Finding My Right Size

Sober Through the Years

Finding My Right Size

September 13, 2026

A NOTE FROM GUY

Humility is one of those words I completely misunderstood when I first got sober.

I thought being humble meant being beaten down. Keep your mouth shut. Don't think too much of yourself. Stay small.

That wasn't exactly difficult for me because I could go from thinking I was the smartest guy in the room to thinking I was the biggest piece of shit in the room, sometimes in the same afternoon.

Neither one was particularly useful.

Over the years I've started looking at humility more as knowing my actual size. I'm not better than everyone else and I'm not worse than everyone else. I'm another alcoholic trying to live a decent life without picking up a drink.

Some days I do that pretty well.

Other days my ego apparently wakes up before I do.

The Step Seven essay in the Twelve and Twelve spends a lot of time on humility and why it matters throughout recovery. What I take from it today is pretty simple: I don't need to run the show and I don't need to crawl underneath the chairs either.

Just be one of the people in the room.

That seems to work.

AROUND THE RECOVERY WORLD

Hazelden Betty Ford released its latest patient-outcomes report. At the 12-month follow-up, 70% of the patients surveyed reported abstinence during the previous three months, while 37% reported continuous abstinence for the full year. Treatment statistics can get thrown around pretty loosely, so I thought the distinction was worth making.

Several states are also changing rules around methadone treatment. Michigan removed restrictions affecting mobile medication units, while New Mexico has made changes intended to make opioid-treatment programs easier to establish and access. Whatever someone's personal opinions are about medication-assisted treatment, it's an important development in the broader addiction-treatment world.

Another report looked at the sharp decline in overdose deaths. U.S. overdose deaths fell 27% in 2024, with preliminary numbers showing another decline in 2025. Researchers point to several possible contributors, including wider naloxone availability, harm-reduction programs and better access to medication for opioid-use disorder. That's encouraging news, although overdose deaths remain painfully high.

SOMETHING WORTH A LISTEN

Sober Speak recently released an episode with Sam S. called “Staying Vigilant in AA - Tri Cities.”

That title caught my attention because vigilance changes after we've been sober awhile. In the beginning, not drinking can occupy every waking minute. Later, life gets normal again. That's a blessing, but normal can also make me forget what got me here in the first place.

AA Recovery Interviews with Howard L. also has a large collection of member stories. Recent episodes include Ray G., sober 20 years, and Tilda B., who got sober in London and later became part of the AA community in Kenya. They aren't new this week, but they're worth mentioning if you enjoy listening to other alcoholics tell their stories.

OUT AND ABOUT

Sober Fest MI wraps up today in Belding, Michigan. It's a three-day recovery festival built around music, speakers and community.

Sober AF Entertainment also had a sober-support presence at Global Dance in Denver this weekend. I like seeing things like that. Sobriety doesn't mean we're sentenced to folding chairs and bad coffee for the rest of our lives. Although, to be fair, I've consumed enough bad meeting coffee to qualify as an expert.

FROM AA HISTORY

I ended up going back to the beginning this week.

Bill W. and Dr. Bob met in Akron on Mother's Day, May 12, 1935. Bill wasn't arriving as some great recovery authority. He was an alcoholic trying to stay sober who realized that talking with another alcoholic helped him.

That part still gets me.

The thing that eventually grew into Alcoholics Anonymous started with one alcoholic talking honestly to another alcoholic.

No stage. No guru.

Just two drunks talking.

Maybe that's one reason the whole idea still makes sense to me.

THIS WEEK'S REFLECTION: FINDING MY RIGHT SIZE

My ego has always liked extremes.

I can convince myself that nobody understands something quite as well as I do.

Then something goes wrong and suddenly I'm useless, everybody else has life figured out, and I should probably disappear into a cave somewhere.

Recovery has slowly pushed me toward the middle.

I can be wrong without being worthless.

I can do something well without becoming the world's leading authority on it.

I can have 38 years sober and still hear something from a guy with 38 days that I need to hear.

That's probably the part of humility I understand best today.

I don't graduate.

I don't become management.

I'm still just another guy in the meeting.

And I happen to like it that way.

FROM MY OWN TOOLBOX

Tradition Two is another reminder for me that no individual is supposed to run AA. The group conscience matters, while the people serving the group are exactly that: servants, not rulers.

The same idea works pretty well in my personal life.

I still need people who will tell me when I'm full of shit.

I still need to pick up the phone.

And when my head is three weeks down the road solving problems that don't exist yet, I still need to drag myself back to today.

None of that is particularly sophisticated.

That's probably why it works for me.

RESEARCH WORTH WATCHING

The University of Utah reported an economic analysis of Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement, or MORE, for opioid misuse and chronic pain. The study estimated about $12 in savings for every dollar spent on the intervention. Interesting research, but it is one treatment approach, not some new answer to addiction.

NIDA has also funded a Carilion Clinic study examining psilocybin combined with structured psychotherapy for cocaine-use disorder. This is research in progress, not an established or approved treatment. I'll be interested to see where the actual data leads rather than getting ahead of it.

BEFORE I GO

I don't have anything profound to wrap this up with.

Most of what keeps me sober today is remarkably similar to what people told me when I first walked through the doors.

Show up.

Tell the truth.

Ask for help when I need it.

Try not to make everything about me.

And don't drink today.

Apparently I needed 38 years to discover that the simple stuff is still the simple stuff.

See you next week.