Remembering a Friend
Farewell Juan Carlos 6/24/1983–5/2018
Farewell Juan Carlos 6/24/1983–5/2018
I first met Juan Carlos in 2013 at one of his first few meetings. I welcomed him. It’s what we do, I do & was done for me.
I don’t know a lot of personal details about him, but I do have some memory’s I want to touch on.
I recall talking to him after meetings, sometimes in my car, others on the phone. He seemed shy, terrified, afraid & alone.
Not alone in the literal sense. Rather the dark, aching addict sense. He told me how much he was drinking, it was a lot. And this was 5 years ago.
A loneliness for which it feels as if there’s no cure. He had pretty much drunk up everyone (as I recall).
He’d talk to me from his apt. alone, often crying while on the phone.
That longing alcoholic pain that just won’t stop. What to do? Can’t stop but can’t not stop. Want to live, want to die. I’m a bad person, but I wasn’t always this way.
What’s wrong with me? Am I crazy? What’s the secret? What’s the cure?
These are the types of things I remember about Juan Carlos and our chats. I felt some of them myself when I was new.
When I first met him, we still used the phone! The comfort of another human beings voice had not yet been replaced with words read across a screen.
You talk, I’ll listen. You cry, I’ll try and comfort you & yes perhaps even cry myself.
I’ll tell you’ll be o.k. — not because it’s what you want or need to hear but because I believe it. It’s what I was told. It’s what I passed on to Juan Carlos.
I invited him to come with me and a sponsee down to L.A. for an A.A. conference over Memorial Day weekend. I told him it would be fun. He may have been in his first 30 or 60 days. He said sure. I picked him up at work at a artisan chocolate company where he worked.
Off the three of us went. Road trips are so fab! You really get to know someone when you drive 400 miles each way.
Once there, I didn’t’ see much of Juan Carlos over that weekend.
He was a new having his first experience at a large sober conference. This was in 2013.
Retrospectively I guess that’s why I took both he & my sponsee. I was “gifting” this first conference . It’s such a kiki!
Many gay sober people all together for a weekend of fellowship, talking, coffee, sugar & perhaps even sex, oh my!
As for Juan Carlos, I don’t recall much of what happened after we got back from that weekend. I believe he kept coming around for a bit and then disappeared. It doesn’t feel like he was in meetings very long back in 2013.
He resurfaced (I believe) at the end of 2016 or early 2017. It was obvious alcohol had taken it’s toll. His soul was next.
Gone was the light, that glimmer of hope that was slightly there when I first met him. He had aged. Booze does that. He was not the same young man.
I’d see him come to meetings usually running in from work (I’m imagining) and often leave right after. Very pensive, shy. I was only able to actually engage with him once or twice he was quick. He’d share from the floor but I don’t think he was really able to ever connect again, not like he did that first time.
It seemed impossible for him to string together much time. He kept trying. That’s the take away.
Never give up. Regardless of how many times he was new, he’d keep trying.
So, when I heard the news that he had died, for me, yes it was as simple as my saying about alcoholism.
Alcoholism kills. Any other diagnoses that go along with it doesn’t matter to me.
Naturally, mental health factors contribute to someone’s overall well being.
Alcohol and Alcoholism in and of itself KILLS people. People like you and me.
Over the years that I’ve been sober, this message has been diluted. Crack, Meth, Vicodin, Oxy, Heroin and all these new concoctions have all become such mainstays in our culture of Alcohols & Drugs.
Alcohols own deadly force seems downplayed. Let’s not forget how powerful Alcohol is. Take your pain and turn it outward.
People are so hush hush now about these types of things. Not me, not here, not now.
Before we had all this technology, we named names. We put faces with the reports from the front lines of Alcoholism. We said their name. Anonymity doesn’t matter much if one is dead.
When I was new the old-timers beat this idea into our heads — Alcoholism equals Jails, Institutions and Death.
It was helpful to have it forced into my consciousness that Alcohol kills.
It helped me develop a healthy fear of it. Alcohol terrified me. I knew it had me. It was for sure more powerful than I was. I respected it then, I do now.
I will honor the memory of who Juan Carlos was by imagining who he was prior to his Alcoholism taking a forceful hold. We all start from somewhere. What did that little boy want? His hopes? His dreams? Happy? Did he get it? Those close to him may or may not have the answers.
I honor him by saying his name & thus bidding farewell. He’s free. It was evidently his destiny. We each have one.
I feel sorry for his family and loved ones. When someone dies, we who live on without them suffer.
Juan Carlos is presumably at peace. I’d imagine it’s the same peace addicts or alcoholics long for. He’s resting now. No more pain. No more trauma. No more trying so hard to stop, being unable to. I choose to believe this.
I’ll continue to try and share, help, reach out to those around me that are in the rooms of 12 Steps groups now. Those that I meet. Those whom I’ve yet to meet. I can’t save the world and neither can you. But together…
I’d encourage others to try and also look outward. Where can you be helpful? Talk to people. Listen to people.
Help each other in our process. Who is in front of you? Near you? Newcomer? Old timer?
Ask someone out to fellowship. Invite them to a meeting. Do what we do.
We never know when nor how we can affect or touch each other. It’s magic.
In bidding adieu to this beautiful young man, his soul, someone’s child, & members of his family and his life I quote from 1999’s “The Cider House Rules”.
“Goodnight you Princes of Maine, you Kings of New England!”
Rest in peace Juan Carlos M. I hope you found the comfort you so desperately sought.
