Sobriety is Easy

Made ya look 😎

Before you blow me up for an obviously provocative headline—give me a moment.

Hello friends and readers. This essay is part of my continuing frequency during September—which is National Recovery Month. My intention is to share my opinions and experiences having lived decades as a practicing drunk and addict—and then having spent the last nearly 15 years clean and sober. My intention is to make you think—to make you question the narratives you’ve heard about addiction and recovery—to help you better understand the challenges that face people living in the throes of addiction—and to show you that we can recover.

I hope you enjoy today’s offering. Please share it around with those it might help. I welcome your comments as always.

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Sobriety is Easy.

There is something fundamental about sobriety and recovery from addiction. A belief in something more powerful than yourself. You ain’t all that… is the operating system we must learn. Humility means different things to different people. Those who talk about it often, and claim to understand it, are often the least humble among us. It’s like the person who always has to say to tell you the truth. Red flag every time. How ‘bout just telling the truth instead of prepping us that the truth is coming. As if…

I’ve always kept my recovery program extremely simple. Which isn’t to say recovery from a life of boozin’ and usin’ is easy—it most definitely is not. It is somewhat simple though.

Don’t pick up a drink.

Stay connected.

Don’t isolate.

Clean up your own side of the street.

Help others.

Ask for help if you need it.

Don’t pick up.

God, the Universe, the Source, the One Spirit, or a room full of other drunks can all work as a higher power in one’s life. Don’t get snagged up in the terminology or the religion of it. Just so long as I remember that it’s not always about me, me, me.

There were decades where I was careening recklessly around life with little fear and even less regard for myself and others. Somehow, I’d land on my feet. Someway I’d notch an accomplishment. I’d screw something up, and those around me would forgive me. Deep down I rarely forgave myself. One place of danger for many recovering alcoholics who actually make a go of long-term sobriety, is that nagging thought of what could I have done had I not been fucked up so often? Bad place to go—so I don’t—very often. Now, when thinking of the past, I try to treasure the particular memory and remember those that I experienced that moment with.

Looking back, I see so many examples of divine intervention in my own life. So many bullets dodged. So very many times my antics should have cost me more than they did.

One definition of grace that I’ve seen is that Grace can be variously defined as God’s favor toward the unworthy or God’s benevolence on the undeserving. In His grace, God is willing to forgive us and bless us abundantly, in spite of the fact that we don’t deserve to be treated so well or dealt with so generously.

Whether or not anyone deserves God’s grace is hardly the point. It comes without our asking for it. It comes whether we want it to or not. It is a gift. We must accept that gift in order to heal.

The question invariably comes up when I’m speaking with a person who is still in the grip of their addiction. How did you do it? The honest answer is that if I knew the answer to that question, I would have done it years before. When confronted by my family in a loving and terrifying moment of intervention on November 23, 2009, something inside me said enough—accept this gift—try something new.

What’s weird about it now is that it doesn’t seem that hard. Weird how perspective and distance work that way. At the time, when my life depended on it, it was the hardest thing I’d ever been through.

The author Malcolm Gladwell in his third nonfiction book, “Outliers, the Story of Success;” references the 10,000-hour rule of skill mastery. The rule was developed from a study by Anders Ericcson, which researched experts from various fields of business, science, and sports. Gladwell uses The Beatles, Bill Gates, and other examples of people who practiced a particular task or method or way of doing something until they achieved success.

The 10,000-hour rule doesn’t often work for recovering addicts and alcoholics like me. It can get easier, but you’re never an expert. Every day I live in a World that glorifies and glamorizes self-medication. I don’t judge—I did it for decades. But it stopped working for me. Clean and sober works way better for me now. We talk a lot about one day at a time. Some folks in recovery would cringe to hear me say out loud that it’s easier now. They’d say oh he’s setting himself up for a fall, for a relapse. Whatever.

But it is—easier. Sobriety, not life.

Bear with me while I unpack a little sports analogy. All of us have seen that gifted athlete at the top of their game—and we’re moved by the skill, athleticism, grace, and effortlessness of their motions. Roger Federer, Simone Biles, Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, Tiger Woods, Allyson Felix. They make it look incredibly easy. They make it look effortless. It is not. Perhaps their lives outside of their particular sport of expertise is not so smooth. We have plenty of evidence of that—top athletes and performers in their trade who struggle and fail at everyday living—fuck up relationships—go broke—get arrested—makes asses out of themselves in the public eye. But on the field or court they elevate. Why? Because they have put in the hours—the sweat—the focus—the sacrifice. They have humbled themselves perhaps for decades before reaching the glorious top of the stage. They have fallen flat on their faces dozens—hundreds of times in the pursuit—in the learning.

And here’s a point to make. Even experts lose. Even the top athletes get beat now and then. Their odds are better that they’ll win—but they nevertheless still fail.

This isn’t the case for all athletes. It also isn’t the case for all of us who recover and attain some level of expertise around sobriety. It takes what it takes. It takes time. Some of us don’t ever get it—frankly most of us. Those that succeed have to put in the hours (130,000 to be exact at this moment)—the sweat—the focus—the sacrifice. We have to humble ourselves before our higher power. Then and only then can we stand and proclaim to others that we know a little bit about the thing.

So back to the headline—Sobriety is Easy.

When I proclaim that sobriety is easy, what I mean is that it’s easy for me to not drink or take drugs these days. I’ve been through enough challenges and heartache and loss and anger and fear—and stayed sober—that I know how to do it. I don’t fear it. I don’t pick up. I stay connected. I don’t isolate. I clean up my own side of the street. I help others. I ask for help if I need it. I don’t pick up.

Life still comes at each of us hard. Every day. Isn’t one day at a time really all any of us has? Anyone who has suddenly lost a loved one (everyone) knows this fact. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is all we have.

Living life as a sober person with a sober mind is something worth celebrating. The odds are stacked. Let’s do this—it’s fucking easy.

Thank you God for another.