Too Much Future
What alcoholism taught me about struggling students
One of the most important things I learned in recovery has nothing to do with alcohol. It has everything to do with middle school.
If you’ve ever worked with a struggling kid, you’ve probably said some version of: “Let’s just focus on today.”
And if you’ve never been the struggling person in the room, that advice can sound ridiculous.
Today?
What about the fifty missing assignments? Graduation? College? What about the fact that your life is currently on fire?
But then I became an alcoholic, and suddenly I understood exactly why today matters.
When my family first confronted me about my drinking, I doubled down. The Backfire Effect in action. The more evidence people presented, the more I defended the thing that was actively destroying me. The more people pushed me to stop, the more impossible stopping felt.
Never drink again?
I remember thinking…Ba ha ha…I can’t even make it through fucking dinner. You want me to imagine the rest of my life?
Looking back, I realize now I wasn’t resisting sobriety. I was resisting impossibility.
We often mistake disbelief for defiance.
But when people cannot imagine success, they don’t usually try harder. They shut down. They detach. They surrender. Or they decide the goal was stupid anyway.
The distance between where they are and where you’re asking them to go feels infinite.
I wasn’t carrying a drinking problem. I was carrying too much future.
Every conversation about recovery felt like a conversation about forever. What about Christmas? Vacation? My daughter’s wedding?
You want me to do this for forty more years? Get the fuck out of here.
I wasn’t thinking about forever because forever wasn’t real to me.
The next hour barely felt real.
Forever wasn’t inspiring. Forever made me want a drink.
After a particularly challenging relapse, I finally called someone that I knew was in AA.
“Can you get a dollar and make it to a meeting?” he said on the other end of the phone.
I remember feeling the relief that this was all I had to do. Just get a dollar and get to a meeting. Ok. But, shit…even that felt impossible. There were so many QTs on the way, and I had figured out how to use credit card apps on my phone without my husband’s knowledge. I had become frighteningly resourceful in service of self-destruction.
He felt the hesitation in my voice immediately. “Okay. Let’s make it smaller. What is the next right thing?”
I was sobbing. “Go to the bathroom.”
“Okay. Can you do that? Can you do that without drinking?”
I chuckled through the tears, thinking about how ridiculous it was that I was even here… getting live-coached on fucking living. Remember when you used to live-coach in the toughest classrooms and were good at it, Jo? For real?
“Yes.”
“What’s the next right thing now?”
“Get dressed.”
“Okay.”
“Can you do that without drinking?”
“Yes.”
“What’s next?”
“Get the dollar.”
“Can you do that without drinking?”
“I think so.”
“Then do that.”
Eventually I got to the meeting and dropped the dollar in the basket.
I sat in a folding chair surrounded by alcoholics and cried through most of the meeting. People smiled. They handed me coffee. They introduced themselves. I barely remember any of it.
All I could think was:
Next right thing.
Next right thing.
Next right thing.
The longer I work with people, the more I think everyone eventually arrives at some version of this moment.
Maybe it isn’t alcohol.
Maybe it’s depression, grief, burnout, a marriage, a diagnosis. Maybe it’s that class that absolutely ate you alive, and now you’re wondering whether you even like kids anymore.
Maybe it’s a seventh grader staring at a blank page.
People see laziness. I don’t.
Sometimes that kid isn’t looking at a blank page. They’re looking at every adult who has ever handed them another blank page.
By the time we hand them today’s assignment, they’re carrying a mountain.
Then we wonder why they won’t pick up the pencil.
I think educators make this mistake all the time. We assume struggling people need a bigger vision. Sometimes they need a smaller one.
We tell kids to think about graduation. We tell teachers to think about the end of the year. We tell ourselves to think about forever.
But struggling people don’t need forever.
They need five minutes. One paragraph. One problem. One class period. One meeting. One dollar. One next right thing.
Looking back, my temporary sponsor wasn’t helping me get sober. He was helping me prove that I could do one thing. Then another. Then another.
Every tiny action became evidence. And evidence slowly became belief.
Sometimes there’s just too much future.
Maybe that’s what “just focus on today” was trying to teach me all along.
Absolutely beautiful, thanks for sharing Jo.
Thank you for sharing, Jo. I was captivated reading this and it made so much sense. 'One next right thing'. Really appreciate this message which applies to every human being but as you so beautifully shared, to each student in front of us.