All-Time Favorite Songs: Just Wait
This first installment of a new series covers a song that carried me in my early sobriety
Way back in March 2021 while listening to a track from Dummy, Portishead's brilliant 1994 debut album, I realized that the track was actually one of my favorite songs of all time. In one of my typical ADHD bursts of “inspiration”, the likes of which would often randomly (absolutely randomly, I insist!) just happen to occur in the middle of a work day, I decided that a playlist was required to memorialize the occasion. My absolute favorite song of all time, which shall remain nameless for now (no spoilers, though I've mentioned it before in this space) was the obvious second addition to the playlist. And with that, I was off and running! By the end of the day, I'd added six more tracks, and the playlist would be up to 29 tracks by the end of April. While the playlist eventually grew to 37 tracks, some tough but judicious pruning has brought it back down to its current total of 33 tracks. Although I expect that additional songs will end up making their way onto the playlist, no new additions have been made since September 2021.
At the end of 2024, with the Alphabet Soup weekly series coming to a close, I had a lot of ideas about where I wanted to take Joy in the Journey in 2025. As most readers will know, 2025 has already been a busy year for me, what with the house hunting, the house purchase and the house set up, along with the seven weeks of hiking I managed to squeeze in along the way. Now that things have just about settled down, I finally feel like I'm in a position to begin launching some of the series that I'd hoped would arrive this year. And My All-Time Favorite Songs series is the first! My hope is that this will be a weekly series, but I'm not 100% sure yet on the frequency as I also have a couple other series in the works as well as some longer-form posts I'm working on. The Lost in Translation series will shortly be coming to a close after a successful 20-week run, which will free up some writing time. I’m excited to see what the rest of the year will bring!
Each installment of this series will include a discussion of the chosen song, touching on the album and the band, and an explanation of why it's a favorite.
The Song: "Just Wait" by Blues Traveler
Originating as a group of friends jamming in a garage in Princeton, New Jersey in the 1980s, the American jam/rock band Blues Traveler has now released a total of sixteen albums. While the 1990 single “But Anyway” (from the self-titled debut album) did see significant college radio airplay, the band’s first three releases initially saw limited success, only receiving Gold certification by the RIAA after the success of their fourth album. That album, the aptly named four, released in 1994, peaked at number 8 on the Billboard 200 and went on to sell over 6 million copies. The album’s popularity was anchored by a pair of successful singles, the Grammy-winning “Run-Around”, which peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and “Hook”, which made it to number 23. The follow-up album, 1997’s Straight on Until Morning would peak at number 11 and achieve Gold status. While the band is still recording and continues to tour regularly, only three of the eleven albums released since 1997 have made the top 200.
Today’s track, “Just Wait”, was never released as a single but, with over 4 million streams on Spotify, it’s the fourth most played track on the album after the three singles (“Run-Around” at 169m streams, “Hook” at 131m streams and “The Mountains Win Again” at 16m streams).
Please feel free to share the Joy with anyone else you know that loves music! Because, after all, sharing is caring, right?
Why It’s a Favorite
Yesterday, on June 20, 2025, I celebrated 31 years clean and sober. Back in June of 1994, when I finally surrendered and accepted my powerlessness over alcohol and drugs, and the unmanageability in my life, I had no clue that I could ever possibly have the amazing life that I’m living today. At that point, I’d reached my rock bottom, the “jumping off place” described in one of the foundational texts of my recovery program: “He cannot picture life without alcohol. Some day he will be unable to imagine life either with alcohol or without it. Then he will know loneliness such as few do. He will be at the jumping-off place. He will wish for the end.” To be quite frank, given the sharp downward trajectory of my life over the nine months prior to me getting sober, I don’t believe I would have lived to see my 30th birthday (I was 23 when I got sober). While I consistently managed to show up for my recovery meetings, especially during the first 90 days, I was also supported by a community that wrapped its arms around me and showed me how to stay away from a drink and a drug one day at a time. And then, in the last three months of 1994, I discovered Blues Traveler’s “Just Wait”.
I’d never heard of Blues Traveler prior to the release of four, and I remember purchasing it on the back of the two hit singles mentioned above (I’d later add their first three albums to my collection). With its release coming in September 1994, less than three months after I got sober, the timing was impeccable. I remember feeling almost as if this song had been written solely for me (ego much?) and that it not only captured my struggles but also provided some valuable advice.
If ever you are feeling like you’re tired
And all your uphill struggles leave you headed downhill
If you realize your wildest dreams can hurt you
And your appetite for pain is drinkin’ its fill
I ask of you a very simple question
Did you think for one minute that you are alone?
I truly felt SEEN when I heard this opening lyric. Yes, I’m tired! Yes, my appetite for pain is drinkin’ its fill! (I always heard this as “has drinken its fill”, which makes no grammatical sense, but there ya go!). In the next line, when lead singer John Popper goes on to ask, “And is your suffering a privilege you share only?”, I have to admit I copped a bit of an attitude. Fuck, yeah, NOBODY has suffered more than me! My egotistical, arrogant and immature inner voice, possessed of a desire to be seen as somehow special, was indeed convinced of my own terminal uniqueness.
In time you just might take to feeling better
Time is the beauty of the road being long
One of the little sayings I’d hear in my recovery meetings was “time takes time” and the theme of the song, the idea of just waiting, resonates so deeply with that principle. So often I’d hear the phrase, “stick around and become a miracle” and while it all sounds a bit twee, I saw it all around me. People that I’d come to believe had once been like me had somehow managed to be relieved of the obsession and compulsion for alcohol; they had truly gone through a psychic transformation and were living lives beyond their wildest dreams. But far too often I witnessed the darker side, the inability of people who so desperately wanted sobriety to actually achieve it and hold onto it.
Just wait
Just wait
Just wait
And it will come
When I listen to this song, my mind often drifts back to a particularly heartbreaking loss, one of the many that I’ve sadly witnessed over the past three decades. A young woman who for years had been struggling to get and stay sober finally appeared to have turned a corner. She had managed to string together a solid stretch of sobriety, and her future was looking bright. The last time I saw her she was filled with joy and excitement; within the month she would be heading off to university, an opportunity that she’d long ago closed the door on. As I write this, I’m vividly recalling that last interaction, reminded of her infectious smile and the incessant energy that she always vibrated with. I remember being so excited for her and for this new chapter of her life. Sadly, within months, she relapsed and began drinking again; knowing her as I did, I can only imagine her feelings of disappointing those that loved her. By all accounts, the discussion in which she shared news of her relapse with her family back home went extremely badly. Immediately following that call, in a moment of desperation, perhaps overcome by guilt and shame, she took her own life. God, I wish she’d waited.
Just wait. And it will come.
I’m also reminded of the flip side, the person that so desperately wants sobriety and is unable to achieve it but somehow keeps trying. Someone who I came to know quite well in the late 2010s had been trying to get sober for over twenty years. Despite horrendous consequences, including DUIs, jail time and lost jobs, he just couldn’t string together more than a few weeks or months at a time. Indeed, it took him 21 years to get his first six months of continuous sobriety. But this year, he’ll be celebrating five years of sobriety. I’m just so grateful that the disease of addiction didn’t claim his life before he managed to “get it”.
Just wait. And it will come.
Sadly, those happy endings tend to be the exception rather than the norm and far too often my fellow alcoholics struggle in quiet desperation, unable to drink successfully and unable to get sober. I don’t remember the actual moment at which I was relieved of the desire to drink, simply that at some point it hit me: I can’t remember the last time I wanted a drink. I can confidently say that it’s been decades, and for that I’m eternally grateful. I do continue to stay plugged into my recovery program; despite recovering from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body, I’ll always be an alcoholic. One of the lessons my recovery journey has taught me, a lesson that I’ve managed to apply fairly consistently in most areas of my life, is that effort matters. I may not always achieve what I set out to. At times I’ll fall short, but it’s in those moments that I have a choice: to keep trying or to give up. And when I get to that place, the last two lines of “Just Wait” are always there for me to draw upon:
There's no such thing as a failure who keeps trying
Coasting to the bottom is the only disgrace
I’m only human, so of course there are times when I stop trying; that’s just part of the human condition. On those days where just getting out of bed and putting one foot in front of the other feels like a struggle, going through the motions is sometimes the best I can hope for. Whether I’m banging my head against a seemingly intractable problem or I’ve fallen short while trying to change a bad habit, there are times when I just need to say I’ll pick it up again tomorrow (or next week). I’ve learned that beating myself over the head with the rod of my own perceived inadequacy just isn’t a successful manner of living. Sometimes I just have to accept that “good enough” is good enough.
I’ll end with this, from another of my recovery texts, “The essence of all growth is a willingness to change for the better and then an unremitting willingness to shoulder whatever responsibility this entails”.
Just wait. And it will come. BUT DO THE WORK!!
If you’re new to Joy in the Journey and like what you’ve read, why not subscribe so that any future posts automagically make their way into your inbox?
Over to you
If you’re still here, thanks for reading and for making it this far! I don’t take that for granted. I’d love to hear your thoughts so please head to the comments and let me know what you think.
Are you a fan of Blues Traveler? Do you have any favorite songs?
Did you know this song?
Do you like it? Love it? Hate it?
Are there any songs that you lean into when times are hard?
Until next time, I hope that life is good to you and that you’re able to find joy in the journey.
Mark, this is one of the most beautiful and powerful posts I’ve read in a long time. There’s a lot to unpack, but let me start by congratulating you on 31 years of sobriety, a birthday truly worth celebrating.
Your post touched me deeply because alcohol, and the way it can quietly take hold of a life, has been on my mind for a long time. I’m a late Baby Boomer, or maybe an early Gen X’er, and in my generation, as well as my parents’, alcohol is deeply normalized, even romanticized. We tell stories of wild nights as if they’re badges of honour. We laugh about summers where no one remembers how the night ended. And most dangerously, we convince ourselves we can still drive after several drinks.
I played along too, until a colleague of mine slipped into a coma after a binge. He made up a story at first, but eventually confided in me. What struck me most was how familiar his road to that moment felt. It made me realise how subtly alcohol, and drugs, can take control of your life before you even notice.
His story has a good ending: he got sober and stayed sober. But it stayed with me.
Ten months ago, my husband Marc also stopped drinking. He’d lost his job and decided to reorient his life completely, going back to school for something entirely new. He wanted to give it everything he had, and that meant getting proper sleep, every night. So, from one day to the next, he stopped drinking.
At first, his plan was to stay sober until the end of his first-year exams. But when we decided to visit his father in Spain over the summer (we are here now), a trip usually full of big family gatherings and lots of wine, he announced he wouldn't restart drinking alcohol. I couldn’t be prouder. And honestly, I’m seriously thinking of following his example.
We were never what you’d call problem drinkers. Weekend evenings, a pre-dinner apéritif, a glass or two of wine at dinner, that was our norm. But during a long stretch at home after Marc lost his job, we noticed how easily that “norm” could slide into something else. And we’ve seen it in our friends and family too, the way alcohol is treated as essential, expected.
Here in Spain, we’ve seen how people react to Marc’s sobriety: surprise, disbelief, even mockery. “Not even one glass?” they ask. “Come on, what harm can it do?” They don’t mean any harm, but it's not ok. Only yesterday, I told him how upsetting it is to watch people you love not fully understand your choice.
As for me, I still drink occasionally, a single glass, and never when it’s just the two of us. But those sober months I’ve tried (during the past year) have shown me how good it feels on the other side: clearer, healthier, lighter. And I’m more convinced than ever that a life without alcohol could be better.
So thank you, Mark. Your post didn’t just resonate, it affirmed what I’ve been feeling. You reminded me that there’s strength in the choice to live differently, and that sharing your story can have a bigger impact than you know.
This was beautiful! First off, huge congratulations on your sobriety anniversary. I can only begin to imagine the amount of passion and hard work you must have put and continue to put into this achievement.
I knew the band but I didn't know the song. I loved the melody, and the timing of those lyrics couldn't have been better for you considering what you were going through at the time.
Thank you for sharing your story and those of others, for opening up in the way you did and for encouraging so many others who may be going through tough times.