Skip to main content

A Host of Friends

"Life will take on new meaning. To watch people recover, to see them help others, to watch loneliness vanish,....To have a host of friends -- this is an experience you must not miss.   ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS P. 89

I'm so grateful to have read this early in my recovery. I needed reassurance that I wasn't going to miss out on life by giving up my old haunts and playmates. I wasn't focused on the "others" benefit, at the time, so much as "what was in it for me". Relinquishing, or more accurately, lessening my selfishness came later, after working the ninth step (a few times).

It was and is, a pleasure to watch others "get it" and embark on their own path to recovery. When they do that, they bolster my recovery and ensure the survival of our fellowship.

From my first days in the rooms, people told their stories and reached out to connect with me. There were many meetings, service positions, alano clubs, and sober activities. Lots of opportunities to watch the loneliness vanish. As a result of working the program to the best of my ability, and due to the passage of time staying sober, I have met many wonderful people.Some being lessons and some being blessings as they say. However, I collect vastly more blessings.

Who knew that years after getting sober I would be diagnosed with ALS (also known as "Lou Gehrig's Disease"). The day I found out I had this rare and deadly disease, I went to my host of friends and shared from the heart. They have been with me ever since. I never had the width or depth of friends in my friendship pool when I was a practicing alcoholic. Three years into this disease and I still have a host of friends. I'm only as lonely as I choose to be. I still enjoy reaching out to the newcomer, and I'm doubly grateful that I did not miss the experience.
Labels:
Location: University of Washington Medical Center, University of Washington, 1959 Northeast Pacific Street, Seattle, WA 98195, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Remember...

I remember catching fireflies,  putting them in a jar, as a girl of five. I picked pears off a tree that overhung an alleyway on my route home from school, then enjoyed the forbidden fruit. .I had a golden cat who chased a gray mouse through our living room sending my mother, 3-year old sister, and me screaming atop the sofa and chairs. We lived in a farmhouse and I watched Romper Room. A daddy longlegs skittered across my dirty kid legs as I teeter-tottered on a broken kitchen chair back. I played grocery store and laid out a bedroll for group nap time in preschool. We lived in an apartment attached to a bakery. My maternal grandparents visited and a photo was snapped. Grandma held Dawn and Grandpa held me. I held Grandpa's chin. Walking through the back of the flour-caked kitchen, I saw scrumptious pastries and colorful toys stuck in the cupcakes with my hungry kids eyes. We lived in a two-story apartment building next door to a large farmer's field.  That field was my...
3 comments
Read more

On-the-job Sass

I continue getting sass from one particular caregiver. He says, "You need to communicate with us." he continues to completely miss or dismiss the concept of I would if I could . It is part and parcel to having ALS, I am losing my ability to communicate and it is his job to assist me. Part of helping me, like it or not, is to learn my routine and anticipate needs, when possible. He misses the fact that I'm failing more every day and night time is when I'm weakest. It is extremely insensitive and arrogant to expect me to cater to his needs and expectations. Pushing me to repeat words or expound on a simple one word suggestion is physically taxing on my system, adding stress which further depletes me. Cuing is supposed to be caregiver's domain, not the patient's. Here is the situation, I am being changed. In the midst of the action, as seems to be his practice, he is sidelined asking me trivial, meaningless, but energy-sapping questions. Do I want my legs raise...
Post a Comment
Read more

Managed

Managed care, do not get me started. It is the bane of my existence and my savior. If quadriplegia has curtailed my activities, and it has, then being in a home has curtailed even more. I've had to dumb it down and set my standards low. Gone, are the halcyon days of getting in my wheelchair to go for a stroll or sit in the sun, or even sit in the sun room. Neither the nurses, nor patient care technicians, know how to put me in my wheelchair. Seriously. My chair has head controls and it is a bafflement. Most caregivers don't even realize I have head controls. First, they hit the left head pad when they lift the armrest which turns the chair on. Next, they sling me over and place me in the chair. The problem? My head, naturally, rests on the headrest, which accelerates and drives the chair and is beyond my control. Running over a caregiver or running myself into an obstruction are very real consequences of their ignorance. What could be worse? The caregivers remain clueless abo...
Post a Comment
Read more