Snitches Stay Out of Ditches

Estimated read time: 12 min

“Can’t stray and start livin for me

Livin foul man I gotta blow the whistle on me

No matter I don’t wanna see no trash

So I’ma put me on blast

I’ma snitch man, I’ma snitch

I’ma snitch man, I’ma snitch”—Trip Lee

There are a ton of sayings and simple slogans people find useful when starting their journey in sobriety. Some remind us to think before we act. Others remind us that nothing is permanent. A few of my favorites focus on living life a moment at a time. Nina, my wife and fellow Grateful Nut, has written about a few in her posts, “One Day at a Time,” and “Barbershop,” which are worthy reads. Just for fun, I looked up lists of slogans on the internet and found 252 slogans or sayings that are commonly used in recovery. I plan to make it 253.

Snitches stay out of ditches!

That’s the phrase. Jot it down and share it with your friends.

It’s not my personal creation. Credit for that goes directly to Nina. But, it is an important twist on the other wise common phrase, “Snitches end up in ditches.” That phrase is a threat issued by criminals who are scared of being caught after committing a crime.

The criminals use the phrase to remind those who know something to keep quiet. This new phrase is a way to ensure I’m caught before the crime. I need to be caught, especially when my alcoholic thinking sneaks up on me. My brain, as great and powerful as I believe it to be, is often my worst enemy.

When I was still in rehab, I just knew I had to solve the puzzle as to why I became an alcoholic. If I could just do that, I would be able to drink like a normal person again, or for the first time. I spent hours in my head as I wondered what I could have done differently. 

Some questions were clearly in my sphere of control. What if I had been able to stop drinking this time; I had so many times before? What if I would have fought a little harder against the withdrawals instead of giving into a drink almost instantaneously?

Others were bigger questions that I wasn’t sure I controlled. What if three of my friends had not died in my early 20s? What if I had never tried drinking? What if I had quit drinking in high school? What if I hadn’t been run out of a job for something other than my drinking? What if I wasn’t stressed out by my disaster of a marriage?

I had a lot of fingers to point and none of them, at least in my mind, led back to me.

Instead of pointing out the mountain of flaws in my thinking, my counselor in rehab put an end to that train of thought with three sentences. “None of that matters,” she said. “The mule’s already in the ditch. How are you going to get him out?”

Quite simply, how I became an alcoholic, by birth or circumstance, doesn’t help me solve what I’m going to do about it. When my counselor forced me to work on the solution instead of the problem, she removed the swirling mess of ideas in my thicker than average skull and forced me to realize my focus needed to be on how to stay sober instead of why I was a drunk. I had to get the mule out of the ditch.

I’m not gonna lie, I really love the mule in the ditch metaphor for where my drinking took me. But, modern times and modern transportation call for modern terms. Often when I talk with another alcoholic and I see the blame game for his alcoholism starting to get revved up. I just remind him that it doesn’t matter who was driving the car. It’s in the ditch and he has to get it out to keep driving.

This metaphor works particularly well in rural areas where all of us are well acquainted with driving dirt roads too fast and sliding around curves, with or without a beer in hand. Even if you didn’t get stuck in a ditch you have probably had a close call or two that you bragged about around a campfire. Okay, maybe that’s just me.

Still, once you are out of the ditch, that doesn’t mean that you are home free and can return to your former way of driving. That’s how you got stuck in the first place. That’s where the snitching comes in.

Once I made it out of the ditch and on the road to recovery, I could start looking for the warning signs that put me in the ditch the last time. For me at least, the sharpest, most treacherous curve in my path comes along every time I think I don’t need help from others. Then, when the incredibly dangerous thought follows, I’m already doing 90 mph toward a 25-mph curve.

One of my first epiphanies came in treatment when I took the reminder of “keeping it green” to mean that smoking weed is a healthy alternative to drinking. Fortunately, this bright idea showed up where I was far away from anyone who could have supplied the “green.” (Honestly, I have never had much luck with that anyway, for an example check out this story.)

However, when the thought struck, it took two days and two films about cross addiction before I told someone that I thought weed might be a good alternative. (I snitched on me.) I’m not sure how long they laughed. But I remember the statement, “a drug, is a drug, is a drug,” being the one thought I could hold on to after the conversation.

Had I not snitched and kept that thought circling somewhere in my mind, who knows what might have happened when I was freed from treatment.

My best thinking led to constant drinking, an open door and detox bed at rehab, and thankfully alcoholics anonymous. The toy factory between my ears can take a completely insane idea and make it seem rational if I don’t check in with someone else. One of my wife’s favorite statements, “If I have a good idea, I need to get a second opinion,” always seems to be true for me.

In early sobriety, especially, but even now, I can have a completely irrational thought crop up and for some reason, I just can’t escape the feeling that I’m correct. And, I can continue my line of thinking until I run into some pretty harsh consequences, if I’m not careful. The solution, as always, is to snitch on myself to my sponsor or another alcoholic. My closest brush with relapse came from what seemed to be a rational solution. You can decide how rational by reading my post, “Chemical Free… .”

The way I go about snitching on me varies. Sometimes, I just ask a friend if I can run an idea I have by him. Other times, I begin with a vague statement about a “friend” who thinks something may be a good idea. When I manage to catch the crazy on my own, I still tell someone. That conversation usually begins with the phrase, “this is how sick I am… .” Whatever approach I take, I often can see the character defect that caused the flawed thinking waving back at me with a smile.

I know I’m not alone in this type of thinking. A friend of mine often shares a story of walking through a local mall and seeing a beautiful woman walking toward him. In his mind, she has noticed him, and she thinks he is husband material. In a matter of a few steps, he is already in love and picking out their children’s names.

Then, she waves, a sure sign that she shares the same thoughts and feelings. As he is working through the first words he will say to his future wife, a guy who is walking behind him calls out to the woman. The two of them, walk into a store, leaving my friend standing alone and “heart broken.” My friend uses this story to explain magical thinking in early sobriety. For me, the magical thinking continues for years.

When I was fresh out of rehab, I decided it would be an excellent idea to buy some land that I neither had the money, or job, to pay for. I kept this little pearl of an idea far away from any alcoholic who could burst this bubble. Fortunately, my parents bailed their 43-year-old son out and let him keep the property. The idea was to build an escape where I could exist away from the pressures of the world, which at that time, would have been lessened by a job and money.

Over the years, that idea and that property have morphed into several bouts of magical thinking. Not all of them bad, but so far, all of them unrealistic. Once, I decided that I would buy a bunch of solar panels and rig the one-room brick house on the property as an off-the-grid hermitage, and I would live off the land by having a garden. Not impossible. Just not possible for me. I shared this idea with another alcoholic who asked, “How are you going to buy clothes?” The thought had never occurred to me, and gardening naked in the land of yellow flies and mosquitoes does not seem sane. Ditch averted.

Another thought that surfaced was to put several tiny houses on the property and rent them out for people who want to go glamping in the woods. I don’t have the funds to create such, and would not be able to manage it, but it seemed like a perfect new source of income in my imagination. Fortunately, I didn’t break ground on that project. I snitched on myself to a friend, and he pointed out that cleaning up after guests might be more than a full-time job. Ditch averted.

My current thought is to build a house there. This idea, more than the others, seems plausible, even though my idea of a house is more like a fenced-in mansion. Scale aside, in my brain it is the perfect situation. Plenty of room for the dogs to run, an escape from students of any kind, just kind of an idyllic place of peace.

Considering I have never managed to find the time to camp on the property, I’m not sure why I think living there will be such a great idea. Still, that’s the one I have. And, every time, I start thinking of pushing money toward it, I check in with someone, most often my wife, and discover I have a whole host of things that need attention at our house now. So the dream, if that it is what it is, or the still crazy thought, languishes for another day. Not in the ditch, but definitely testing the edges.

Perhaps, sometime soon, I’ll give up on the dream all together and sell the property to someone who is ready to build a home with plenty of space. Maybe, my wife and I will be able to finance a build and move there at some point so hanging on to it is not the worst plan. Land values are continuing to increase so in a way the land is a savings account of sorts. (If you can see the ditch ahead, tell me.)

Still, whenever I start daydreaming, I remember to share what I conjure up with someone. It may be an absolutely, brilliant idea. That has happened, occasionally.

I just want to make sure that what I have circling in my head is not the first step to a relapse. Those thoughts disguise themselves in what appears to be rational thought. More than once, I have taken three ibuprofen for muscle pain (because that will really knock it out) when two would have worked just fine. I have no illusion that I won’t create a hazardous situation for myself. I am the only person who I know that will actually try to kill me. The place where I ended my last bout with drinking is as far as I want to push it.

As I have stayed sober, my thinking has slowly become less fantastical. In truth, I miss my pink-cloud days when the world seemed within reach. When I knew, without doubt, I could earn a multi-million dollar salary running a company I had never heard of. (You can read more about that here.) I know reality is better, but I miss it sometimes. The crazy thoughts I had seemed rational and do-able. That’s why I stay on guard against myself today.

When I come up with an idea that seems too good to be true. I know it is time to be a snitch. So ask me and I will tell you. I’m a snitch. I’ll admit it, and I’m not afraid of the repercussions. And, if I keep that up, the car will stay on the road of recovery and out of the ditches.

Thanks for reading! Please like, share, and comment below.