20 Years
Alchemy + Ripples = The Unimaginable
The calendar is doing what the calendar does … mark a moment in time.
Today’s mark registers 20 years in time since my last drink.
A lot has happened since that day then to this day today.
A lot happened before that day 20 years ago that makes this day on the calendar special and worth marking.
I had to crawl out of a very dark hole.
For a while that dark hole haunted me. It motivated me. It consumed and defined me.
But somewhere along the way, the days passed and life took on new meaning. And every day out of that hole served as a chance to fill that hole.
That hole no longer exists. It’s been filled. Whatever was in that hole that lured me and consumed me is buried.
I have no profound wisdom to share.
Ask anyone that knows me and they’ll tell you that I have no problem waxing poetic about almost any topic under the sun.
But frankly … I have nothing extra today.
I have a lot of gratitude for the moment and for what it took to leave that hole and to become something different, something better.
I tried to summon something extra, but reflections led me back to past writings from me and others.
So, let me share that.
The In-Between Spaces
When in Århus, Denmark in 2018, I was fortunate to experience Do Ho Suh’s “Walk the House” exhibit. At the end of the walk through his corridor of silken houses, was this statement from Suh:
“I see life as a passageway, with no fixed beginning or destination. We tend to focus on the destination all the time and forget about the in-between spaces.”
We set these goals in recovery: 1 day, 30 days, 1 year, etc. We focus on them, on reaching them, sometimes to our detriment.
Life is in the middle, not at these moments.
Alchemy
4 years ago I reflected on year 16 in an essay titled, “16 Years of Magic”.
I was more touched and inspired by the journey. The piece is actually one of my favorite things I’ve ever written. Here’s a good bit:
My path to sobriety was not conventional. I did not follow conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom was the rational path.
The rational path restricts the opportunity for magic.
I did not know it at the time, but I was using psycho-logic.
The great ad exec, Rory Sutherland from Ogilvy, describes psycho-logic in his book Alchemy.
“The human mind does not run on logic any more than a horse runs on petrol.”
Human beings are not logical or rational animals — no matter what economists try to tell you.
We are highly irrational. Behavioral economists cheer.
A + B = C is perfectly fine when making an argument and designing a machine. But that is not the equation of human life.
A Decade In
10 years ago I reflected on year 10 in an essay titled, “Reflecting on the Last Decade.”
At that time I was at steeped in learning and becoming a leader. So, I provided a “short list of attributes survivors of addiction (or adversity) have in common with great leaders.” Here are those attributes:
You have to know what your problem is. Overcoming addiction for me got real easy when I stopped focusing on the substance of alcohol. Alcohol wasn’t the problem — it was part of the problem, but not the problem. Once you are able to lay out the problem and the various factors that contribute to the problem, you can then begin to devise strategies for solving those problems. Thus, instead of solving one big problem, you work to solve a bunch of small problems. Over time, the aggregated smaller solutions begin to have a significant impact on the larger problem.
You have to be patient. At the heart of the disease of addiction is a constant striving for instant gratification. Major change, no matter what it is, does not happen over night. Once you’ve identified the problem, devised a strategy to attack the problem, you have to patiently work the strategies. If the strategies are good, as Sam Cooke says, “A change is gonna come."
You cannot work in a vacuum. Individuals do not overcome addiction or other challenges in complete isolation from others. Major change requires a team of people, each with their own set of skills necessary to solve the problem. As the primary change agent, the leader (or individual overcoming illness, etc.) gets to see the entire landscape and team of people working in concert like an orchestra. If any one member of the team or the leader work in isolation, the problem will not get solved.
You must have a vision for the impossible built on a path of reality. The impossible becomes possible not because we begin with the moon shot, but because we begin with something much smaller and doable. In addiction recovery parlance: One day at a time. But I don’t really like the “one day at a time” philosophy because it ignores, I think, the existence of a much bigger goal. For instance, the “one day at a time” mantra is used to help individuals not consume for the day. That’s all well and good, but fundamentally something is missing — then what? There must be a plan for that single daily victory, but it must fit into a larger plan to achieve the impossible.
Creating Ripples
A final dose of wisdom from the poet Danielle Doby.
"When you create a difference in someone's life, you not only impact their life, you impact everyone influenced by them throughout their entire lifetime. No act is ever too small. One by one, this is how to make an ocean rise."
To all who made a difference in my life … thank you; we are making the ocean rise.
