Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Living in Reality

A somewhat familiar voice awakens me with an early morning call. Once the fog clears I recognize the voice. Then he tells me his name and I know who I'm talking to.

He sounds sober, maybe even lucid. But there's only one reason this guy will call me. And that has something to do with drinking or drugs.

Finally I flat out ask him has he been drinking and he says no. He hadn't drank or drugged in some time - according to him.

After a while we get down to what he really called about. Does he want to come back? Does he have something he wants to talk about? And he does. He's sober but not happy.

We start talking about his recovery and how he's not happy even though he's not using.

And I ask him what he expected when he got sober. For everything to be roses and wonderful? I said sobriety is about living in the real world. And that's when he hung up on me.

But what I was telling him about recovery is true. Sometime life sucks even when we think we’re doing everything by the book.

Ask anyone who's never drank or drugged. Life can be a bitch. But they've never used chemicals to block reality.

I only pray that this guy lives long enough to get the reality part of being sober.