Friends, Here and There
It was quite the celebration for my friend George’s 40th anniversary of recovery. At first, I didn’t see too many familiar faces in the large hall that slowly filled up with people of all ages, from all walks of life. They’d all been touched by George in the past 40 years, one way or the other.
They’d come from all over the country. Several were down from Connecticut, some came up from Georgia, a couple came from Asheville, North Carolina, we were up from Virginia, Dutchie H. came up from Florida. This celebration was a big deal.
One of the reasons I didn’t see many familiar faces at first was, some of the faces I saw were 35 years older than the last time I saw them. While I had seen a lot of the folks from way back a couple years ago when we came up to celebrate the 36th anniversary of the Friendship Group, which had been my first N.A. meeting 35 years earlier (37 years ago now), there were a number of them that came to this celebration that didn’t make it to that one.
Several I got into conversations with, and as soon as we began to talk, I remembered them — but not always their names. Most of the time, I didn’t want to ask them. After all, they remembered mine. There was one girl who I didn’t even remember at all, but she remembered me, well. Oh, well. 35 years is a long time.
I remember laughing when I talked with one guy, who I remembered well, and assumed he remembered who I was — Bo. We were talking mostly about current affairs, and then, after about 5 minutes, he looked at me and said, “What was your name again?” This was someone I was sure would have remembered me, as we had been through a lot together, but he was much older, so I just chaulked it up to that. It was a good ego deflater, which I can always use.
This was all for a kid who, at age 17, was so messed up from taking way too much acid for much too long, he was certain that he had permanent brain damage, convinced he’d spend the rest of his life in a mental institution.
He wound up in a drug rehab program instead, where it took weeks for the hallucinations to subside. But there, he was introduced to AA. He’d later learn about a program called N.A., and since there weren’t any N.A. meetings around where he lived, he started a few of them up. He wanted there to be a place for the kids coming out of the rehab he’d gone through, to come and be able to stay clean after they finished the rehab. He also knew that it would help him to stay clean.
Looking around the room, you could see that his plan worked — magnificently. There were a lot of people who were there because of him. I certainly was one of them. I was this older guy (25) who’d wondered into one of the meetings he’d gotten started, in February of 1980. I was ready to quickly wonder back out, and never return — they were all in their teens and acting a little crazy — when George reached out to me and convinced me to stay.
When I had a relapse a few weeks later, he got me involved in service work. When he got into the literature movement, I was right there with him, and dove in head first. That work kept me clean until I was ready for recovery.
Together, along with many others, we helped to write and put together N.A.’s Basic Text on Recovery. We helped N.A. to grow from 8 meetings to 81 in a year’s time in the Philadelphia area, and we helped to bring it to places like New York City, New England, and the Washington, D.C., area, where it hadn’t existed when I first showed up.
Talking with one old friend that I remembered well from those days, and she remembered me — we’ve been friends on Facebook and see each other in a few common groups there — I learned about another old friend who didn’t make it.
Barb was one of the first kids in that group with whom I really connected. The last I heard, she was still alive and around. But, apparently, she died sometime last year. There were no other details of her death.
I used to give her rides home from meetings, early on. She was the first person I really got to know, outside of the meetings. She had invited me into her place one night when I was dropping her off, and showed me some of her art work. She was a fine artist, and was especially good at capturing eyes.
At the time, I was really getting back into my own creativity, as a writer, and trying to find my voice, hoping I could still write after I gave all of the drugs up. We talked for hours about that, and for the next few months, were on this creative wavelength together. At one point, I even mistook what I felt for her as a romantic connection, even though she was far from being my type — plus, I was 25 to her 19. By then, though, I was feeling very much like, maybe, a 15 year old. That was about my emotional age.
When it became apparent that she more into women than men, that kind of resolved that issue. (It wouldn’t be the last time that happened to me with a girl I really liked). Later on, when she wound up with another guy, I was well over my infatuation with her, but a solid friendship had developed.
That initial creative connection had inspired the following poem, which pretty much captured how I felt at the time. It really was true that she was sort of my “welcome wagon” to life after addiction. That evening had told me that I could still be creative, without the need to get high in order to tap into that creativity.
Eyes/Sailboats — 4/11/1980
And the night moved on,
And I wanted to stay, for a while,
With a friend I was just getting to know…
And she spoke about eyes,
An artist who understood their meaning,
And who’d captured their varied shades of glow…
From the passive emptiness of addictive security,
Through the wide-open awareness of a spiritual awakening,
To the serenity of self-fulfilling recovery,
With all of its depth and warm colour…
And I looked into her eyes,
And I saw myself, reflected, in bottomless
Pools of understanding.
Deep currents of strength and fires of desire
Flowing from here eyes to mine,
Touching my heart, words like sailboats,
Trying to express the feeling,
While bending in the turbulent winds of past journeys,
Yet moving ever forward,
Sails straining, pushing toward
The island of Release…
I’m still sailing now, but land has come into sight,
And I see it in her eyes…
On the shore she stands waiting
To remove the disguise
Of this writer’s vague words…
My soul’s inner crew is anticipating
The feel of her sands ‘neath my feet,
The warmth of her hands reaching out…
A sailor’s long journey ‘pon the sea, finally over;
Sailing into calmer waters — a peaceful harbor,
He furls his sails and gives thanks…
That he’s made it, alive!
She’s probably part of why I am here today, even though she’s not. Several months after we’d connected, she came with me when I made another trip up to Connecticut to see my old friends up there. My previous trip, I had been unable to tell them what was going on with me, and had gotten high instead of telling them. This time, Barb came along with me, and with her support, I was able to be honest with them about who and what I was, without having to worry about relapsing, again. It really wasn’t easy for me, but Barb was there for me, and helped me to get through it. She was a good friend.
I wish I could somehow have been there for her, in her time of need. I hope that the end wasn’t too painful or hideous for her, and that her transition went quickly. If it was drug or alcohol related, it probably wasn’t good. I’m sad that I’ll never see her alive again. This one is for her.
And, for the living. We had such a wonderful evening together! My friend Jane said it best in a Facebook message today — it was like coming back home again. It truly was.
