I’m grateful for a Friday morning. I’m grateful for a busy week. I’m grateful for anxiety ebbing away. I’m grateful for the way people show up when I show up, too. I’m grateful to be happy and content. I’m grateful to be sober today.
song of the week:
I know many of you think that this whole business about the Universe communicating in these kind of esoteric ways, including via the Spotify “shuffle” function, is far-fetched. Perhaps you think they are simply completely made up, a ploy to spike readership and subscriptions. Speaking of which….
Heavy handed? Yes. Directly on point? Also yes. That’s how the Big Guy communicates with me—one thing I’m slowly realizing: the Big Guy doesn’t just communicate via enigmatic directives raining down in unorthodox places. It turns out TBG is what they call a “prolific texter,” in terms of constantly sending notes, comments, thoughts, funny memes, tired memes, stuff I don’t always want to see, reminders, etc. This is not new, it’s how TBG rolls. The trick for me has been recognizing these things for what they are.
I know the run-up is long today.1 To be fair, it took me 60 years to figure this out, so an extra paragraph probably won’t kill you. I have come to believe that once I am connected to the thing I call the Universe (and this mostly involves just being open and willing, but kind of relentlessly), stuff just starts to happen. A life beyond (my) imagination unfolds.
Anyway, you can either choose to believe what comes next, or not.2 It’s Tuesday, my first day at the new gig. To say I was excited would be a bit of an understatement. My daughter caught me on a long walk over the weekend, I was in the southern stretches of Central Park and she asked where I was going? “Practicing the walk to the new office.” The response was something along the lines of, “Jesus, Dad, you’re like a kindergartner.” Yes, that would pretty appropriately peg the level of excitement.
As proof of the validity of the metaphor, my first day backpack had a bundle of specially selected pens, notebooks and snacks. I feel like we’ve covered the drill very extensively, but of course, I left the apartment and headed towards the coffee shop. Do you think I’m going to toss routines to the wind? As I headed towards Second Avenue, I hit the play button and you know what played.3
I put that up twice for two reasons. First, I love seeing old guys pull shit like this off. They are tight and they were like 70 when they did this. That is Paul Shaffer on keyboards, so not exactly the album version. Second, I’m the boss of this here newsletter. You are completely not going to believe the next part. I arrived at the subway platform at 86th Street and took a look at the time, so that I could start to gauge how long the train segment part of the journey took. Guess what time it was:
8:16 am.
Ok, so I was taking the “8:16 into the city,” but that’s f****** close enough.4 You might be thinking things now, like, “Kewl,” or “great story, dude.” Other than making me feel like I’m actually living a movie, complete with a soundtrack, it reminds me what I need is usually right in front of me. TBG apparently ascribes to the whole “hiding in plain view” thing, but this requires my complicity.
As long as I was looking for what I wanted to find, well, I couldn’t find it.
Willingness is a funny and very expansive concept. When you first encounter it in the Big Book, it’s pretty non-controversial. I mean, being willing doesn’t sound like such heavy lifting. Am I willing to consider the possibility that there is a power in the Universe greater than myself? Sure. It’s not like I’m buying a bridge or anything.
Or am I? Once the eyes open to what’s in front of me, instead of what I’m looking for, well, to be blunt, that’s when the freaky stuff started to happen. Including me getting sober. Okay, “freaky,” might be an overstatement. But, according to Spotify, there’s about 10 hours and 43 minutes of music on the playlist entitled, “What I’m Probably Listening to Right Now.”5 I will attest and affirm that I had not played that song intentionally for more than seven days prior to Tuesday (so it wasn’t near the top of the heap) and I actually exited the playlist, shuffled another playlist, then returned to WIPLRN, made sure the “shuffle” icon was green, and then hit play. And it just happened to be my first day of work.
Now, you may start to see that there is some volition involved here. I mean, I could just pass this off as a funny coincidence, lots of really random stuff happens in the world, so that might even have more of a “true-ish,” provable feel to it. But that’s what I mean, when I talk about the bear-trap of sobriety: Willingness is kind of the bait, and then you start to see the world in a completely different way. It turns out the world is a place where things tend to work out, where my worst fears have never been realized, where love and kindness usually are returned (just not always in the expected ways), mistakes are excused and forgiven, relationships rupture and then repair, things tend to make themselves clear, the path becomes more distinct. The trap clangs shut and you turn out happy.6
In this world, things seem to happen roughly when they are supposed to. There is a bit of an ability to dodge, duck, dive or dodge, but at the end of the game, its always four guys on the other team with rubber balls and the result is inevitable. It turns out that is a good thing, because things happening when they are supposed to, usually works out better for everyone, as opposed to the olden days when you all were players on my stage.7
As my first week unfolds, and it has been just fantastic, if I may emphasize that, I’m just completely struck by how I got here. It was by showing up, being myself and letting things unfold. If that sounds excruciating, yes, a little. But life is a bit like cooking, eating or refusing to eat individual ingredients might be pretty defensible. Two tablespoons of Vinegar straight up? No thanks. But try making something that needs vinegar without vinegar.8 You get the point.
I got here by listening, accepting, showing up, not reacting, not expecting and being myself. I repeat that because it’s important. At the bottom of a lot of us alcoholics and addicts, there is the worst, most monstrous, most damaging of all the self-lies we tell ourselves:
Being myself is not enough.
I convinced myself that was true and then discovered that alcohol changed me, transformed me into something that was way better than “enough.” Alcohol works for alcoholics—that’s what that means. I can stop drinking, but as long as that lie still holds sway, it’s going to be pure torture. Maybe not sustainable.
But it’s not a chore to let that lie go, it’s what most people call “freedom.” We alcoholics do tend towards the depressive Eeyore personalities, and we speak of living life on life’s terms as a sentence that has been imposed by the Sober Universe. I’m sorry, you are not seeing it correctly. Living life on life’s terms means I only have to be myself. “Being myself,” seemed like a really tall mountain to climb and a journey that was going to take a lot of bravery.
It turns out it just takes courage and it’s actually not that hard. Being what I thought everyone else needed/wanted/expected? That was hard. I don’t know what people think when I come strolling into the lobby, or am padding around the office trying to figure out where the coffee machine is (am I even on the right floor?). 9 What I’m thinking? How did this happen? How do things keep unfolding like this? What’s the next right thing to do? And it turns out that it is pretty much the same answer over and over.
Being myself is enough. See you on 8:15 into the city.
You should hear me tell the joke about the bear.
I’m trying to make this seem maybe more dramatic than it is.
Technically, you should know this on two levels: 1—it was sotw and 2-how could it not be?
I was in the lobby of the building at 8:46am.
Yes, I enjoy naming playlists. I’m not the only one.
Sorry, weird metaphor.
Man, “you all” are a difficult lot to control.
I’m drawing a blank on something that requires vinegar, other than “oil and vinegar.” Also, I’m thinking that I do very much enjoy dipping dumplings in vinegar.
There are coffee machines everywhere. Everywhere. At some level, it is ominous.