Tod MaffinCanadian Commentator, From Far and Wide · Emotional Support Canadian

Sovereignty and Sobriety: Finding Hope in Doom #tradewar #cdnpoli

11 Mar 2025 · 3 min

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2:43

In this spoken monologue, the speaker intertwines a political critique of U.S. influence on Canada—highlighting threats to national sovereignty and the marginalisation of trans people, immigrants, and non‑white, non‑Christian populations—with a deeply personal narrative of alcoholism, loss, and eventual sobriety. The speaker recounts a childhood fantasy of living in a tiny cement room as a metaphor for isolation and safety, then describes the descent into addiction, the collapse of marriage, job, and finances, and the subsequent journey through residential treatment to sustained recovery. Drawing on the Serenity Prayer, the speaker outlines actionable coping strategies: limiting news consumption, establishing daily routines, small self‑care actions, and reaching out to friends. The monologue also explores the concept of “doom” as an isolating, future‑oriented force, urging listeners to create moments of music, laughter, and kindness, and to view walls as opportunities for doors and windows. The overall message is one of cautious optimism: dark times are temporary, change is possible one day at a time, and both the speaker and the audience have survived countless bad days.

Chapters

The US is crippling Canada's economy, threatening our sovereignty, not to mention the wholesale erasure of its trans people and immigrants and everyone who's not a Christian white male. I'm with you. Things are getting dark. When I was a kid, I used to have this fantasy that I'd live in a tiny cement room, no higher than I could reach up and no wider than my arms could touch, and there'd be a chair and there'd be a TV, and 3 times a day someone would slide food under the door. Later in life, when I told people about this— therapists, uh, mostly— they'd always say the same thing: "That sounds like a prison." And I could see how it does, but to me it was a place I could go without anyone touching me. Years later, I developed an addiction to alcohol. I lost my marriage, my job, my house, most of my life savings. Nearly my life. I spent months in residential treatment, and after a lot of false starts, I eventually got sober. In recovery communities, sometimes we say the Serenity Prayer. It goes like this: Grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. So let's look at the things we can change. We can limit news consumption. We can make a daily routine to make things feel more stable. Small actions like drinking water, stretching, and sending a message to a friend. And we can remember that we made it through every other bad day in our lives. I've had a thousand bad days, really bad days, and I made it through all of them. And you did too. My first few days without alcohol were terrible. I felt like I was drowning in doom. But here's what I learned about doom. Doom loves isolation. Doom lives in an imagined future, not the present. Doom wants you to believe that there is nothing good left, even though there clearly is. Music, laughter, kindness. If you can't find them, create them. Dark times don't last. The world turns, seasons change, and so do you. I've been thinking about that cement room of my childhood lately, because the world's been feeling like a collapsing box these days, squeezing in from all sides. But walls are just walls. We can carve doors. We can make windows. We can step outside. One day at a time.