SUNDAY GRATITUDE EXTRAVAGANZA: Writing and Re-Writing
|Field Sobriety Guide No. 1 | My Story v.1 | The Sober Library | The Anyone Anywhere Meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous | Much, Much More |
I’m grateful for my little garden. I’m grateful for the chance to live in such a beautiful place. I’m grateful when I’m honest with myself. I’m grateful for listening to myself. I’m grateful to be sober today.
Writing and More Writing (Re-Writing)
Welcome to the Sunday Gratitude Extravaganza. As you know, we are in the middle of a campaign to tell our stories like Bill W. told his, or at least that’s what I’m doing. I’ve had kind of a crazy, not necessarily entirely-great week that has involved a lot of fear, insecurity and even a little actual getting sick.1 Among my many, many projects has been writing, actually re-writing, my story in the way that Bill told his story.
I’ve done this exercise before, and it was completely revelatory. Maybe the most important piece of work that I’ve done in sobriety. Yes, I’m going to keep flogging this:
I started putting the squeeze on friends and associates, and the very talented
offered his excellent contribution to the genre last week:Why do I think this is important and helpful? Why do I think it works? During the years I was fruitlessly trying to stop drinking, I told my story over and over. It was a story largely about how things had “happened” to me. It painted my alcoholism as an “of course this is how things turned out” thing. While I’m going to poke at the old version of my story, here’s something to keep in mind: That story is still true.
I’m re-writing my life. I’ve gotten sober by writing. I’ve stayed sober by editing and re-writing some of that original stuff. I’m building a new life by writing it—a day at a time.2 When I look at some of the things I wrote in those early days, I cringe. It was earnest and sincere, it definitely conveyed a sense of desperation, it reflected someone searching for the answer. That search was fruitless, not for lack of an answer, but because I wanted to find my answer. Like a true alcoholic, my first 111 stabs at sobriety were of the “My Way” variety. My writing reflects that. The way I told my story reflects that. I had not yet realized that it was the withering, but not yet dead, hand of my alcoholic ego writing that story.
Like I said, that story was true. It is true. It reflects how I looked at the world and myself at that time. That story was, in part, a function of the narrative structure that undergirded my life. I was aggrieved, not sufficiently appreciated, under-rewarded, I guess kind of resentful. My approach to getting sober, as reflected in that version of the story, was to very graciously “accept” other’s shortcomings, reflect a bit on mine (which were mostly a response to theirs), then solemnly agree to wear the heavy, but kind of thoughtful, mantle of “recovering alcoholic.” Nobly, sharing my suffering in the hope that you would admire that.3
The direction to write my story like Bill’s, forced me to look at his narrative structure. While the early versions of my story were very different than Bill’s, outlining Bill’s story made me ask the question,
“Why was my story different than Bill’s?”
It turns out the answer is that it didn’t have to be. I came to see that Bill’s story wasn’t a drunkalogue, it wasn’t an explanation for his alcoholism, it wasn’t self-exposition. It was a series of turning points and realizations. Bill W’s story, as printed in the Big Book, is maybe not entirely 100% true. The timeline might be compressed in spots and there is definitely some exaggeration and strategic understatement. The story is mostly moved not by external events, but by Bill’s realizations, right up until the fateful knock on the door, an unbelievable deus ex machina story contrivance. Except we alcoholics and addicts completely believe that part because we have seen way bigger, way more insane, way more unexpected “coincidences.” We know them as miracles and they are the things that flow from a connection to a Higher Power.
That is the point of Bill’s story; a steady stream of disappointing, demoralizing, hope-stripping realizations followed by a sudden shift of perspective, a re-animation of spirit, a surge of faith and hope and courage. When read that way, I don’t think it’s possible to not be moved by the story.4 When I finally read it that way, it was suddenly possible to stay sober.
The important thing about Bill’s story is that you can observe the changes in him. I realized it was important for me to observe and reflect on the changes in me. To that end, my contribution to the Sober Library is going to be a version of My Story, but it was a version I wrote in January 2022 at a sponsor’s direction.
I’ve edited out the personal details of other people, but it’s mostly intact. I’m doing this because I can already see some important differences in how I told my story then and now—and those changes reflect some important and pretty positive changes in my life. Yes, I’ll be sharing the new version and the differences.
I very much encourage all of you to at least spend some time thinking about this exercise. I’d love for you to share your efforts here, but that is not necessary, just thinking about it a bit is probably a pretty good start. I think someone else wrote something about how all it took was just a little bit of willingness…
The Field Sobriety Guides are Here!
I know this is usually where I do the 5 Things and I don’t want you to miss this, but this week, this space is dedicated to the official launch of the very first,
TFLMS Field Sobriety Guide: No. 01 “Am I Lost?
Feel free to download this and share it. It’s intended to provide practical advice for anyone wondering if they have a problem and what might be involved in fixing that problem. It’s short, it’s simple and it even has helpful charts and lists. It will hopefully be listed on Amazon soon and I will, of course, share that link with you. The plan is to do a whole series of these addressing different aspects of sobriety. Future additions to the series will include Gratitude Journals, nuts and bolts advice on building a program, 90-day sobriety notebooks, and guides to working the steps. We might think of some other stuff, too.
Your comments, suggestions are always appreciated!
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.
And here’s the newest edition to The Sober Library:
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:
Thanks, I’m feeling much better.
Another sneakily non-alcoholic, but alcoholic anthem:
“You“ being just a random person in the world.Which, of course, you’re not, it’s just a writing thing.
Do three sort-of negatives make 1.5 sort of positives?
Seriously, write a book review (or we might expand into movies!) and we’ll probably put it up.
Revision is going back and making it look like we knew what we were doing all along