Continued From Part 1 – A Call to Be Answered
As I sat there in the dark, chilled from the news on the phone and quaking from the cool night air, my east coast phone caller’s voice gave me the grave details. I listened, hanging on each word. Memories of my friend, Nick, like snapshots fallen from a photo album across the floor litter my mind’s eye. Outside, the dark night pressed against the picture window, the world beyond seemingly obliterated. I felt alone, sad for my friend of nearly twenty-five years.
I work within an alcohol and drug abuse treatment facility, so you would think news like this rather usual, and somewhat easy to take. It’s not though. Especially when it’s someone who has inspired me throughout my sobriety, someone who was there for me when I was at a low point, and someone who would call me during said low-point and coax me to a meeting. “I don’t need to get to a meeting,” I would retort. “I don’t need to go and complain about my life to a bunch of people, most of them who I don’t even know.”
Nick would respond with silence, a silence that was nearly deafening. But, I was resolute in my stance. I wasn’t going to go to meetings again. Of course I did, but it took me a while. Hmm…a stubborn addict? Me? Yes.
I used to go all the time, then that tapered off a bit over the a few years, and then I sort of stopped going all together. I’d graduated from the ‘program,’ I’d finished the steps, I’d ‘flipped the tassel’ on my graduation cap. I was surely ready to do it on my own now! It wasn’t easy. I became a big ball of anger and fury, and for all intents and purposes I might as well have been using alcohol and drugs. My peace and serenity were gone, but I at the time was clueless to this fact.
Nick, stayed with me for years. He didn’t bug me about meetings, but he stayed in touch. Eventually, he was the only sober person I knew. My sober world was almost non-existent.
Check out Part 3 at: How Long is Too Long