In September 2014, I was diagnosed with stage three cancer, and by the time I was done with two major surgeries and four rounds of intense chemo, my brain was fried. I couldn’t concentrate and was full of fog if I tried. I was starting to work part-time and couldn’t do much before feeling a lot of fatigue. There was one point where they thought the cancer had gotten into my liver, and if that was the case, I didn’t have long for this world. The good news was that it hadn’t gotten into my liver, so I was just done and now supposed to return to my old life.
In 2016 I decided I needed to get into a creative practice that would allow me to pull back the heavy drapes of fog that obscured my brain and do a humorous meditation every day for 365 days. I spent every day typing up a fake funny meditation in the form of the stereotypical meditation books published by Hasleden. I took my experience with self-help, recovery, and spirituality and created Cracked Pot Meditations.
Many of these posts were done at three o’clock in the morning after coming home from a truck stop diner that was the home of the meeting after the late night meeting, and I was lying on my back typing it up and positions without any editing. Some of the posts are just poorly written. I give myself a break because I was recovering from a traumatic medical experience that robbed me of my cognitive thinking and creativity.
The Sober Horoscope has become one of my most popular posts ever. I made them based on people having a sign for what zodiac season they got sober and how that would rule their sobriety and recovery. Again, it was haphazardly and rushed, so I could have done better work.
I am returning to the Sober Horoscope again but with more editing and more information. Since it is now October 23rd, we are now in reach of the scorpion stinger, the Sober Scorpio. Let’s meet the most mysterious of the sober horoscopes.
The Sober Scorpio
(October 23rd – November 21st)
Experience
No one knows why someone gets sober during this time frame. They just appear one day. They are just suddenly in your meeting, raising their hand and sober. You can’t tell if they came in alone or from an institution. They aren’t shy, but they aren’t giving you any information, and you can’t glean anything from how they look or act.
You may even develop a theory, but that is when they give you just enough info to let you know you were way off base.
Strength
So now you have this Sober Scorpio that is always around, at least at first. You will show up places, and they will be there. Sometimes, how they learned about some functions will be a mystery, but they just know and are always there. Sometimes, they are just in your peripheral vision, but when you turn to look, they aren’t there anymore.
They are now in a relationship, and they are just gone. You can’t even remember their name or appearance; you just have this blurry, pixelated form in your memories. It will seep into the part of the brain that can’t be recalled until they are suddenly at the meeting, and they don’t need to be caught up with anything; they just know what’s going on. Other people seem stoked to see them, but you are just not sure; still, they were a specter when they were first around, and then they became a ghost, but a ghost that kept their finger on the pulse of the AA gossip and rumors.
Hope
The Sober Scorpio will come back now and then until they are single again, and then they are just there again all the time. They act like no time has passed between the first time they were just around all the time and now, but you don’t know this specter; they are just haunting you at every meeting you go to and every social event.
Like before, they will just be in your peripheral vision, but other people interact positively with this person. They are invited to everything. You even hear they were at stuff you weren’t invited to. It sits in your gut wrong; why was this nobody at that party and you weren’t?
You see them in peripheral vision, but when you turn to look, they are gone again. Another relationship. They are back to back with their partner, just them against the world, and they do that for several years, and again, you just see them once every couple of months, and they know exactly what is going on with you, and you aren’t even friends on Instagram, and you have your Instagram private. They just know stuff.
Relationship
They are always in an entirely codependent relationship. They don’t feel love unless thoroughly entangled with the other person. They must have all the person’s attention; even a sick grandma competes with the Sober Scorpio. They will feel threatened if their partner has a job and even worse if there are coworkers.
Once a relationship ends, they return to where they can land as softly as possible: Alcoholics Anonymous. Unless that is where their partner is, then their partner can have AA, and they will just sit in their house watching ESPN Sportcenter or Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
Career
All Sober Scorpios are cops. Ask them; they have to tell you.
Scorpio Pitfall
The Scorpio will relapse because they will have been in a relationship with a person who likes to party and, after not going to any meetings for about eight months, will wake up on the opposite side of the bed, somehow staring at their partner’s line of cocaine that they left out the night before and without thinking twice about it, put a finger on one of their nostrils and SSSSSXXXXXXXZZZZZNNNNNNRRRRRRRTTTTT…