The Blessing of My Fellow Travelers
Sharing Gratitude for an Amazing Network of Support
March 16, 2012
I want to share my gratitude for all of my fellow recovering addicts. The ones I sit down with weekly, often twice a week, in a church which graciously and generously offers its activities room to all of us trying to better ourselves. The ones I join after a meeting to fellowship, to talk about and listen to the details even beyond the intricacies and intimacies and revelations of recovery; to also share the mundane and the profane and humorous. To the men and women I chat with, who need to hear another voice and who help me heal in the hearing as well as in the being heard. To those for whom I leave messages about my recovery and who feedback me their invaluable experience, strength, and hope. We’re all in this together, I keep reminding myself. Every time someone new to the fellowship comes in, I invite them to take our literature, take our phone list, and as soon as they’re comfortable, start making calls, start the process of growing honesty and vulnerability and trust by connecting with the others of us in this shared experience.
I have a new temporary sponsee; it’s a casual arrangement, because he might be leaving town soon, but he’s eager to proceed up the steps after fits and starts and broken promises to himself. He’s reached a point where he realizes he has nothing else to do but surrender and seek help. It has become clear to him that he cannot travel this path on his own. I keep emphasizing to him, “you’re not alone.” We are here, on the other side of that phone call or across the table, swapping stories and encouraging his first step share. His vulnerability reminds me of my own, and of everyone else’s who’s shared such personal revelations. When we reach out, we exercise our growing trust and faith; in a phone call, a recovery hotline, a text, a shared Serenity Prayer, a check-in, a “bookend” or accountability call. We “come to believe” in the efficacy of surrendering and acknowledging, in accepting and sharing; these means of communication are part of the set tools which help forge our program of recovery.
I listen to what a fellow traveler, a friend, a brother or sister, a sponsee has to say, and I try to share my experience, strength and hope. Or, I am just there for the listening, whichever that friend or fellow traveler needs most then and there. For over three years, one day at a time, this program has worked for me and I have worked it, imperfectly but steadily. And now, with all the assistance and consolation and commiseration I’ve been blessed to share in, I hope, too, that some of my diligence, as a fellow, a friend, a sponsor, can positively affect someone else’s recovery, too.
It’s so helpful for me to be reminded of my most vulnerable and frightened days when I first came into program. How the earliest fears and recriminations needed venting and how readily they were received by my fellowship, by this cadre of spiritually-minded folks by whose example I am lifted up, supported, and relieved. I am honored my sponsee would turn to me to share, as I, too, have been humbled to be heard and not judged. Asking for help — reaching out beyond my own ego and insecurity — was a huge step on the road to recovery for me.
Hearing my dear friends’ vulnerability and honesty, their difficulties and successes and hope, helps me in my recovery. This is an amazingly mutually-beneficial fellowship, bolstered by the Twelve Steps, and buttressed by the remarkable intimacy and trust we share, whether in person, as a group, one-on-one, on the phone, in a text, or face-to-face. Many of us, myself included, never had explored or even knew this kind of trust, this sure bond, was possible. Thank God for that and thank God for all of my fellow travelers in recovery.
