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In my first 15 years of driving a car, I got pulled over at least 10 times by the police. I never got a DUI but I did get multiple speeding tickets and several stops for broken lights or for having a chunk of my Chrysler LeBaron hanging off dangerously.
In my next 16 years of driving, which is the length of my sobriety, I got pulled over for speeding once in 2010, and I had a headlight out in 2011 or 2012 that got me a warning.
But I haven’t been pulled over in at least 12 years, even though my wife and kids all have been saying for years now that I’m going to get nailed for going through a yellow light at some point.
Well, that day came earlier this week. I blew through a yellow-ish light that a kind police officer referred to as “red” after he pulled me over. It was so egregious that I didn’t say a single word to argue. I was getting a ticket, and I deserved one.
But when I handed him my license and registration, I also began to plot out my court case. I could argue that the road I was traveling on was a total mess because of construction, and that I had a momentary lapse as I tried to process everything. Which is true… but also not true at all. I definitely sped up to get through the yellow light, and it was purposeful.
I found myself getting mad at the cop as he sat back there writing my ticket, and I considered saying something to him about what a dumpster fire the road situation was. But I ultimately realized that I was full of shit, and I hadn’t done the right thing. I had earned a ticket.
He came back to my car a few minutes later and handed me a ticket. “I’m just giving you a warning,” he said, and sure enough, the ticket said “Warning” in big letters across the top. Phew.
Then the real predicament came. Do I tell my wife or kids about it? It was just a warning, after all. And even if it was a ticket, was it really any of their business? I crumpled up the ticket and threw it in the trash—at the gym, not at my house, just to make sure there was no evidence of my transgression.
I didn’t actually spend much time debating it. I don’t live that life any more where I keep things from people that they would probably want to know about. I knew I was going to have to eat a shit sandwich from everybody along with a bunch of “I told you sos.” Oh well. I’d rather that than the alternative, which is that I embrace any kind of withholding of the truth. It wouldn’t be outright lying if they never knew to ask about it… but it wouldn’t be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, either, would it?
Later that evening, my two teenaged drivers were sitting in the living room with my wife and I came in and raised my arms to get their attention. “I have an announcement to make,” I said, and then I told them. They all giggled and busted my chops exactly how I thought they would. And I didn’t have to eat one shit sandwich—I had the great honor of devouring three shit sandwiches, with extra shit sauce on them.
But you know what? Who cares. How did absorbing some deserved punishment and ball-breaking really hurt me? It didn’t. What a change that is. This blog is titled humility and humiliation, because I used to feel humiliated by situations like that. My drinking and drugging certainly was something I felt humiliated about and kept to myself. But every time my feelings were hurt, or I bought something stupid, or I missed a credit card payment, or I got made fun of and didn’t like it… I would keep that to myself because I felt shame and humiliation.
Since I have been sober, though, I have learned how to find more humility, which to me is defined as being right-sized—I’m not the greatest person in the world or the worst. I am somewhere in between. And as long as I try my best to do the right things in this world, I have found that my pride and ego are in a place where I have humility. And when I have humility, I have never felt humiliation. I’m sure it’s possible to still feel humiliated. But if I am comfortable with my life and the way I live it, I rarely have room to feel humiliated. Humility is one of those things that crowds out humiliation.
My warning ticket certainly qualified as something that I would have been embarrassed and humiliated by in the past. I didn’t feel it this time. And as my family ribbed me about it, I felt like I had some kind of shield up that protected me from feeling deeply wounded. And that was an awesome thing to feel—it made me feel like I have grown a lot.
Did the shit sandwiches taste good going down? No, they did not. But I digested them just fine!
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
One Saturday afternoon, around 3 p.m., the town drunk came lurching into the pool hall.
“Hey, Ed,” one of the locals called to him. “Have you been drinking all day?”
“The drunk rolled back on his heels, thought for a minute and replied, “I don’t know. What day is it?”
(Credit: AA Grapevine, October 2000, Jim S. from Galesburg, Illinois)
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