Chapter 29
Do you want to talk about that?
Adam just stood over me and he had a little bit of a smirk on his face. He has this way of calming you. I feel like he really knows what I am going through.
Why did you get in his face, Steve? I know that he said some stupid shit but come on. He is not even all there.
I don't know. I guess it has all just been building up inside of me. I just exploded.
Yeah, no shit. That can't happen again.
It won't.
Just make sure that when you get out of here you find a sponsor and you really work this program. Work it. I want to get a call from you in a year and hear that you are clean and sober.
I can tell he really means that. As he walks away I hear him laugh a little. I have to ask him.
What's so funny man?
He just keeps walking and laughing. Shaking his head, I hear him faintly say, "Tough guy."
I have a good laugh at my own expense.
*************************************
Most of my small group is smoking up a storm in the courtyard when I walk out. Most all of them laugh at me.
Damn Dude, I thought you were gonna kill him!
With each comment I feel worse for what I did. I feel that guilt build in me. That familiar "Man I wish I hadn't done that" feeling. I am so use to just suppressing that guilt with chemicals. Have to find another way.
I see him and I know that I have to tell him I am sorry.
He is sitting at one of the picnic tables.
Alone.
Hey man, I am really sorry for that shit I just pulled.
I didn't mean to say that. I just didn't think.
It's cool. I just hate talking about what I went through and when you laughed I just snapped.
Sorry.
So am I.
We talk for a while and he tells me he is a pill junkie. He is here to get detoxed and do a 28 day run before he has to do some time in jail for B and E on a drug store. When they caught him coming out of the pharmacy he had a pillowcase full of pills. Most of us had already heard this story second hand. I am amazed that it is actually true.
Addiction makes you do crazy things.
Like every single one of us, he is just scared. Scared to be here. Scared about what the future holds.
Scared of what we have become.
***********************************
It is lunch time when I walk past the phones.
I check the chalkboard and I see my name.
Steve S. Krista called
I want to call her back. I really do. Right now lunch sure seems like it is a whole lot healthier for me.
I check my mail and I have letters. I have gotten cards and letters from all of my family. Every Aunt, Every Uncle... everyone. There is so many people in here that have lost everything, family included.
Mine has rallied around me. It is what keeps me going right now.
I put the letters in my pocket. I save the reading until I get back to my room because every one of them makes me cry. They all say how much I am loved. They all tell me how wonderful they think I am.
Sometimes it's a little tough to swallow.
*********************************************
We have an AA meeting in rehab tonight. It is a big mandatory meeting with everyone attending.
Cozmo and I have been playing cribbage. This is one of my favorite games and he had never played before. With so much going on inside of you it is a nice distraction. We play every night.
We are a little late for the meeting and the only place to sit is right up front. We have to do the walk of shame and pretty much interrupt the meeting.
Erroll gives us both "the look".
Rehab Natzi.
The meeting is a speaker meeting. A speaker meeting isn't a regular meeting. There is someone there to tell you their story.
Experience, strength and hope.
Tonight it was multiple speakers. Three of them.
We sit and listen to the first two and they have good stories. The first guy has about five years sober time. He talks about lost jobs and lost love, staples in the lush community.
The next speaker is a woman. She tells her story as a drunk stay at home Mom. She has been sober seven years.
The last speaker is a man named Dale.
He is a little old man in is 70's. He opts to stay seated while he tells his story.
Something about Dale just draws me in. I want to know his story.
When he says that he has been sober for over 40 years I just can't believe it. My first thought is what the hell are you still doing in an AA meeting?
Dale tells his story of being a drunk, an honest to goodness drunk. His story is painful. His story is beautiful. A part of myself is in that same story.
He is a soft spoken man.
He talks about his first meeting of Alcoholic's Anonymous and the first sponsor he ever had. The fact that someone wanted to help out a drunk like him and wanted nothing at all in return.
and then Dale cried.
He cried because he was thankful.
After 40 years, this story still made him cry.
I was more overwhelmed at that moment than any other. It hit me.
I want what this guy has. I want to be able to cry 40 years down the line when I think about how thankful I am to have been given a shot at living clean and sober. Dale has been going to meetings for 40 years and sharing his life, his heartbreak, his triumph.
His experience.
His strength.
His hope.
He finished by thanking God. He thanked God for accepting a drunk like himself.
He wipes his tears and says
and that's all I gotta say about that.
The room was in tears. It was the most powerful thing I had seen.
The meeting ended and we all just walked outside to smoke in silence. Cozmo just looked at me and shook his head like he couldn't even come up with words to explain what he felt.
He didn't have to.
The power of God working through someone to touch the lives of others.
To touch all of us.
To touch me.
Jerrod walked up to me in complete tears.
Please pray with me. Please...
at that moment I can't think of anything else in the world I would rather do.
Adam just stood over me and he had a little bit of a smirk on his face. He has this way of calming you. I feel like he really knows what I am going through.
Why did you get in his face, Steve? I know that he said some stupid shit but come on. He is not even all there.
I don't know. I guess it has all just been building up inside of me. I just exploded.
Yeah, no shit. That can't happen again.
It won't.
Just make sure that when you get out of here you find a sponsor and you really work this program. Work it. I want to get a call from you in a year and hear that you are clean and sober.
I can tell he really means that. As he walks away I hear him laugh a little. I have to ask him.
What's so funny man?
He just keeps walking and laughing. Shaking his head, I hear him faintly say, "Tough guy."
I have a good laugh at my own expense.
*************************************
Most of my small group is smoking up a storm in the courtyard when I walk out. Most all of them laugh at me.
Damn Dude, I thought you were gonna kill him!
With each comment I feel worse for what I did. I feel that guilt build in me. That familiar "Man I wish I hadn't done that" feeling. I am so use to just suppressing that guilt with chemicals. Have to find another way.
I see him and I know that I have to tell him I am sorry.
He is sitting at one of the picnic tables.
Alone.
Hey man, I am really sorry for that shit I just pulled.
I didn't mean to say that. I just didn't think.
It's cool. I just hate talking about what I went through and when you laughed I just snapped.
Sorry.
So am I.
We talk for a while and he tells me he is a pill junkie. He is here to get detoxed and do a 28 day run before he has to do some time in jail for B and E on a drug store. When they caught him coming out of the pharmacy he had a pillowcase full of pills. Most of us had already heard this story second hand. I am amazed that it is actually true.
Addiction makes you do crazy things.
Like every single one of us, he is just scared. Scared to be here. Scared about what the future holds.
Scared of what we have become.
***********************************
It is lunch time when I walk past the phones.
I check the chalkboard and I see my name.
Steve S. Krista called
I want to call her back. I really do. Right now lunch sure seems like it is a whole lot healthier for me.
I check my mail and I have letters. I have gotten cards and letters from all of my family. Every Aunt, Every Uncle... everyone. There is so many people in here that have lost everything, family included.
Mine has rallied around me. It is what keeps me going right now.
I put the letters in my pocket. I save the reading until I get back to my room because every one of them makes me cry. They all say how much I am loved. They all tell me how wonderful they think I am.
Sometimes it's a little tough to swallow.
*********************************************
We have an AA meeting in rehab tonight. It is a big mandatory meeting with everyone attending.
Cozmo and I have been playing cribbage. This is one of my favorite games and he had never played before. With so much going on inside of you it is a nice distraction. We play every night.
We are a little late for the meeting and the only place to sit is right up front. We have to do the walk of shame and pretty much interrupt the meeting.
Erroll gives us both "the look".
Rehab Natzi.
The meeting is a speaker meeting. A speaker meeting isn't a regular meeting. There is someone there to tell you their story.
Experience, strength and hope.
Tonight it was multiple speakers. Three of them.
We sit and listen to the first two and they have good stories. The first guy has about five years sober time. He talks about lost jobs and lost love, staples in the lush community.
The next speaker is a woman. She tells her story as a drunk stay at home Mom. She has been sober seven years.
The last speaker is a man named Dale.
He is a little old man in is 70's. He opts to stay seated while he tells his story.
Something about Dale just draws me in. I want to know his story.
When he says that he has been sober for over 40 years I just can't believe it. My first thought is what the hell are you still doing in an AA meeting?
Dale tells his story of being a drunk, an honest to goodness drunk. His story is painful. His story is beautiful. A part of myself is in that same story.
He is a soft spoken man.
He talks about his first meeting of Alcoholic's Anonymous and the first sponsor he ever had. The fact that someone wanted to help out a drunk like him and wanted nothing at all in return.
and then Dale cried.
He cried because he was thankful.
After 40 years, this story still made him cry.
I was more overwhelmed at that moment than any other. It hit me.
I want what this guy has. I want to be able to cry 40 years down the line when I think about how thankful I am to have been given a shot at living clean and sober. Dale has been going to meetings for 40 years and sharing his life, his heartbreak, his triumph.
His experience.
His strength.
His hope.
He finished by thanking God. He thanked God for accepting a drunk like himself.
He wipes his tears and says
and that's all I gotta say about that.
The room was in tears. It was the most powerful thing I had seen.
The meeting ended and we all just walked outside to smoke in silence. Cozmo just looked at me and shook his head like he couldn't even come up with words to explain what he felt.
He didn't have to.
The power of God working through someone to touch the lives of others.
To touch all of us.
To touch me.
Jerrod walked up to me in complete tears.
Please pray with me. Please...
at that moment I can't think of anything else in the world I would rather do.
posted by steve at 10:59 AM
3 Comments:
Family can make all the difference. When I was in treatment I would have given anything to have a letter from a family member, they never came. After I got out, somehow I managed to get my Dad understand my problem and we have a good relationship, my Mother, I plead the 5th. You are lucky, very lucky to have a great family that supports you.
I listened to your version of My Desire while I read this.
I don't know why I always get emotional when I hear of God's redemption.
Like Hosea's wife we are twice bought - we were already his, but yet he paid the price for us again with his life.
Just reading your series makes me continually grateful to God for the love He extends to us through Jesus Christ!! While I have never experienced drug/alcohol addiction and it's destruction, I have my own set of "sin baggage" that is relatively unknown to anyone but God. Yet, He forgives...YES!!
Post a Comment
<< Home