PODCAST

LOL Sober

Nelson H.

How to laugh your ass off in sobriety nelsonh.substack.com

All Episodes

5:38

Recover, repeat, recover, repeat...

LOL Sober ·

2023/10/03

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!I read Step Six at a meeting the other day. Step Six says “Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.” I noticed within a few sentences, there is a line that says “any person capable of enough willingness and honesty to try

5:24

You scream, I scream, we all scream

LOL Sober ·

2023/09/28

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!During the pandemic, I hit a lot of Zoom meetings that were official 12-step group meetings. But I also joined a few small groups of 10-15 sober friends that would be classified as unofficial sobriety groups. We would read from recovery literature and say

5:55

When the pity party attacks

LOL Sober ·

2023/09/26

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!We read the Fifth Step at a meeting the other day, and there was one sentence that really stuck with me.Here it is: All of us saw, for example, that we lacked honesty and tolerance, that we were beset at times by attacks of self-pity or delusions of

4:32

I can't be Siskel or Ebert

LOL Sober ·

2023/09/21

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!When I had about three years sober, I remember getting into a knockdown, drag-out argument with a co-worker about how good a movie was. I remember thinking the movie was great, and he said it sucked. The argument started out as just a fun conversation

4:35

When do I get to graduate?

LOL Sober ·

2023/09/19

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!About six months ago, I was on a road trip for work and hit a meeting in Florida. At that meeting, a guy shared that this was his first in-person meeting in three years, and that he only did Zoom meetings for about a month before he got sick of them. So

6:51

Why do I save my character assassinations for certain...

LOL Sober ·

2023/09/14

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!I was at a meeting the other day where we read Step Six, which deals with character defects. There is a section where the authors tick off a bunch of examples of character defects, and I found myself nodding along because I am guilty of that one, and that

9:53

My top 5 "take what you need, leave the rest" things

LOL Sober ·

2023/09/12

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!I was at a meeting awhile back where someone celebrated three months sober, even though he didn’t have three months sober. He said, “I have two months and 27 days but I won’t be here next week. So I am celebrating now.”That’s not really how a program that

5:13

"Emotionally ill and frequently wrong"

LOL Sober ·

2023/09/07

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!I heard a great speaker at a meeting once who talked about being right. About how we all want to be right. That when we’re right, we feel smart. We feel valuable. We feel like we have intuition, that we should be consulted on things in the future because

4:22

Why doing Step 1 twice is so helpful

LOL Sober ·

2023/09/05

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!When I did Step 1, I had zero disagreement. No part of me wondered if I could drink or do drugs any more. I was ready. I had come to believe with 100 percent of my heart that I was powerless over alcohol and my life was unmanageable.The only part of Step

5:31

God bless the sober loose cannons

LOL Sober ·

2023/08/31

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!I went to a speaker meeting right when I first got sober, and the guy was an absolute wild man. It was one of the first speaker meetings I ever went to, and this was the first time I heard someone who was raw and unpolished and not trying to exude

9:53

16 shades of red

LOL Sober ·

2023/08/29

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!I’ve written about this topic before, but I think about it once a week, sometimes more. It’s a section from the book Living Sober, in the chapter called “Watching out for anger and resentments.” Here is the LINK.The section goes like this:Here is a look

4:44

I'm also a recovering slob

LOL Sober ·

2023/08/24

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!I just handed off my car to my oldest daughter and I figured I would clean it out first before officially giving her the keys.Oof.The car wasn’t horrible. But it was very dusty, with clutter everywhere, old CDs, some mysterious stains. I spent a good 90

6:41

The worst kind of pill in sobriety

LOL Sober ·

2023/08/22

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!I saw a tweet the other day where the author posted a screen grab from a legal message board. Someone had posted that she was getting divorced and both her and her ex-husband decided to represent themselves because they thought the breakup was cordial

7:22

The spiritual lesson of a trip from hell

LOL Sober ·

2023/08/17

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!A huge part of what I call my higher power is the core belief that I trust the universe. Call it “what goes up must come down,” or “what goes around comes around,” or whatever you want—I believe that if you do good things and put out good energy, it will

8:42

Be as crewed as possible

LOL Sober ·

2023/08/15

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!I was at a meeting recently where somebody shared about the value of being “crewed.” In that context, he meant having a crew of sober people around you if you want to build a strong, lasting sobriety.I totally agree with that. But I’ve tried probably 10

7:52

The white-knuckle struggle is real. Very, very real

LOL Sober ·

2023/08/10

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!One of the things that kept me drinking and drugging for awhile is that I would evaluate myself with no outside input, and I would evaluate my drinking and drugging by thinking about how much I did it and what happened when I did. What I should have been

4:51

The nudity of active addiction

LOL Sober ·

2023/08/08

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!I was at a men’s meeting the other day and a guy was pondering why he ended up naked at so many parties back when he was drinking. At first I laughed at the preposterousness of that thought. I chuckled for a bit but then I had to sit back and wonder

6:25

Whoa, a word I did not expect to see in sober literature

LOL Sober ·

2023/08/03

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!Fair warning: This edition of my sober newsletter is a bit R-rated. Maybe even NC-17. Proceed with caution.I went to a meeting recently where we read from the book Living Sober, which is an underrated piece of sober literature. It definitely skews a

5:59

Subletting God

LOL Sober ·

2023/08/01

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!I was at a meeting in Los Angeles awhile ago, and a woman shared about her experience with finding a higher power. She was like so many of us—not-so-great experiences with religion as a younger person, no belief in any kind of God through adulthood, and

4:32

My new favorite recovery book

LOL Sober ·

2023/07/27

If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIS comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!I’ve read probably 25 different recovery books. Some are official literature as part of 12-step programs. Others, like Drop the Rock, are unofficial pieces of sobriety literature—written by alcoholics and addicts, about 12-step recovery but not considered

417 results