Here’s an anthem I wrote from one of the Twelve-Step sayings. We sang this on the main stage with the audience at the 1986 Philadelphia Folk Festival, along with my friends Kim and Reggie Harris. Join us! WHEN ONE IS TOO MANY One drink, one smoke, one snort of coke A-D A sugar slip, hey, a mainline trip A-E-E7 Are you sick and tired of feeling sick and tired? A-D My friend, I know you know what’s required! A-E-E7 Cho: When one is too many, and a thousand ain’t enough, A-D You cannot do any, hey, you got to get tough! A-E7 When one is too many, and a thousand ain’t enough, A-D You cannot do any, hey, you got to get tough! A-E7-A, E7 I used to love to go get tight With all my friends, we could laugh all night, But we take too much, and before too long We start to fighting, man, you know something’s wrong! Chorus We love too much, we try to please, But sometimes life brings us to our knees So we hide the hurt, the way we know We got to learn some other way to go! Chorus So take a cold shower, (brrr!!) make you do a little dance! Call a friend who knows you and give yourself a chance Or you could grab your partner, go hop in the sack Yeah, make crazy love and bounce that monkey off your back! Chorus (3x) Yes, you got to get tough! Yes, you got too, you get tough! Written by Peter Alsop, ©1984, Moose School Music (BMI) On Fan Club Favorites and Songs On Recovery & Addiction www.peteralsop.com It’s so very ‘human’ of us, when we feel pain, to try to find something to make the pain stop. Many of us choose to use medicators like food, alcohol or other drugs. Others choose to medicate using work or exercise or care-taking other people’s lives, rather than deal with our own painful feelings. And some of us find and follow a ‘savior’, … someone who promises us they will care for us so we won’t have to do the hard work of exploring where our pain comes from. There’s nothing wrong with eating food or working or caring for others, … it’s only when we do these things obsessively and compulsively to avoid our own painful feelings, that our ‘little flag’ pops up to let us know that we’ve become addicted to our medicator. There is something very wrong when we become addicted to a ‘savior’ who lies to us about ‘helping us’. Many of us struggle today with painful fear, anger and sadness about losing our democracies at home and around the world. I applaud all of us, who have struggled to deal with addiction, and I hope that working our Twelve-Step programs have provided us with tools to non-violently remove any ‘saviors’ we might have relied on in the past. Sometimes, ‘one’ is definitely ‘too many’! When I describe other people, I try to avoid using labels. Labels are ‘nouns’ that ‘slot’ us and separate us into specific closed categories. We’re told that we’re an ‘immigrant’ or a ‘patriot’ or we’re ‘good’ or ‘bad’. If we accept those limiting definitions of ourselves, then we fall right back into a binary-brain, either-or view of the world, which will only allow simple either-or solutions, when much more nuanced thinking and options are required. I prefer to use ‘verbs’ because they describe ‘what we do’, and we can change ‘what we do’! Verbs give us clear markers for where we can actually make those changes. They focus on our actions and behaviors, and provide us with ways to proceed when we feel ‘stuck’. They help us find our balance. In 12-Step programs we talk about ‘hitting a bottom’. That happens when we grow ‘sick and tired, of feeling sick and tired’. We finally become willing to deal with our addictions, and we look for other healthier ways to live our lives. We learn to rely on community support when we begin to fall back on our old behavior patterns and medicators and notice when we feel helpless and powerless to change. Recovery really is a process. It’s something we learn to do one step at a time. We pay attention to our ‘verbs’, learn our lessons and work our program in order to recover, get back into balance, and live a better, more caring, healthier life, personally, with our families, friends, and neighbors, our organizations and countries and our larger world human society. All albums Peter’s ‘Songs To Chew’ Audio Podcasts Thanks for reading Peter Alsop’s Substack! This post is public so feel free to share it. I’d love to hear from you! Please Re-stack, like or ask questions. Let me know what actions you are taking! Peter Alsop’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Peter Alsop’s Substack at peteralsop.substack.com/subscribe
