SUNDAY GRATITUDE EXTRAVAGANZA: The Maps and Mapping Edition
|The Field Sobriety Guide | The Return of Breakfast with an Alcoholic | The Sober Library | The Anyone Anywhere Meeting| From the TFLMS Library: "For Whom the Phone Rings" | Much, Much More |
I’m grateful the rain stopped. I’m grateful for a quiet evening and a chance to recharge. Im grateful for excellent coffee and a chilly morning on the pirate balcony. I’m grateful to be sober today.
The Maps and Mapping Edition
Welcome to the Sunday Gratitude Extravaganza. It’s raining here in in New York. After days and days of gray, foggy, soggy weather, which did start to feel claustrophobic, the sun has reappeared and is in the process of drying up all the rain. Also, it’s October. I was going to make note of the fact that it simply isn’t possible that it’s already October, and then I realized, “oh, it’s October, my anniversary is in October.”1 And that also seems kind of inconceivable, the idea that I could have four years of sobriety. For someone who spent ten years struggling to get to four months, well, I’m going to stick with inconceivable.
I’ve said many times, the longevity of my drinking career was partly a function of my own lack of imagination: I simply couldn’t imagine a life without drinking. And 90 days was usually the maximum amount of time it took me to realize that. During that time, as I regularly attended meetings and heard people talk about the Big Book and the Steps, I kind of got the idea they were distractions, things you could think about to pass the time if you were on a long, hellish car trip to nowhere, which is kind of how I thought about sobriety in those days.2
I didn’t realize the Steps and the Big Book weren’t the sober equivalents of “Mad Libs” or the License Plate Game. It turns out, the Steps and the Big Book were actually the map, the way to find my way out and chart a new course. I think the mapping and being lost metaphors work pretty well for recovery and sobriety. At least they resonated with me and it’s why the first Field Sobriety Guide is titled “Am I Lost?”
I will tell you, this book has ranked as high as 77,000th, although it’s currently just outside of the top 1.2 million books in the world. The interesting thing about “sales rank” on Amazon is that it is not entirely based, or even mostly based, on “sales,” it’s based on “sales related activity.” Which means, even if you didn’t wish to purchase one of these, you could move it up the “Sales Ranking,” just by clicking on that cover a few times.
Anyway, I’ve always had a thing for maps. Let me just be clear about this, while some of the products on my phone describe themselves as “maps,” I think there is an important distinction between navigation software and an actual map. I feel the same way about books on my Kindle versus on my shelf. Walking the streets of New York, one of the greatest impediments, hazards even, are people walking with their head approaching parallel with the ground, eyes on the screen, as it leads them to their destination.
I’ve always been fascinated with mapmaking and the whole exploration thing. I know those early expeditions inflicted a lot of damage on innocent people, but I spent a lot of time thinking about the idea of sailing off and wondering if you’ll find the edge of the earth, or whatever it is on the other side of that ocean.
When I really started studying the Big Book and working the Steps, I began to see that I was constructing a map to help find my way out of the alcoholic wilderness. It starts with Step One, I think that’s the locational step. Once you’ve fixed your position, you need to figure out your source of navigation. I think that’s Step Two, coming to believe that following that star will lead me North, or to Bethlehem, or all of the other places following particular stars can guide you. Then there’s Step Three, where you decide to follow that star, or maybe the direction of that Higher Power, that’s been lurking just off the map for a while.
I think working the Steps is essentially an exercise in mapping your own recovery. Sobriety begins by finally recognizing how lost one has become and then grows as one works to find the trail back. I will tell you, and not to be dramatic, but the trail is not actually that well marked at times. There is a fair amount of bushwhacking involved, and in my case, the Big Guy does not provide turn-by-turn directions. This is where hope and faith come in, and that requires trust in that higher power, the source of locational information, and also in myself, that I’m doing the right thing, interpreting the signals the right way, maintaining the necessary connection and headed in the right direction. That I have the right map.
No matter how many times I get on the subway, I find comfort checking the map, making sure I’m going the right direction, that the train is going to stop at the appropriate stop (e.g., it’s not an “N” train running on the “Q” line). It’s why I keep my eyes open for pennies, and for other potential signals from the Big Guy. A warning: My map will probably not take you where you need to go. I’m only trying to show how I made mine, so that if someone else was in need of a map, well, this is how you can do it.
Sitting on those barstools all of those years, wondering how I would ever get sober, I think I was waiting to be invited on some grand expedition. A mission to find the western edge of the continent, or the source of the greatest river in the world. I didn’t realize it was really about finding the right map, taking steps every day and doing my best to make sure I was headed in the right general direction.
I got lost a drink at a time, and while the pace of the trip back sometimes seems insufficiently brisk, when I stop and look back, like one might do during an anniversary month, well then I can see the distance I’ve traveled. It turns out with the right map, you can cover a lot of ground, one day at a time. A lot.
The Return of Breakfast with an Alcoholic!!!
Yes, you heard that right. Breakfast with an Alcoholic is back for another season and I’m very excited about this. The first new episode will be out this week and will include not only the classic BWAA interview you’ve come to know and love (?), complete with the “Alcoholic Lightning Round, but also new contributors and even new content from
. It will be available everywhere you get your podcasts, and well, I think it’s going to be great.It’s been a while since we’ve done a new episode, so here are some blasts from the past:
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. 3
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:
Daily Gratitude List 1.20.22
I have photos of really lovely moments that I took with that phone. I wrote my first gratitude list on that phone. I used that phone to take almost all of the pictures I’ve posted since then. I’ve sent and received zillions of texts from people I loved, some still in my life, some not. I used that phone to find meetings, chart my course around an unfamiliar city, keep a never-ending stream of music coursing through my airpods, to keep me moving and not thinking too much. That phone was critical to keeping my life afloat while I worked to rebuild it from the waterline up.
This is actually how I think.
Also, the car doesn’t have AC or an FM radio. No, there’s not an “Aux” output either.
Seriously, write a book review (or we might expand into movies!) and we’ll probably put it up.
Another great post - thank you. Maps are always a big hook for me... now, if only I could actually read one I would perhaps better find my way around this thing called life! (And I don't only mean geographically)! 🤣
Bring on the lightning round ⚡️