Good Friends

There was a friend from high school who saw me in an open meeting for alcoholics, families, and friends. She was crying. I thought she might be comforted by knowing someone. Wrong, she cried harder and as she pointed at me she said, “I knew you would be here!”

My family whispered to others about not bringing alcohol around me when I first quit drinking. I couldn’t believe it as I didn’t think I had a problem. A couple of my younger brothers came into a bar I was in early in my recovery.

When I figured out that they may be there because they thought I was drinking, I asked them that and they shook their head yes. I then asked what they would have done if I was drinking. They said in unison, “We would have gotten you out of here and helped you to sober up.”

I couldn’t believe it and yet, how could I deny a problem with those three separate instances?

My high school friend is just three days older than me. Not really. It is the opposite, but it is so much fun teasing her with that one. She will get all excited and talk just loud about how I am three days older than her. We have been supporting each other in recovery for about 43 years now.

I have a few years more years than her.😉 Just in case she reads this, I had to say that as it probably isn't much more than months!

The poem below was first written for Poem Lover on Facebook:

The smile on my face says it all

With my old friends, I am having a ball

So much time in recovery is nifty

Will we make it to fifty

We are well on our way

JoAnn is the closest I say

Then me at forty-three

it will be the year twenty thirty

Can I hang in that long

Maybe create a song

of how I went wrong

but now I’m going strong

I put down the bong

a long time ago

and now I know

I have learned to grow

body, mind and spirit

enough of this isn’t it.

I spend time with the above two as often as we can get together. That isn’t easy. Even in retirement, the two of us work too much. One still is not retired and has a very busy professional career.

We have traveled together,

We have crafted with leather

We manage pretty well

There has been some hell

There was a husband who died

and a divorce or two, I lied

more than two but just a few

I’m sure it doesn’t matter to you.

We worked together and still do,

a couple of us sold Mary Kay,

went to college, and one was in a play.

We cared for each other.

How could we have gotten together?

Out of 12, our children are late 30s,

40s, 50s, and even one has entered the 60s.

We all have had more than one husband

We spent time in the BWCA and even took the band.

We still go to the BWCA, but we don't camp out.

We stay in cabins and roam about.

We all have large families and that is the best.

Sometimes it means we don’t get enough rest.

~~~~

Then there is Peggy and the other Y sisters

We have lunch at Mad Dogs

Occasionally.

It is not often we all get together only

when the snowbirds are home

Others of us are involved in Poem

Still others, we train together

and fundraise when we gather

~~~~

There is Betty and Felicia

Who I have known foreva

We get together where we can

We train together when we can man.

~~~~

My other recovery crew

close to home that I knew

for such a short time

it is getting more difficult to rhyme

Time I set this aside

I have a few more for another side.

~~~~~~~~

First published by Black Bear on medium.com