The Mile Dry Club, The Sobriety Society, Alchonominous Anomoholics, The Undrunks, Recovery Discovery

There’s a ‘not so secret’ club out there. It has dues, but it’s not money. You have to get to a pretty dark place to even find these dues to pay.

Since I’ve joined, I’ve noticed that it’s an instant connection between members with very little conversation. The membership is usually revealed with a few simple words about alcohol. Someone might ask about a place to go for drinks. Or tell a little drunk story. Maybe even while drunk. Then the club member responds with a simple, non judgemental, innocent confession, “I’m sober”.

If the other person is not in the club, they either continue their story, completely ignore what you said, or say they need to join the club. Some might even say they enjoy drinking so much that they’d never join the club.

If it’s nother club member,  they’ll offer a proud congratulations then naturally ask how long. If the answer is recent, they’re welcomed to the club and encouraged to stay the course. Maybe a few words of wisdom and personal experience, but not so much that it becomes discouraging or preachy. There’s a fine line there. The next question is how? Rehab, AA, cold turkey? Hey man, whatever works. Higher power or not. There’s no wrong way to save yourself.

If they’ve got between three and five years of sobriety, they have instant earned respect. At this level there might be a deep shared experience conversation. Every story is different and every story’s the same. But the truth is that both parties have a very good and personal understanding of the world of addiction. All addictions. From nicotine to heroin to beer and whiskey to codeine to benzodiazepine. At this level they have caused damage to themselves and the people they care about. They carry a heaviness upon their shoulders. A complicated concoction of guilt and redemption, pride and shame. All mixed up in a tangled, barbed wire fence in their mind. A sourness still flowing in their blood.

There’s a real fear of relapse. Of giving up. Giving in. A real fear of knowing the price of getting dragged down again. Most of us have, and fought our way back out again. And there’s so many that just don’t make it out alive. I can name more than a few.

But through it all, through the club, there is peace and understanding. It’s there, silent and wordless. Because there are no actual words for the feeling of somehow being your own victim. Poisoning yourself into a fog of oblivion at all costs.

It might even feel like a weakness. Society often perceives disease and illness as weakness. Maybe it is, I mean, it sure as hell weakens us. But those of us who have beat it know exactly what kind of strength it takes to survive it. And be in the club. There is respect in the club. We know how strong we are. We don’t care that you don’t understand.  But, uh, don’t talk trash about us.

And you don’t understand, you can’t, unless you’re in the club.

The last level of ckub membership is for the elders. An unflorified past that no longer haunts them, but quietly lives in their own history. Kind of like being proud of the USA and knowing of the atrocities done to suppress, oppress, and eliminate entire cultures. At this level, family members have forgiven, hopefully, apologies accepted, hopefully, respect earned for pulling yourself together. This level has a profound sense of simply existing and an appreciation for their life and everyone’s around them.

I heard a story about country music singer, Zach Top. He said, “The next person I hear say they got sober, I wanna hit ’em in the head… Just be a normal guy and drink a normal amount”.

Zach Top is not in the club. Zach Top doesn’t understand alcoholism and addiction. Zach Top might be a complete moron.

Here’s an interview between Sammy Hagar and Joe Walsh. Joe Walsh gets it. Joe Walsh is in the club. Joe Walsh is a lot of things, but he’s not a moron.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18N1LLHMPK/

In case the link doesn’t work, Joe Walsh explains how alcohol addiction works. Basically we think we need it. We drink to loosen up. Enjoy it. But for alcoholics, it slowly, eventually takes over. There’s no stopping it. It becomes the certifiable disease that alcoholics have.

A disease that kills about 178,000 people each year. Here’s a link to the CDC data exclusively for Zach Top. You can use it too. If you’re cool. Zach Top is not cool.

Facts About U.S. Deaths from Excessive Alcohol Use | Alcohol Use | CDC

https://share.google/NVglIIN7xOUVOCTHp