During my first year of sobriety, as I was working on my Third Step, my sponsor pitched a hypothetical situation at me.
“Let’s say you get in a big fight with your roommate,” he said. “And he’s just baked a loaf of zucchini bread, so after he leaves for the day, you retaliate by shoving the bread down the garbage disposal. I know you’d never do that in real life, but for the sake of argument, let’s say you do.”
“That is… totally something I’d do in real life,” I said.
“… Oh,” my sponsor replied, realizing that he maybe didn’t know me as well as he assumed he did. “Right, then. Since this is turning out to be a little less of a thought exercise than I wanted it to be, we’re also going to say that you end up regretting what you did to the zucchini bread. You would feel bad about it, yes?”
I nodded. He looked relieved.
“Great! Okay, so you have the ingredients to bake a new loaf of bread, and you want to call your roommate and apologize for your actions, but you also need to go to work. What is the next right thing to do?”
“Not drink?”
“Not drinking is always the next right thing,” he confirmed. “But it’s also kind of a given. What is the next right thing after that?”
“Hmm. Baking bread would take awhile, so I should probably go to work.”
“Correct!” He beamed. “You can bake more bread once you get home, and you can apologize in person once he gets home. So the next right thing in that moment is for you to go to work. By consistently focusing on the next right thing, we’re putting our efforts into the things we can control, which helps us let go of the things we can’t. See how this works?”
I admitted that it did make sense, and over the past twelve years, it’s become the tool I rely on the most as I try to navigate life: It forces me to think through my actions, and it keeps me from making impulsive decisions. Whenever I hit a crossroad, I stop and ask, “What’s the next right thing?” And I go from there.
Which is what I did this morning, when I checked the election results and immediately wanted a drink.
It has been a long while since whiskey for breakfast seemed like a valid option, but hopelessness has always been a trigger for me. I never get tripped up by jealousy or anger — in fact, spite has kept me sober more than all my other emotions put together. It’s when I feel defeated that the urge for addiction starts creeping back in, and right now, defeat is consuming me.
So, what’s the next right thing?
Not drinking (obvs), then getting out of bed, taking a shower, going to work. Eating something and drinking a lot of water. Staying away from social media. Going through my to-do list for the store and organizing my priorities.
As much as I desperately want out of the hellscape that Texas has become, I do not have the resources to move to a blue state this afternoon, so that will have to be tabled. But I did receive notes from my editor on the latest draft of my manuscript, and I need to launch that book into the world while religious freedom still exists. So I’ll turn my attention to writing, but only after I’ve handled my more pressing responsibilities.
And when the work day is through, the next right thing will be driving home safely. When I’m settled and fairly confident that I can make it through a casual conversation without screaming or hyperventilating, the next right thing will be checking in on friends and loved ones. And this is how I’m going to survive the rest of the week; the rest of 2024; the next four years.
I’ll be putting my recovery first, and I’ll be doing everything I can to hold myself together, because I will be of no use to my communities if I revert to the drunken train wreck I used to be.
I am not going to say that everything will be okay, because, well… [gestures vaguely]. And I will absolutely not fault anyone who feels as helpless as I do right now. But once we’ve gotten the manageable managed, we can look at the bigger picture and determine where we can be of assistance, and where our skills can have the most impact.
And then we will figure out the next right thing. And maybe bake some bread in the meantime.
What are you doing next?
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