Because I’ve been there

Last night at Celebrate Recovery a remarkable thing happened. I met a woman, we’ll call her Nancy, who was just off a relapse, and whose life was in all possible ways, falling apart. I’ve been working at CR for some time now, and I still get a little scared when I meet someone like that. Not because they are scary, but because I start sensing my own inadequacies while they’re still talking. I know that I cannot keep that person safe, I can’t make sure they don’t use again, and because I’m already sponsoring a few people, I can’t even give them my number and tell them to call me anytime like I used to do. My “call me anytime” list is a little full at the moment. So I waffle, and I offer to pray for them if they’re the praying kind, and I feel like a failure before anything’s happened.

But last night, while I was just starting to feel like that, someone else spoke up. A woman spoke up that I love, but honestly, I had not seen a lot of leadership potential in. We’ll call her Mary. Mary asked Nancy a few simple questions. Where do you live? When do you work? She quickly confirmed that she lived nearby and worked the same kind of hours. Mary gave out her phone number, said to call anytime, and offered to go get Nancy if she found herself in a bad spot. “Do you smoke?” Mary asked. Nancy nodded, looking at her shoes. “Me too!” Mary said. “We’ll have a cigarette together.”

This morning at Breaking Free, I had a very similar experience. I had a girl I just could not make contact with, who yelled at me and refused to participate or get off her cell phone. While I was at a loss, one of the other women broke in and told her, “This isn’t our regular teacher. Our regular teacher isn’t going to ask you a bunch of times to put your phone away. She’s just going to expect you to turn it off.” She also asked some very simple questions. How long have you been here? How old are you? She found out where that girl was from, that she was brand new to the program and hadn’t learned the rules or consequences yet, that she was still a little peeved to lose some of what she felt was freedom. All the women chimed in to let her know that she was in a much better place than she’d left, even if it didn’t feel like it right now. And they offered her their phone numbers, and told her to call anytime.

It is beautiful to me that being just a few years, even months, along in a recovery process means that you’re totally able to help someone who’s just starting. Which is great for me, because I can let go of the silly assumption that I can or should do it all myself.