Our Community

OK, I'm officially sick.  I'm not sick - I'm sick.  The microorganisms have stormed the ramparts and overwhelmed the defenses and are now pillaging and looting the ruins of my castle.

I'm a sullen sick guy.  I don't complain but I want everyone to get the #$!! away from me.  SuperK, on the other hand, is a bit more dramatic.  She's sure she's dying and she's going to let you know about it.  On the few occasions when we've both been sick it has been quite the funhouse.

I digress.  I've been pondering at greater length, in my woozy narcotic-like haze, the community that I belong to and how important it is in my life.  I have a group of very close friends with whom can discuss anything - and I mean anything - that's troubling me.  Sex, money, relationships, religion, all of that stuff that was strictly off the table in my family of origin.  I'll never forget the first time that I tried to talk to my blood kin about some marital difficulties, fortified no doubt with the success that I'd had with my recovery family.  Holy shit, I might as well have rolled a live hand grenade into the room.  I never made that mistake again.  I kept my mouth shut as I was taught.

Moreover, there's another larger group of friends - not close friends but still friends - with whom I can discuss almost anything.  I'll never forget the time when SuperK and I were struggling a little with our marriage - as all couples do and if you hope to avoid this you're delusional.  We started to see a counselor who was invaluable in helping us work through our Issues.  This is going to sound ridiculous but it's the truth: SuperK was much more upset with me than I was with her, but she was the one who needed to do the changing.  I don't mean to suggest I wasn't at least half the problem but the circumstances required her to adapt more so than me.  Anyway, she was dominating the air time in the office so at one point our counselor turned to me and said: "How about you?"

I said this: "I have a big group of guys that I talk to all the time about everything.  I don't really have anything I need to get off my chest."  I was about 40 at the time.  She knew I was in The Program.

"You don't know how many men your age that come in here and don't have anyone they can do that with.  No one, not even family members," she said.

Some of the time my buddies honk me off but I've never forgotten what this woman said.  I have guys who know where my steam release valve is located.  They reach over from time to time and turn the knob and a big, angry blast of steam vents and I feel better.  That's all there is to it.

And I'm repeating myself, saying the same thing over and over, but I  love the whole community I'm part of.  I love the older folks with more sobriety who have been through a lot more than me; I love the younger people that I can boss around . . . . er, share my experience, strength, and hope with, passing along my sobriety wisdom but also my old guy knowledge; I love being around women and really rich people and guys off the street, heroin addicts and meth users and weekend drunks.  I get the feeling that a hundred years ago people had stronger faith communities and social clubs and they didn't move around so much so that these ties were easier to build. 

But they didn't have what I done got.