Last Sunday started off with my usual morning at 9 a.m. AA meeting, but I decided to stay for the 90-minute Al-Anon meeting in the same room after. Then I did step work in Paths to Recovery with my Al-Anon sponsor at a picnic table near the Hollywood Bowl parking lot. I redid the Second Step questions in Paths to Recovery. This is my second time through them in this book, and I had my answers written in the margins from the last time I did them seven years ago. There are a lot of notable changes in my answers—so many “NO” answers were now “YES” and vice versa. My answers were more specific and actionable—less bitter and sarcastic, too. It turns out I am much more willing to let my Higher Power do the grunt work these days. 

I had some choppy work anxiety floating around inside me at the beginning of the week, and part of me was ready to blow some stuff up, make some people uncomfortable, since that’s my usual way of reclaiming some control. But after all the recovery from the day before, there were enough leftover spiritual trails that I saw an opportunity NOT to act like that and downshifted into gratitude instead. The best defense I have against my own worst instincts is to JUST. DO. NOTHING.  So that’s what I did, and I avoided some additional stress. 

Also on Monday, I began this Debtors Anonymous accountability group. The gist is you call someone in the group at the end of each day for one week straight and update them on your spiritual work (doing numbers for the day or month, meetings, etc.), self-care (workout, meditation, walking, yoga, family time), and vision earning (any calls, emails, actions towards expanding your earning potential). That last one sounded a little goofy to me, like something you’d learn on the last day at a multi-level-marketing seminar about selling solar panels but I did my best to guess what my vision-earning activities were each day, and I felt okay about it. (Mostly, I called more creative people I admire than I usually do.) I bet $250 on the Super Bowl but didn’t disclose that as part of my numbers because it happened the day before and because fuck the Patriots. 

Tuesday: BJJ between 7:00 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. Then I did a 9:15 - 9:45 in-person meditation meeting after that. Then went straight from there into chairing the Tuesday TSB meeting. Floated the rest of the day. 

Wednesday: Had a breakfast meeting in the morning with Anna Sale that we’d planned a couple of weeks prior, but since it happened during this particular week, I guess it counts as “vision earning,” but it was mostly chill. That night I did my weekly Emotional Sobriety step work session with Greg G. and underlined this part of our reading: “Take the words ‘success’ and ‘failure’ out of your vocabulary. Replace them with ‘honesty’ and ‘effort’.” Called my DA buddy again and reported my numbers but didn’t tell him about the breakfast.

Jesus, this does sound like total MLM.

Thursday: More BJJ in the morning. Went so hard, got completely smashed by a former cast member of “The Wire”, and my face was a mess. Julieanne told me I looked like one of those dudes who got severe frostbite after climbing Everest. After I got back, I did a long-overdue amends/reconnection with an old friend over Zoom. It stitched something up inside both of us. Had therapy an hour after that, and my therapist told me he was very impressed with my progress. 

Friday: Did my usual 8 a.m. ACA Men’s Meeting. Shared openly and full of gratitude for all the men in that room who helped me find my way. Couldn’t help myself—I was just gushing. I meditated for almost 17 minutes afterwards. Went into the studio and tried to do new intros for the TSB pod relaunch. My face was still messed up from BJJ the day before, but I kinda didn’t care. 

Saturday: Valentine’s Day—plus my youngest son’s birthday. He’s six. We went shopping, and I bought him eight comic books, one Batman toy, and two Star Wars figures. I also bought a box of 2026 baseball cards and an Andrew Painter rookie card for my other son. My daughter got a couple of stuffed animals. I ordered Julieanne Italian food from Uber Eats because we were both so tired, but it was the perfect meal for us in that moment. When I called my DA buddy last night and told him how much money I spent, he told me not to be so hard on myself. “What matters is that you made other people happy with it.” I’m typing this very late at night, there are two dogs in my lap, and Funfetti cake is on my shirt. My life is pretty rad.