Reunion

November 20th

Today I spent 3.5 hours in a meeting with 26 people. Normally, a thing like that would drive me crazy, and I would do all I could to avoid it. Not for this meeting, though. We were sitting in a circle talking and some of those people were angry, some were despondent, some were happy and content, some were bored, some were curious, some were depressed. But all of us there were scared. More or less visible, but there was this underlying fear of powerlessness.

My therapy center once in the while organizes reunions of the addiction therapy graduates, together with a meeting of the current crop of people undergoing addiction therapy there. And today, after a long break on account of COVID-19 restrictions, that meeting took place.

I go to that facility almost every week for my personal therapy sessions, so I see the staff and new patients there often. Today it was also very nice to see some familiar faces from my group from last year. I remembered when I was there just for the detox last year; I took part in a meeting like that. And that was a life-changing event for me. First of all, I stayed there for a full 7 weeks of inpatient therapy and not just for a detox. I saw it is possible to live a normal, sober life even with being an addict. I got HOPE there and then that I can do it myself. No one there sugarcoated that it would be easy. Everyone was clear that it is a very hard job with setbacks and possible relapses. But for me, just the hope that I saw there for myself was enough to push me in a direction of sobriety.

I feel now my duty to show this hope to other addicts. If in any way my words and my experiences will help just one person, I will be happy. There is another meeting like that scheduled for the middle of December and, of course, I will be there. I feel kind of overwhelmed now with positive emotions. I need to calm myself down.