proximity of a demolition site on 86th street. The message wasn’t grandiose, didn’t charge me with some world-changing task, it was simply an updated, more personal version of the phrase that is on these little beauties:
They say, “To Thine Own Self Be True.” It took me a long time to figure out that those words were kind of central to the whole enterprise. I just thought it was another example of Bill W and his drama-filled, self-seriousness. AA chips don’t say anything about drinking and they don’t have any of the handy relapse prevention flowcharts, like the one on the card I used to carry in my wallet. But it was learning to lead a life that had “to thine own self be true” at the center, that was my main challenge for 2023. Probably 2024, too.
That day on 86th street, I was not called on to make any kind of burnt offering, or forego any kinds of food. The way it worked was that I expressed gratitude and a quick thank-you and the Big Guy summed up what had happened and why:
You held on to you.
I wasn’t charged with liberating hostages in Nakatomi Plaza, just freeing myself from the constant pressure to abandon myself and adopt some other persona or just avoid everyone and everything altogether. The main thing I did in 2023 that contributed to my sobriety:
I held on to me.
That means I spent time trying to understand how things actually made me feel, let myself feel some of those things, asked myself why I felt the way I did, tried to understand where those feelings came from and what purpose they were trying to serve. Then I let all of that go and did what was in my heart. There were plenty of realizations in 2023, big and small, but the most important was realizing that the right answer is always in my heart.
If we wanted to go way back in the wayback machine, we might touch on this, the real meaning of courage.3
I got sober mostly by listening to what was already in my heart.4 The years of drinking served to obscure the real message, prevented me from believing what I knew was true. There is a force in the Universe and it seems to operate on the basis of something that we call “love.” It’s mysterious and it rarely appears in expected ways or people. It’s a force that binds us together, and sometimes pulls us apart. It vibrates at different frequencies, in different ways, in different people. But it is the same force everywhere, and when everything seems hopeless and lost, it’s the thing that picks us up off the canyon floor, helps dust us off and gives us the courage to look up at the sky again.
There’s no rock coming this time. That’s mostly what I learned in 2023, the rest is summed up conveniently and melodically here.
Happy New Year.
Thinking about a “Dry January?” Or know someone who should? Currently among the top million books on Amazon!
It’s possible you missed Sean’s debut here on TFLMS. Well, not actually a debut because he’s been contributing here for a while:
But here’s Sean’s take on the year that is about to pass:
Things I Learnt In 2023
Expanding into various forms of service has expanded the depths of my sobriety
Regular exercise continues to be an integral part of upholding my mental and physical health
While I may never be able to let go of painful events from the past, I can learn over time and with reflection on how to treat them as assets - especially when it comes to working with others
Daily gratitude lists transport my mood each morning to a place of serenity
Daily acceptance of today's realities, especially on matters I cannot control, is humbling and freeing
Building good habits is perfectly akin to building muscles - it continues to grow the more I practice so remember not to expect overnight results
Honest, real-time communication removes anxiety faster and ensures a more amicable resolution
Listening is more than just about the words people are speaking
Future-tripping can be alluring, but potentially defeating - focus on where my feet are now and stay in gratitude
Show the same level of kindness to myself as I would to other people
Remain excited for the mystery of life
Maybe you’d like to share what you learned in 2023? That’s why the discussion boards were invented:
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. 5
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.
This Tuesday evening and every Tuesday!
This is not an example of me succumbing to vanity and lying about my age. First, I just disclosed that I did it, even putting my age in “quotes,” to suggest some level of uncertainty. Also, is it really material that someone is 60 or 61? I don’t think so either. I’m planning an update around 64-ish.
I’ve had a tough time putting an end to the Pretender-palooza that has been happening over here since yesterday.
haha—Not too grandiose a title?
Also the groovy music of the 70’s and 80’s.
Seriously, write a book review (or we might expand into movies!) and we’ll probably put it up.