This piece was written several years ago, during one of my many blogging fits. Pay no attention to the day, timespan, etc., and it might still make a little sense.
“Take my hand, baby we’re over land.
I know flying over water makes you cry.
Where’s that liquor cart?
Maybe we shouldn’t start?
But I can’t for the life of me say why …”
Last Christmas, my brother gave me a copy of Jason Isbell’s Southeastern, one of the best albums I’ve heard in a long time, and one that irrevocably changed the way that I look at myself. Listening to it, obsessively, was like reading a novel where the protagonist thinks, and says, and does, the same things that I do. Many of my favorite characters come to tragedy, or at least heartbreak, and they come to it honestly, forcefully. I’m grateful today that my life isn’t on that kind of tragic arc, and that I seem to have less in common with some of my fictional heroes than I used to.
I do have something in common with Jason Isbell, though, and that is sobriety. He is open about his struggles with drugs and alcohol, and many of Southeastern’s best songs deal with the before and the immediate after of getting sober. He writes about despair, destruction, hope and redeeming grace in simple, direct language that I really admire. And he plays some beautiful guitar. A few songs, like “Flying Over Water,” describe that moment when a memory, a fear, and the disease, combine to make relapse sound like a plausible idea. That he sets the song on an airplane, maybe going to or returning from treatment, hit me especially hard, and stuck with me during a stretch of unusually heavy business travel.
I had a friend who really struggled with sobriety, all facets, but always seemed to return from business trips torn-up. I heard many shares from him about the liquor cart, and how easy it was to think that one vodka tonic was a harmless, mundane, possibility. It never was, though, and the longer the flight, the more time to drink, and the harder for him to stop once he landed. We sometimes can’t remember how bad it was when we drank, and we often lack the foresight to see where it leads:
“Maybe we shouldn’t start, but I can’t for the life of me say why …”
I worry about this forgetfulness sometimes, and always when I’m in-and-out of airports, hotel rooms, and expense-paid business dinners. During previous “dry spells,” a delayed flight, or an empty afternoon in a walkable city, was often more temptation than I could handle. My attitude, then, was that if no one saw me, and I didn’t get into trouble, then it either didn’t really happen or didn’t matter. I wasn’t committed to sobriety then, didn’t count my clean days, and accepted no accountability for my behavior. So a weekend bender, or drinking through a red-eye flight, didn’t strike me as a “relapse.” Instead, it was both punishment and reward: reward, because I had “earned” a mini-vacation from adulthood, and punishment, because these lapses became one more thing among many that I had to hide from my family and friends. After a few years of sneaking this way, the obsession slowly returned, as it always does if you’re like me, and I could no longer hide my drinking. I lived a slow motion train wreck after that.
Then, this past Spring, in my fifth year of sobriety, I had a crushing travel schedule: two trips to San Francisco, a vacation to Gatlinburg, followed immediately by five days in London, all in less than six full weeks. I started worrying in March, playing the tape through, and talking to sober friends. I tried to double-down on my program, attending more 12-Step meetings, looking for new service opportunities, trying to create a sense of public accountability to go along with own private commitment. There really is no science to it, nothing esoteric. I simply find that by living out-loud, by making commitments to people I love, and by accepting some structure and discipline in my life, I can do anything and everything that my career demands (and without nearly constant social drama). I made it to-and-from San Francisco, during March Madness, had a fantastic time with my wife and youngest son in Tennessee, and wandered the best parts of London without picking-up a drink, or even wanting one. Over that stretch, I enjoyed everything from 5 Star dinners with wine-drinking colleagues to steak & eggs, alone, at Denny’s. I read multiple airplane books, and remember them, well. Most importantly, I came home in one piece, sober, and grateful, and happy. Everywhere I went, over that entire month, I had his song looping through my mind.
“Where’s that liquor cart? Maybe we shouldn’t start? But I can’t for the life of me say why …”
Driving around since then, I regularly revisit Southeastern. I love it for the songs about getting sober, and staying that way, and I follow Jason Isbell on Twitter, and I can’t wait for his new album to drop in July. I have no idea how he feels about 12 Step work, but I hope that he understands how his honesty, and creativity, his willingness to live out-loud, can change a person’s perspective. That one song, and that one album, helped me inventory and understand a significant fear, and in turn helped me stay sober for several days, not just one. Flying over water makes me cry, too, but only when I’ve been drinking.
