Taco Night

Thursday night is Taco Night. 

Which really means it's Treatment Center Night, the night a couple of friends and I take a 12 step recovery meeting to a local drug/alcohol treatment center and then go out for dinner at a little taqueria down the road afterward. 

Before you say, "Aw, thats so nice", let me tell you how it often goes.

We get there and there's a roomful of 50 or 60 chairs that get put in a big circle. We always leave one chair in the middle, mostly just so the residents will wonder why it's there and who's gonna' have to sit in the "hot seat", which never happens (it's our own little inside joke). Sometimes we'll say that the chair is there for the addict or alcoholic that didn't survive their addiction, hoping to remind them how fatal their addiction really can be.

While we're setting up the chairs a few of the residents will start to wander in and help us. The early ones are often the people who seem most interested in really getting help. They might ask a few questions about what to do when they get out, or tell us what's been going on with them since last week, etc. 
Then there are the smokers and jokers, who mill around outside and slowly filter in as meeting time approaches. As the place fills up, the once quiet room builds to a cacophony of laughing, yelling, coughing, and the general mayhem that is inherent to a group of freshly detoxing drunks and addicts. Some are sullen and withdrawn, others loud and obnoxious, with all manner of behavior and attitude in between. By meeting time, it's often like a room full of human pinball machines.

"Hey! It's starting time! Let's have a meeting!" usually quiets the room enough to get started. 

After a brief moment of semi-silence and saying the Serenity Prayer, the meeting begins by going around the room and everyone introducing themselves with their first name followed by "and I'm an alcoholic, addict", or both; (is there really anyone who hasn't seen a 12 step meeting portrayed on television or in a movie in the past 30 years?).

It's not uncommon to see a young kid who got busted or who's parents caught them smoking pot and sent them to rehab. They say stuff like, "My name is (Justin/Brittany) and I'm like, um - an addict? Giggle, giggle..." 
Then a couple of people down the line you've got Joe. Joe's 58 and has lost his family, job, driver's license and all self respect. He says, "I'm Joe and I'm an alcoholic" and he knows it's true. 
Joe isn't laughing about anything.

As the meeting progresses, the residents show varying degrees of interest and participation, from intense focus to complete disdain for the whole thing. 

Some of these people really don't want to be here and would leave now if they had any other option. 

To be honest, trying to get them to realize that they don't have to live the way they're living and see the fact that they're some of the world's worst decision makers, can be infuriating. You take the time to come out there and try to offer some hope to a bunch of people who many times give the impression that they couldn't care less, and sometimes it can make you feel like giving up and quitting the meeting out there altogether. 

But we don't. 

Over the years I've watched people in this meeting and thought, "He/She obviously has no interest in being here and we're just spinning our wheels with that one", only to hear that person speak up later and say something so honest, vulnerable, and profoundly heartbreaking that I have to choke back tears. 
Or have one of them come up to me after the meeting and tell me what's going on and describe exact circumstances or feelings I went through when I was in early recovery and offer me a not-so-subtle reminder of why I do this. 
These can come in the form of a jolt of spiritual lightning or a gentle intuitive nudge, but they happen fairly often. I sometimes wonder if it has something to do with being so close to the raw spiritual condition of many of these people. 

It happened again last night and as usual, I wasn't expecting it.

Last week I met a guy out there who was pretty fragile and scared. Detoxing from meth has a tendency to make you that way. 
But he was asking questions, and it's always nice to see the ones that show enough interest to ask questions. I spoke with him and a couple other guys for a while after the meeting and as we talked, I could see he was worn out and had been down a very tough road. But I also detected what I thought was curiousness and hope behind his wild eyes. 

Last night he was one of the guys who showed up early. He said hello and mentioned that we'd talked last week. I told him I remembered him and that he looked a lot better today. I asked how detox was going and he said he was feeling a lot better. The meeting was about to get started so we both took our seats. 

After the meeting ended he came over to me and I said he looked a lot calmer this week and he laughed when I told him his eyes weren't lit up like roman candles anymore, either. I mentioned the connection between the mind, body, and spirit and the damage our addictions do to that connection. He quickly said he'd been doing yoga as part of his treatment, then he stopped mid-sentence, smiled a smile that was obviously from somewhere deep inside, and gave me a gigantic hug that I felt go through my whole being. Then he turned and without another word, walked quickly out of the room. 

I don't know what happened with him in that moment, but I do know that I experienced the connection we have to one another when we let our guard down enough to allow it.

I don't have a clue what the future holds for that guy, but I got to experience the joy that comes from simply "showing up" and connecting with another human being. And that's the constant reminder I need about withholding judgement of who is and who isn't gonna' "make it". 

Then we went to the taco joint and I had a delicious burrito and enjoyed the company of my two comprades.

Like the song says, "C'est la vie say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell..."