In Season 1, Episode 7 of House of Cards, Doug Stamper – one of the central characters, played by Michael Kelly in a pitch perfect performance – attends an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and shares a powerful and very personal message.
His monologue has stayed with me ever since and I often revisit the scene as a reminder to myself, especially when I’m struggling.
Stamper, drawing a parallel between his work in politics and his struggles with alcohol, states:
One of the things I do for a living is count. I count votes. And I’m good at it, but the most important count I do has nothing to do with work. It’s the number of days since April 4, 1999.
As of this morning, that’s 5,185. The bigger that number gets, the more it frightens me, because I know all it takes is one drink to go back to zero.
…if I’m honest, like the fourth step [of Alcoholics Anonymous] asks us to be, I have to be ruthless, because failure is not an option. Like everyone in this room, I can’t control who I am. But I can control the zero. Fuck the zero.
As of this morning, my number is 2,926. At times, that number feels surreal to me, it’s so large.
Just like Stamper, however, “I know all it takes is one drink to go back to zero.” Every day, when I check-in and see the number, I think to myself: Fsck the zero.
In my head, that ‘s’ is a ‘u’, but – for the sake of anyone easily offended (and echoing my username: @fsckthezero) – I use fsck when I’m writing (but that’s yet another story, for another day).
Whatever your number is today, remember: Fsck the zero.
Stay positive and, as we say at r/stopdrinking: I will not drink with you today.
—Chris
💚