I’m not particularly great at anything. I tend to vascillate between being pretty good at a lot of things, and slightly better than that at a small number of things.
Mostly, I make it up as I go along. When it comes to the big things in life I tend to follow Napoleon’s plan: Show up. See what happens. It may sound a little oversimplified, but showing up is the largest part of accomplishing anything.
Throughout my sobriety I’ve had friends and family reach out and ask about getting sober. Sometimes very tepidly, other times more… fuck, I need help. I try to help without being an asshole. Mostly, I listen, encourage, and give brutally honest feedback. Sometimes the person on the other end of the conversation doesn’t have a problem, they just want to be proactive, check in with themselves and someone they trust to see if they might be missing something. Other times the person on the other end is acutely aware that they are fucking up, hurting the people they love and themselves, and are desperate for help changing.
I don’t know how to get anyone sober. AA may work for one person and not for another. You can’t repair all the different broken bits with the same tool. I get that. But one thing that I believe wholeheartedly that comes from AA is this: I can only worry about this day, this hour, this moment.
One day at a time.
Show up. See what happens.
What the fuck does that mean, Rudy?
I’m glad you asked, random person on the internet.
Show up.
I don’t know an addict or alcoholic who hasn’t been at least indifferent to their own existence at some point. I know I faced a choice – just like the movie said – get busy living or get busy dying. I decided to show up for my life. I can’t get sober if I’m not here. Neither can you.
See what happens.
You showed up. Good. If nobody else tells you, I will: I’m glad you’re here. Now we can start the work of, well, not doing: not drinking; not loathing yourself; not wondering how you got wherever it is you woke up; not reliving the painful humiliation of your behavior the night before; not hurting the people you love; not hurting yourself.
But first: don’t drink. Not this minute, at least. Let’s give this unforgiving sixty seconds one hell of a fight.
Did you make it? Good.
Now do it again.
Before you know it, you’ll have an hour. Then a day. Then rest. Tomorrow we show up again and we’ll see what happens.
That was how I spent the first several days/weeks of my sobriety. Just trying to survive this minute. It was hard because I was alone with my thoughts and, holy fuckballs were my thoughts unkind to me. I was fortuntate because I found a meeting that worked for me with people who helped keep me accountable and sane. I didn’t believe in a higher power – at least, not a god looking down from on high. But that didn’t matter to any of them. All that mattered was stringing those minutes together. One after the other.
Like a baby deer figuring out how their legs work, eventually I was able to stand without wobbling.
Now everyday is a bit of lather, rinse, repeat of showing up and seeing what happens.
There is a lot that goes into those minutes and hours. Real work. Learning how to accept this new reality. Learning to accept oneself, be gentle with oneself while holding oneself accountable. But you cannot do any of that if you don’t first show up.
Reading this back to myself I feel like it’s a lot of word salad to anyone who hasn’t struggled with alcoholism or addiction. I wrote it for the person who might be struggling to take that first step to get sober. Maybe you want to, but you’re scared you won’t be fun anymore. Maybe you don’t think you’ll like yourself without the mind altering buffer. Maybe you just think I cannot possibly do it.
You can. I believe in you. I am cheering for you.
