I’m grateful for Friday morning. I’m grateful for kind people. I’m grateful for long walks on beautiful days. I’m grateful for the peace in my heart. I’m grateful to be sober today.
Song of the Week:
First, we have talked before about “Rick-Rolling,” right?1 Cool. I’ve been excited about this song all week. I’m not going to bore you with the story of when I fell in love with this song (live feed from KRNA on the pedestrian plaza by the Hardees and Eby’s Sports in 1977 or so). I would also like to note that in this video, the Sanford & Townsend Band sure do appear to actually be playing their instruments and singing. This was not common on the “Midnight Special,” or Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert.
There’s no message or back-story here, It just falls into this 1970’s sub-genre of semi-bitter guys saying goodbye to girlfriends who left a while ago, but making it clear that they still really care.2 These are classic lyrics and deserve study. I’ve listed some of the better examples below:
You left me here on your way to paradise.
You pulled the rug right out from under my life.
If things are the same, then explain why your kiss is so cold.
It don’t stack up, so slack up and pack up, while you still can.
Don’t you drown when your dreamboat runs onto the ground.
I’d just like to know, do you love him or just making time, by filling his glass with your fast-flowing bittersweet lies?
You’ll taste the after-taste when you come home late some night, with your eyes all a-mist with the smoke from a distant fire
Girl, your eyes have the mist from the smoke of a distant fire!
The mist in your eyes, from a distant fire.
Putting aside the fact that I’m not sure what a lot of these mean, and there are some decidedly mixed metaphors. “Don’t you drown when your dreamboat runs onto the ground?” I think drowning might not be the problem to be concerned about there. The funny thing about the song and those lines, and the sneaky reason we’re talking about it today, it’s about expectations and resentments.
In this case, these seem like good guys, so the problem maybe is her. These guys, The Sanford & Townsend Band, are very butt-hurt because they expected this girl to love them back, the way they loved her. Instead she’s out with some other guy building distant fires (the excessive smoke probably the consequence of poor fire building technique, in the view of this former Boy Scout) and driving dreamboats onto the ground. That totally sucks.
When I was drinking, I kind of felt that way about roughly everything. Every component of my life was simply not what it should have been. This deficit in what I was supposed to have versus what I did have could be chalked up to: my own failures and shortcomings, the perfidy of others, the lack of appreciation for my brilliance; the unfair treatment I received from roughly everyone; plain old bad luck.
Today, I have far less in material or professional trappings, my life is way scaled back and none of that really matters. I’m happy. Even in the face of enormous and frightening challenges, I wake up in the morning, maybe with a little pit in my stomach, but mostly knowing that things will be okay if I do my part. Whatever that happens to be.
Compared to the old drinking me, this version is very quiet, tends towards the zen side of things, meditates a lot and has peace in his heart. Of course there are 90 zillion reasons for that seismic change (also called sobriety), but here’s the one I think is the most important one of all:
Gratitude.
When I look at all of my failed efforts at sobriety, the thing that was not at the bottom of my effort? Gratitude. Sobriety was something I was being forced to do, it was a grim battle to save my life, an ordeal from which I might not recover. I used words like overwhelming, terrifying, crushing to describe it. Every moment was infused with drama and meaning. And to those who failed to appreciate and endorse all of these very significant changes that had just occurred, often in the space of scant days and weeks, were unwilling to noiselessly resume the relationship we occupied before the most recent betrayal, well,
F*** You. I’ll just drink, then.
I expected to be rewarded for my great and virtuous sacrifices. I expected people to recognize my wisdom, gained through enormous pain and hard-fought experience. When I went to meetings, I deserve to be listened to, because my message and my experience were really important for other people to hear. I was disappointed if I had a good share in mind, but didn’t get a chance to talk at meetings. I can see how my alcoholic ego was still at work then, even though I wasn’t drinking and going to meetings every day. It’s easy to diagnose this from a distance, it make it easier to see that the fundamental transformation in sobriety is the shift from manifesting the alcoholic ego to humility.
A humble outlook is generally regarded as a good thing. Most of the major deities have endorsed it, my favorite passage in the New Testament, the number of which is also my birthday, has the Son of God saying, “for I am gentle and lowly of heart.” I like to joke that I don’t think the path to humility is paved with public speaking appearances on the topic of “My Growing Humility.” The question then, is how does one become humble?
Bill W. identifies the ego as the target that must be eliminated in recovery. That ego is pretty hard to kill, though. When I see people with years of sobriety still unhappy, still struggling with how to find peace, I think the issue is usually that they are still fighting that really difficult to eradicate ego—it’s what kept telling me that things were supposed to be better than they were, that I was supposed to feel differently than I did, that I was supposed to get things that I wasn’t getting. Also, I had to give up the thing that made everything else ok and everyone else still got to do it. So, that’s like completely unfair and if I have to do all of that, well, things should be a lot f****ing better. That attitude is not conducive to tranquility.
This is why it took me so long to get sober. The Big Book doesn’t really give very clear directions on how to kill the alcoholic ego, there are lots of tactics that will help. But the thing that killed that mf’er for me, and then ground a big dusty heel into the carcass, well, that hombre was gratitude.
You know my gratitude lists—I’ve been doing them for just about three years now. Every. Single. Day. I started doing them during the Fall of 2020, when I moved here to NY (at the request of a wise sponsor). They are often silly, repetitive, dumb, obvious, repetitive, and even too gooey sometimes. I write them every morning, usually after a cup of coffee and some reflection. I don’t write them in advance and try to have them express a few things that I’m really grateful for right now. I’ve written about some of the rules here:
Gratitude is the central re-framing tool of sobriety. Gratitude is the anti-expectation, resentment-retardant, of choice. Gratitude generates grace and humility. Gratitude fills my heart with understanding, empathy and peace. The practice of looking at the world around me in search of things that fill me with wonder and learning and understanding, well, that’s just a much better way to spend your days than the other way. Also, I don’t feel like I need a drink to recover from the process.
The expression of simple gratitude is what killed the huge, alcoholic ego ogre. It wasn’t through brute strength, or a well-placed stone to the temple. It was simply observing how the world around me generated peace and meaning, when I let it. Expressing that every day, even on days when I really, really did not feel grateful is how I found freedom. Being grateful for the things that are is just plain old better than being upset about the things that aren’t.
When I’m grateful for the cup of coffee on the desk, that doesn’t mean that there is a happy ending waiting for me in life or that all is well. It just means there is something there now that I like and appreciate and makes me feel happy. When you start seeing all of those little things, it adds up. Every once in a while, there is a big thing, but all of those little things, they become like a really powerful ant-army. Forget the rubber plants, those guys get shit done. That’s the power of gratitude.3
Gratitude does not lead to perfect days or perfect peace. It leads me, it forces me, to appreciate what is, what exists before me now. Of course, like all of us, I need to plan and work and accomplish. We all have to confront challenges and deal with lots of frustrating things, we experience heartbreak and loss and grief and failure. That’s life. Writing a gratitude list every single day showed me there was light on the darkest days, there was learning and even joy in the hardest moments, there was peace when I accepted things I thought I could never get through.
Gratitude showed me a way to find peace even when nothing seemed to be going right. Gratitude showed me that there might be a plan, a way forward, when everything seemed to be lost. Gratitude showed me that the people around me usually did the best they could, and helped me love them, even when something hurt me. Gratitude showed me there was always a way back. Gratitude showed me that there might just be a Power greater than myself. For sure, gratitude helped me deal with the many challenges of life. But it goes way, way beyond that:
Gratitude showed me what living was.
If we didn’t, you can find an excellent example by clicking the “Mystery Button.” Or will you?
I’m thinking The Spinners, “I’ll be Around,” Hamilton, Joe, Frank & Reynolds, “Don’t Pull Your Love Out on me, Baby,” and, perhaps most famously, Steely Dan, “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” or “My Old School,” or “Dirty Work.” Wow, they did a lot of those songs.
If you hate insects, we can certainly change that up.
Too obvious and on the nose, but I'm grateful for TFLMS.
That was some pretty solid detective work. I'm not sure I had even put all of that together.