Relationships can be volatile for those of us in recovery. This came up yesterday when a TLC client was rejected by woman in whom he was interested. I didn't realize how infatuated he was until he told me she wouldn't date him. He was upset.

I warn our clients that relationships can endanger our sobriety. I share my experience. After I was sober three years I married a longtime friend and ruined a good friendship. I didn't let the divorce some nine years later tip me over. I didn't want to drink or use drugs. But I dealt with anger and resentment and spent time with my sponsor sorting out my feelings.

I tell those in my groups that we take risks when we marry. If we think about it, 50% of "normies" who marry eventually divorce. Based on these numbers, how can people in recovery – who seem to have so many issues – expect to do better?

It seems prudent that those of us in recovery contemplating relationships should be as logical and rational as possible. Sometimes we are so blinded by emotion and infatuation we throw good sense out the window. And I'm not sure this is characteristic of just young people in new recovery. I myself have been swept up in the emotion of a new relationship – and here I am a senior citizen with over 20 years sober. The chemistry of love can sweep us away in a tsunami of emotion that is almost overwhelming.

I haven't heard from this client today and hope he's all right. He has the intellectual and book knowledge about what to do. However, because he’s relatively volatile and emotional, he may act on his feelings. If that happens he may become angry and pick up a bottle unless he gets with his sponsor and deals with this issue.

There's a good reason sponsors and others who've been sober for a while recommend we wait at least a year before we make major changes in our lives.

I received a text message yesterday from a friend who'd lost a close relative. He was upset of course, but was reaching out to others in recovery for support. The relative, a cousin, was only 34 years old. His death from natural causes was unexpected and the family was immersed in grief.

Members of the Fellowship reached out to support him. He has several people with whom he communicates regularly, the topic usually being about recovery and living a day at a time. I did my part, telling him to call if he needed to talk.

This incident illustrates what happens over and over in the 12 step programs. Because the Fellowship is a network, a large extended family, members support each other whenever help is needed. It doesn't make any difference what kind of challenges a member of the Fellowship faces. Someone will step up and hold out a hand.

When I lost my aunt in May of 2006, within fifteen minutes there were several people in my living room. I was surrounded by loving friends who were in recovery who understood my vulnerability. It wasn't anything they said that is memorable. It was just that they were there to provide a safety net, emotional support in a time of pain and loss.

This is what we do in the 12 step programs.

I went to a meeting this morning and left feeling very good. The person who gave the lead had been sober for some 36 years. He'd been active in recovery all that time. His presence at the podium cast an aura of spirituality over the room. Many of the men present were born long after he had first gotten sober. Some were in their late teens and early 20s.

But the concepts he shared had nothing to do with their youth or his length of sobriety. The concepts he shared at the podium were those forged by the founders of the program back in the 1930s. He talked about the idea that we are people who can't drink like others. When we take that first drink bad things start to happen. In the 20 minutes allotted him, he led the audience through his drinking history up to the way his life is at present.

What he said was important because it showed us the program works. Sometimes the disease of alcoholism tells us nothing works. But when we can see real living human examples around us who have many years of sobriety then we know it works.

I thank the speaker for taking the time to let us know how it works.

The mother's voice was filled with sadness. She didn't know what to do about her son. He'd been drinking for a period of time and she wanted to help. However, she wasn't sure what she should do to help him. She didn't have money for treatment and neither did he. When she found our program on the Internet she couldn't believe he could get in with no money and live with us for $110 a week. So she called to verify what she had read.

We talked for several minutes and I assured her that everything she'd read on our website was true. Her son could come in without money. Yes, we would help him find work. And yes, there were jobs available in Arizona if one were diligent about a job search. She was relieved to find resources available for her son. But finally I had to ask her a question:

"If you don't mind me asking, ma'am," I said, "How old is your son?"

"He's 50," she replied. I was surprised. He'd called me earlier and for some reason I didn't think of him as being 50. He sounded healthy and energetic. His thinking processes were clear and he made sense.

This exchange illustrates what many parents face, especially those with no experience with substance abuse or alcoholism. The disease is baffling. Parents love their children and want the best for them. Sometimes their idea of help includes providing money for alcohol or drugs. The children will convince them that they’ll go through withdrawals or pain if they don't have drugs or alcohol. So the parents show love the only way they know how. And we addicts know how to play on the emotions of others and do so freely. And it's not even evil on our part. Our disease compels us to do whatever we can to maintain our addictions.

I spent time on the phone with this mother, reassuring her the son could get help and get sober. I suggested that she use "tough love" with him. She could tell him that she would help him with the caveat that this would be the last time. She should tell him she loves him, but that she's not going to watch him kill himself. She will support his recovery efforts, but won't help him continue drinking or using drugs. While my recommendation seemed harsh to her, she said others told her the same thing.

Hopefully this man will get sober one of these days, perhaps even in our program, and enter a new life.

We recently did an intake on a man who attempted suicide a few years ago while in our program. He survived the attempt and we heard he was placed in a psychiatric unit at the hospital after his injuries were treated. Then we lost track of him. For all we knew, the man was still in the hospital.

One of those who did the intake said when he returned he not only had the scars from the suicide attempt, but he also had lost one eye. The injury apparently had occurred during a street brawl while he was drinking or drugging.

When we heard of his return it reminded all of us one more time of the things that can befall us until we finally get clean and sober. True,life happens to us all. We have accidents, we might be assaulted, we fall ill, lose jobs, or get divorced. But these things seem to happen to those of us who are drinking or drugging more often than it happens to those living a so-called "normal" life. Hummm...

If this man stays in our program he's going to have to start dealing with the real issues in his life. While none of us at TLC are psychiatrists or psychologists, one thing we have observed is that those who work 12 step programs don't often try to take their own lives.

Working the 12 steps seems to help those who have tried to run away from the issues in their life. In the rooms we hear stories of those who wanted to take their own lives. And we hear from those who made the attempt and failed. Many say they came back to the program with the realization that they couldn't do anything right, even kill themselves. But from there many have rebuilt their lives and found support in the Fellowship of the 12 step programs.

One of the major issues we deal with as addicts and alcoholics, I believe, is self-esteem. When we were in the midst of our disease using drugs and drinking, being irresponsible, we trashed our self-esteem.

Self-esteem is one of the issues we often deal with in our aftercare group. A lot of those in the group have developed a kind of false pride that makes them defensive. They often have an inflated ego, but little or no self-esteem. They have done little in life to feel good about. They often feel they are under attack.

I explain that we start building self esteem by the little things we do in our daily lives. For that reason we begin by asking new arrivals, once they're free of the shakes and the nervousness of their first week of sobriety, to start making their bed, washing their clothes, and paying attention to their grooming. I believe these small actions are the building blocks of developing self-esteem. As the days move on we start encouraging people to seek employment, to show up on time for their jobs at TLC, and to start being responsible. Often, for addicts and alcoholics who have lived in the midst of their disease for years it is quite accomplishment to simply follow the same routine each day.

As Nathaniel Branden describes so eloquently in the "Psychology of Self-esteem" human beings must realize they have a right to happiness. For us addicts and alcoholics happiness is sometimes a dim light at the end of a very long tunnel. We've been unhappy for so long we might be afraid to live in happiness because it would be so painful to have it disappear. Many times when I ask addicts to remember when they were the happiest they talk about when they were children. Very few can recall when they recently were happy.

A sign of growing self-esteem is when those in our program start reaching out to help others. At first, many of them don't believe they have anything to give. But I point out to them if they’ve been in our program for 2 to 3 weeks or longer they have something to give to the new man or woman who walks through the door. It may not be anything material. But it could be something as wonderful as a hello, and encouragement that they'll be able to stay clean and sober they just don't run away. Many of them say helping others makes them feel worthwhile.

Self esteem starts with little things.

The speaker who qualified at Sunday's meeting said one of the most important things the newcomer could do is to find similarities between him and the others at the meeting. He said when he first got sober he paid attention to how he was different from others in the rooms. He said it’s important to realize we’re at meetings because we have a problem with alcohol or drugs. Everyone, he said, has differences in their backgrounds, education, or ethnicity. But none of those things is as relevant as the fact of the disease brought us to the room.

I was like the speaker. When I first started trying to get sober some 25 years ago I recall going to a meeting where many of those attending were unemployed. At the time it was nearly impossible for me to quit drinking. I was drinking every day. I drank when I got out of bed. I drank when I awoke in the middle of the night. No matter how much effort I made, I couldn't stop. Yet I had the ego or the false pride to look at myself as different from the others in the meeting. And the only reason I did that was because I had a job and they didn’t.

This kind of discrimination, separating myself from others for whatever reason,will keep me sick. My brother, who died of this disease, would say "I'm not like these other guys. I had a job. I had a car." The reality is that my brother was as bad or worse as anyone I've met in Alcoholics Anonymous. And immediately before he got sober, he was homeless and had nowhere to go. He was so entrenched in his disease that six months after he left the halfway house he died of complications of alcoholism. Would he have died anyway? I don't know. But I do know he would have had a better chance to survive whatever was going on with him had he been sober. He looked at the differences between himself and the others at the meeting.

One of the insidious aspects of our disease is it is lying in wait to kill us. And part of the process of it wanting to kill us is it tells us "you're not so bad. You're not like those other guys. You can handle your booze." We must override and fight this with every ounce of our ability. We must look to the banker, to the labor, to the illiterate, to the illegal alien who doesn't speak our language, as members of the group who are there for the same reasons. They are our saviors because they might tell a story or share an experience that will make us realize the severity of our disease.

I thank them for being there. One of the "different" members of that group might have saved my life today.