Here's a timeline for me- I moved out of my old house into a new house; I became foreman of my landscaping crew that I work for; and the consoliated holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years) are coming to a close. What has changed? Not much in particular? Still, there are people around me are relapsing, and I sometimes sit around and wondering what I am doing around here? Sometimes, I feel like I am playing a game of cards, but the deck is only half there.
I know this is self delusion or fear. The wonder of where my future lays, but a good deal of this comes from my past that every so often pops up and sticks it's head to remind me of who I am or what I was.
A week or two ago, I had some friends come visit me. I should start by saying I have two classifications of friends from back home, both of which I am sure care about me, just one was based around the party scene (drugs and alcohol) and the other group was based around who I was- I mean friends I made because we sat, talked, clicked, and got to know each other. Group one I got to know through drugs and then we got to know each other. Group two, doesn't do drugs, drinks like normal human beings, and we got to know each other normally. Both group have people I love in them, and both groups are full of great people in them, but both groups subsribe to a variety of lifestyles that at some point create an exclusivity that makes me wonder how I was able to maintain a friendship in such two different worlds. For instance, it's hard to imagine that my best friend in group one is a pot-head manager at McDonald's (he's a good guy, don't get the wrong impression), and my closest friend from the second group is a senior at Texas A & M, ex- Younglife leader. The irony is, I've known both cats since back in the day, but my relationship with them began around my second rehab about four years ago.
Anyway, two people from the first group came, Matt (my closest friend from that group and my ex- roommate) and Pake. But, let me backtrack a few days. I was sitting in the room where the CA (Cocaine Anonymous) meeting I was going to attend was to be held. I was waiting for it to start (I was thirty minutes early for some reason), writing in my journal, sitting in a chair, when my father called me. I answered the phone, and talked to him for a bit, made some plans for the weekend for when he was to visit me, and then right before we were going to hang up he said: "Oh, hey, by the way, I recieved an e-mail from a friend of yours- someone named Pake." As soon as he said the name, my stomach dropped a bit.
"He just wanted to know how're you're doing and so on."
"It's a she," was all I could think to reply. My mind colluded with thoughts trying to figure what exactly I should do about this situation(when I thought about it later, I lauged because I really just heard a named, panicked because there was no "situation" to do anything about in the first place) and how the hell did she get my father's e-mail (Texas A & M's web page).
"Well," he says. "Okay, she just wanted to know how you're doing, and she left a number. Do you want it?"
This was the critical moment and I didn't know what to do. I sent out many letters to make amends, and she was one of the letters I sent to make amends to, especially to the fact that I haven't seen her in a year because she left to Germany to study abroad, and when she came back, I was gone. I also knew at some point that I had to begin to make amends again face to face with the people that deserved it, but still, I felt like ice ran through me, and it wasn't because it was freezing outside (I was sitting in my car with my heater on at this point). Finally, resigning that it was God telling me that it's about time to get over my fear, I said yes, and my father gave me her phone number.
I call her up immediately, and of course, she was suprised to hear from me. She tells me that Matt was hurt with everything that went on. That he felt betrayed by me hiding my meth addiction, my relapse from all of them (they only smoked pot and drank, and little coke and ecstasy didn't hurt either, right?), but he was beggining to forgive me and wanted to see me, and that she felt hurt, but really wanted to see me, blah blah blah, and so forth.
Anyway, jump ahead, because the rest is just my life, but here are two things that worked out from this situation: one, I decided to make those face to face amends and I'm going to make my first trip back to College Station since I left in August on January 5th. I am taking my sponsee Eric with me, the one that I went with to Fort Worth with so he could make his amends, because he has an amend in Bryan, and we are staying the weekend. Two: Pake and Matt decided to come up that Friday after she talked to me on the phone to visit.
So, we are caught up in the story to where I want to be. That Friday, I get off work, relax, and take a shower, and almost immediately after my shower, Pake and Matt arrive at my house. There is the awkward, how are doing?- and so on, but in the end, we move on.The first thing we do is get a cup of coffee where I make my amends. I admit to every big lie I ever told, everything I stole, all the things I have done, even somethings I thought I wouldn't tell. Suprising myself when I broke down in tears, telling them how much of a coward I am, and how sorry I am, Matt tells me that, "Today, you are not a coward, but you are becoming a man." I just wanted to shake my head and respond, "There are cowardly men, Matt," but I smiled and said nothing.
Then, we went to dinner, talked about old times, and they caught me up with the new drama, which in the past would've interested me, but for some reason, I was dying of boredom for a new topic. I was skipping my meeting, and for some reason, I kept wondering what the topic was. Then, they left eagerly, because, it was obvious to me (especially when Matt ordered a beer at the restaurant, which didn't bother me, I have passed that point where it bothers me to be around alcohol and drugs, I just wondered why he couldn't just not drink for the day...?) that the sober life bores them.
The whole next day at work, I felt somewhat depressed and I didn't know why. My mind blank and dull, and I just worked like machine that needed maintenance. Then, a moment of clarity struck me. As I thought over all the moments of drama they told me about and the root of that drama struck me as the party scene that I removed myself from, I realized that I don't want to go back to that anymore- I realized that maybe, sadly that my friendship with these people will never be the same anymore. Their problems almost seemed childish to me. This guy is sleeping with a girl he doesn't like and this guy is in jail but now weed isn't getting stolen is so sophomoric compared my other friends that are talking to me about marriage, post graduation, careers, and relationships, or in my life, recovery and God put in the mix. I became sad because, I realized, at that moment, that I might have made amends to people so I could also wash my hands clean, and really CLEAN, of a group that no longer appeals to me, or no longer really connects with me spiritually or mentally or physically anymore. It's more than being on a different page, we were two different books on different bookshelves and there is only one person to read us.
It was a growing moment, which is seems of late, I'm having these huge momentsw of growths, and that's all I have. Moments of growth and clarity (which I am sure has to do with my mind clearing up and becoming more rational).
But, I talked with my friend Felix, who's from the second group, and then there's that feeling that we're in the same sentence- does that make sense? The realization that social classes and cliques and groups don't make you who are is great, but the realization also that those friends of yours make and break you, are critical to helping guide down your path of life, is somewhat euphoric and cathartic and mellowing at the same time.In the end, I became grateful for the friends that were there with me on the outside of the world drugs and stuck with through this sickness becuase while they'll never know the pain of the disease, they will always know the love of God, and for that they are blessed, and for that, I am blessed. For that, I am blessed.
For that, I am blessed.

I'm in Fort Worth right now, with one of my sponsees, as he goes around making his amends. As I watch him go through this process, with a certain amount of pride I might add, something builds inside of me. I am having a hard time verbalizing it, putting it into words, but the best I can do is speak from my own experience.
When I went through my own process of amends, I was worried. I was worried that for all of my sins, I was unforgivable. That even if the Lord could forgive me, I would be alone in a world alienated from my friends. Even so, shaky and worried, I made my amends to my father (step 9: made direct amends to those we had harmed unless to do so would injure them or otheres), and with eyes pleased, calm, and some what sympathetic, he says to me: "I just want you to be happy. I just want you to stay sober and be happy. That's your amends to me." He said nothing of forgiveness, and he didn't have to. I knew I was forgiven the moment he called me his son- again.
Then, there were my friends I thought I were going to lose. I asked for forgiveness and what I could to make things right, and like my friend Shaun said to me, "buddy, you were forgiven even before you asked." And here's the kicker. He says, "I love you, man. I just want you to be happy and sober."
And then, probably the closest friend I have in the world, Felix, comes up, drives to Kerrville, and visits me like nothing happens- like I never took advantage of our friendship of his trust. He tells me of his life and listens to my opinions like I deserve to give them, and he treats me like any other human being. He says, "I love you, bud. You look good and happy. I'm glad for you."
So, let's take a pause from the linearity of the post look at some scripture that comes to mind for me.
1) 2 Cor. 5:17- Therefore if anyone in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
2) Isiah 65:17-19- For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things will not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and regoice forever in what I create; For behold, I create Jerusalem for rejoicing and her people for gladness. I will also rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in My people; And there will no longer be heard in her the voice of weeping and the of crying.
3) Eph. 4: 11-16- Andhe gave some as aposles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of faith, and of the knowledge of the son of God, to am mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a reslt, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in decietful schemind, but speaking truth in love, we are the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
As I look at all these scriptures, I derive theses conclusions:
1- I am a new creature. My sins have been forgiven truly by the Lord and I have been born again.
2- Like Shaun pointed out, I am supposed to be happy- we are all supposed to be happy. That is our purpose- to rejoice and to continue to rejoice in the Lord and all that the Lord has provided for us.
3- That Love is the ultimate. I could've written down, Love thy neighbor as you love thyself, but we all know that one. At that point, Love is crucial to glorify the Lord (we must build up his body).
4- We must share his our love, his love, all love, with everyone.
So, as I cruise around with my sponsee, and I see him make amends to all these people and places that he's harm, and see the suprise on his face as all the people that he at once felt he hurt so painfully, forgive him such ease. I see the Lord working in his life. I see the promises of the twelve step program in his life working. I feel the recovery working in his life.
I saw his grandmother cry as he asked for forgiveness, and she said the very thing Shaun said to me. And, as him and I left her house, she hugs me and thanks me from the bottom of her heart for helping her little Eric out. And I was touched. I wanted to cry. I wanted to reach out to that woman and tell her that everything will be alright. That it was a bad dream, that he's just diabetic or something. But the truth, his truth, my truth, glares so brightly in her eyes, in her tears, that I thank her and I say, "Eric has helped me more than you can understand, trust me."
And that's all I can say. I am moved.
I have been thinking lately, why I have so much sentimentality for College Station. It's because in recovery, people drop like flies. It's not like when I moved to college, and I moved into a dorm, and I felt home sick at first, but I made some friends, had some stable relationships, and finally settled in. No, not in Kerrville's sandbox of recovery. You just don't know when someone's going to drop. Just one day, you don't see them around, and then you hear that they pissed dirty, and you shake your head and that's another number deleted off of your cell phone.
At first, you feel for the people that relapse. You feel sorry. At least, I did. I wanted to help them so much. I wanted to find them immediately. Hug them, tell them it will be alright, and them try to get them to a meeting. Then, I realized something happened, and I don't know when. I became numb. They relapse, and I just don't care. It's not that I don't care for them. I love them. It's just that I now that there's nothing I could've done. When I see them again I will reach out my hand to them, and it's up to them to grab it- but I will not shed another tear for those who do not take my hand, just for those whose hands rests limply on the cold floor as a statistic ready to be tabulated.
I just realized that telling them it's going to be alright is bullshit. I'm passed that point. It's life and here people, and it's sometimes hard to see that. It's not going to be alrigt, everything is not going to go the way you always want it. Just stand up and take it as it comes. What we need are God, the steps, and serenity- and serenity is not when everything is calm around is, but when everything is chaotic around us, but we are calm on the inside. We are not body with souls, but souls with bodies.
So I became numb. Like a doctor that sees so much death, I became numb. And then, I came to Fort Worth, and my sponsee's grandmother hugged me and I had to fight tears. I don't know what I have really done. I just thought I was working a program, but instead, I forgot, I was in the program of saving lives. I think I lost sight of something so critical: behind the drug addict is a person, a son, a daughter, a brother, sister, mother, father, lover, painter, singer, lover, Christian, Buddhist, child of God. And with my tears came memories of better times that were washed away with the rain.
So today, I grew up a bit. And my ego was shrunken a bit.