Being fellow travelers on this journey of recovery makes all things possible. . .

I don’t know about you but I never let anyone know who I really was for the first 35 years of my life.  I did my darndest to control whatever interpretation you could possibly have of me.  I did this by trying to blend in with your opinions. Or remaining quiet if I had no idea what you were talking about.  For sure, keeping a low profile in most public settings if there was a chance I’d be singled out for an “educated” viewpoint was a fall-back position.  The insanity was that I both wanted the attention of others and yet was deathly afraid that if they “looked too close,” they’d see what an empty shell I was.

Even going to graduate school didn’t boost my self-esteem very much. Alcohol fueled my courage on many occasions.  In fact, without it I might not have even attempted graduate school.  But the hole inside wasn’t filled by any thing; not alcohol or drugs or men or straight A’s.  The miracle is that some thing as simple as a gathering of men and women who suffered like me, fellow travelers who were lost in the maelstrom of addiction, could show me how they were “filling their holes.”  I began to see that I could follow suit.

That first meeting didn’t change my level of fear about letting others see the “real me.”  Nor did the second or probably the 100th, but I knew that these travelers had discovered a path that made room for all of us and there was no time line as far as self-disclosure was concerned.  I had all the time I needed. Little by little I let others in.  I let them see my fears.  Eventually I began experiencing their unconditional acceptance.

That’s what fellow travelers do for one another.  We love as we want to be loved. We listen as we want to be heard.  And we witness one another’s journey as closely and as lovingly as we want our own journey witnessed.  We get comfortable with the knowledge that as one falters, many falter.  But as one succeeds, many succeed.  We are like a chain letter.  We go from one to another holding out hope and love and suggestions that have strengthened our own journey, knowing that’s the very path that will keep it strong.

If every one of us reading this passed on a “nugget” that we learned along the way with just one other person before this day ended, and asked the person we shared it with to do likewise, the universal spiritual shift we all deserve would begin to happen.  Are you interested in playing a part in this?  I hope so.

Praise be to God.