I was thinking about my old sponsor this morning and I had to laugh. He was a big, kind man, but a man who could score a hit on you, when you least expected it. I was remembering one of those today.
In the bad old days, when I was still drinking, if things went sour on me, I was just pick up a drink to handle it. Now that I was trying to stay sober, that option was not open to me and I would try to lean on Tom to get me through a tough situation. Tom would look at me and screw up his face in a Popeye kind of smile and say, “Grind you son of a bitch, grind.”
What? How could he speak that way to a sensitive, nice guy like me? What was he saying?
What I learned from him was that I was going to have to toughen up and learn to go through the hard times if I wanted to stay sober. I had to learn that I could survive these things and come out the other side and still be all right. That wasn’t easy for me to learn, but I did. I had to learn that over and over again, as Tom did for me what I couldn’t do for myself. That kind of thinking wasn’t available to me, when I was early on in my sobriety. But Tom was there to remind me to “grind”. No coddling. Just tough love from Tom.
There are still times I have to go back and pull that thought up again. Tell it like it is, Tom, I tell myself. Tell me to grind again. I still want to stay sober.
Tom has been gone a long time now, but his memory is still there for me to rely on. I can still grind. I can still laugh as I see his face and hear his voice.
Building a website is a piece of cake.