Sunday Session Newsletter Ep. 3

But what if?

I was sitting around on a Saturday night, mind-numbingly killing time, when I stumbled across an Ali Gallop YouTube video. I’d watched it a few times before — Ali’s channel is one of those hidden YouTube gems.

Ali clearly has a way with words and editing:

“It’s not about all the things that you can’t do with the stuff that you don’t have. It’s about how resourceful you are with what you got.” [01:26]

But dig a little deeper — sobriety is about the “what if”.

• What if I clean my act up?
• What if I get healthy?
• What if I live life on my own terms?
• What if I take back control of something I can actually control?

“There are certain times in life that you just have to accept defeat… is a line I will never use.” [04:22]

After speaking to hundreds — maybe thousands — of people trying to get sober, it’s clear that the what if is the exciting part. Just the idea that there might be something else out there. And the fact is, there is. Hear this clearly:

• There is a better way to live.
• There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
• There is your story to live — and the ability to write it.

That is exciting. Life is exciting — warts and all. This isn’t fluffy, salesy self-help nonsense. Sobriety is about acting on that excitement.

Something clicked though — and it’s something that has always bothered me about sobriety: the one-size-fits-all mentality. The idea that everyone’s path will look the same. The truth is, it won’t.

Sobriety is about acting on excitement. As Ali touches on in his video, sobriety has parallels with everyday life — especially in questioning the status quo. It’s about the tension between how things are usually done and the alternative possibilities that appear when you allow yourself to imagine a different path.

For so many who are exhausted by the status quo, sobriety is that different path.

Looking at some of the stories we’ve touched on over the last few weeks from Anthony Kim’s incredible comeback, YouTuber PoopularMMO’s quest for Sobriety to Exploring the Benefits of Volunteering. SOBRIETY STARTS WITH THE ‘BUT WHAT IF…’ but it doesn’t finish there, it finishes with acting on the ‘but what if…’ and exploring what that is.