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On a regular basis, I spend time thinking about how to connect with other alcoholics and drug addicts, especially newcomers. And one night I was thinking about that when a speaker was introduced for the meeting I was at, and the chairperson said the phrase we all know and love: “She’s here to share her experience, strength and hope.”

Those three words lingered in the air for me. Experience. Strength. Hope.

Let’s start with hope. I do think the best speakers lay out why sober life is better than active addiction, providing optimism for everybody in the room. So I love hearing some hope.

Then there is strength. I love that, too. If you’re an alcoholic or drug addict and you have been sober for any length of time, there has to be strength in there somewhere. And it’s always interesting to hear the contrast of the weakness of active addiction with the strength of active sobriety. I think you almost can’t have one without the other. If I had a lot of strength when I was drinking and drugging, I probably never would have stopped!

Last but not least, experience. It’s essential in my opinion to have the speaker lay out what their life was like and then how it changed in sobriety. You want to establish the basic facts of the change in their life and how they ended up in recovery. I think without that, our stories probably feel a little hollow.

So that got me thinking about the words that aren’t included in that statement. What about honesty? Sense of humor? Hard work? And especially knowledge… isn’t knowledge critical?

I ended up feeling like experience, strength and hope probably includes all of those things on some level. Most stories I’ve heard included some levity, and acknowledgement of being absolutely true to thine own self.

The biggest one that got me thinking was knowledge. I feel like the things I’ve learned in the program are so, so valuable to me, and some of the emotional sobriety stuff I have picked up over the years includes tools and insights that I’d never spent time with before. That information is indeed valuable.

But then I started thinking about what moved me as a newcomer. It wasn’t information. If meetings felt like lectures or college classes, I might have struggled. And if people told their stories with learning as the backbone, I don’t know that I would have connected with so many people over the years. When I hear a good speaker, it’s usually that their experiences make me identify with them and nod my head at the similarities. Often times, I’ll hear someone describe the pain they were in and feel like there is no way I could drink today after hearing it. When I hear someone explain the traditions of 12-step recovery, or a passage from the Big Book related to making amends, it’s certainly worthwhile… but it doesn’t usually move the emotional needle in the same way.

So I guess the entire point of this exercise is that there’s nothing to see here. Experience, strength and hope is the perfect description of the best way to have an impact!

This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:

Working with newcomers is a little like working with cement… it’s usually better when it’s still wet. Otherwise, you’re going to need a jackhammer.

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