Think of it as truth in its purest form. I absolutely do not regret getting sober but it took a while to get to that point. For anyone else trying to sober up, the sooner the hard realities of life are accepted, the easier it is to move forward.

I am not sure if you get the underlying joke of the meme, but I’ll explain it for anyone that wants to know.

A common saying in AA (and NA) is that alcoholics have one foot in the future, one foot in the past and are never in the now. According to AA lore, that is one of the primary drivers of the insanity that is alcoholism.

That has a few heavily nested meanings but the one that applies here is that past events, or worrying about the future is the reason we constantly try to escape the anxiety of dealing with those issues now with various chemicals. Once the drugs and alcohol are removed as a crutch, that makes the current moment one of the most difficult and terrifying things to face.

The reality of now is something that recovering alcoholics and addicts must face, one way or another. As life moves forward, recovery gets easier and problems becoming less difficult. With practice, those past problems will almost seem insignificant.

So, the “dark humor” aspect of this is that the issues we thought were huge and potentially life ending are usually not as dire as we thought to begin with. (I am excluding issues that could potentially be life ending, of course.) Most people in recovery can relate to this meme and probably chuckle a little when thinking back on it. ie: “I used to be worried about that trivial shit? Lol!”

After all that is said, it’s a reminder of an accomplishment. It’s also relating to what many people are going through and reminding them that they are not alone. Yes, it can be negative. However, it’s not as anti-sobriety as it seems on the surface.

(There are a million-and-one caveats to what I am saying! This meme can mean many different things to many different people.)