Struggling with Recovery

While at a restaurant the other day I encountered a man I'd met in treatment over 20 years ago.

After we shook hands I told him I'd been sober going on 22 years and told him about my new marriage, about TLC, and how life had changed since 1991.

Then, as is customary in such exchanges, I waited for him to tell me what had been going on with him. Finally, he said "I haven't used for two weeks now."

I was kind of at a loss for words. Then he went on to tell me that he'd been in and out of recovery since we'd met over two decades ago. He told me of divorces, domestic violence, of business ups and downs.

Before we parted I gave him my card and offered my help.

As I left the parking lot I had gratitude for my recovery. While it's none of my business what others do with their lives, whether they get sober or not, there was a reason this man was in the same treatment program I was over 20 years ago. Whether he was there for himself, his probation officer, or his wife, his presence there said that he was having a struggle with his addiction.

I reflected for a moment that it's strange how some of us are able to stay sober. And others, with good intentions, spend years on the periphery of recovery, never quite getting the message. While I have some ideas of what he could do to change, I also know he has as much information about recovery as I do.

It took enough pain to make me willing. Maybe the same thing will happen to him.