Mrs. MoM and I have been watching our way through the classic sitcom Cheers. If you haven’t seen the show, go and watch it. It’s one of the all time greats, for sure. Those of you who have watched will know that one of the trademarks of the show were the one-liners from Norm when he came into the bar. Pretty much every episode had one. They would go something like this:

Door opens. Norm walks in. Whole bar yells “Norm!”. Then as he makes his way to his usual spot at the end of the bar one of the bar tenders will ask him a question, to which he gives a pithy reply. One of my favorites happened as we watched last night.

Coach: “What can I do for you, Norm?”

Norm: “I need something to kill time before my second beer. How about a first one?”

The reason that the “Normisms” became so popular is that they were relatable. I haven’t met all of you, but I would feel safe in wagering that we have all experienced a kind of anticipatory excitement and something in our lives that has become routine. We look forward to the thing that we all expect. In over 200 episodes of Cheers I never remember Norm ordering anything other than beer. Yet they always checked to see what it would be for him that night.

My local Starbucks knows that I always get a short dark roast coffee to start the day, followed by a refill of the same, then Earl Grey tea with one bag and one stevia to finish my mornings. We don’t really need to say much, because it’s the way it always is. But there is an anticipation about that morning cup. I am certainly no “morning person”, but today I was up an hour before my alarm and got out of bed just to come down and participate in the ritual.

In the depths of my addiction I always looked forward to my “next”. I pushed through the boring stuff of life so that I could get to what I was craving. Even when it gave me no joy, I needed to get from here to there.

Now it’s my meetings that I crave. I know that no matter how bad the day is treating me, by the time I’m wrapping up a CR meeting I will be in a better mood. Even when life treats me, as Norm once said, “Like it caught me in bed with its wife” I can count on being with my Forever Family at a meeting to settle things down in my heart and mind.

So find a meeting in your own town. Make it the place where everybody knows your name. Grab a seat and…

–Rise Up!!