A tale of the past………
When I was first getting sober I was full of fear. So much so that I was afraid of people and hardly ever spoke at meetings. One day someone came up to me after a meeting and asked me if I wanted to go to coffee. This question brought up two opposite reactions – one of wanting to go so badly and the other of wanting to run away. I took a chance and said of course. I followed this fellow to the Marietta Square where we went into a local restaurant and ordered some coffee. It was fun, or at least as fun as anything could be for me while I was literally shaking in my shoes.
After we were there a little while this fellow’s girlfriend showed up. She sat down with us, the conversation lasted for about another 5 minutes, and then she started crying. And not just a few tears. I mean she was sobbing uncontrollably. My friend nonchalantly said that they had to go, more or less scooped her up in his arms, and left with her sobbing away. I was bewildered. One minute I was sitting there trying my best to act normal – I was out at coffee with someone else in AA – how exciting and scary. Then before I barely knew what happened this strange woman who had just shown up had broken down uncontrollably and I was left sitting there by myself.
The fellow that I went to coffee with soon became one of my closest friends. We got sober together and were very close for over a decade. For whatever reason we were just real comfortable around one another. I tended to be kind of quiet and he loved to talk. Whenever we got together it was like walking into a meeting. I relaxed and felt at ease.
When I was thirteen years sober and living in the northeast my friend, whom I had been inexplicably drifting away from for a few years, ended up drunk. Another mutual friend of ours called me one day. We talked about how, for a number of reasons, we were not surprised this guy drank again. His path in life had diverged sharply his last year or two sober. He was not going to meetings, was studying esoteric spiritual things, and was generally pushing himself away from a lot of things that were really good in his life.
My friend was not a good drunk. His going back out was a mess. Thankfully, and in many ways surprisingly, he eventually made it back into the rooms. Yet he was changed and not for the better. He was distant, a little sharper with people, and never regained the warmth and Joie-de-vivre he had once exhibited. He bounced in and out of AA a few times but he did finally stick with sobriety again. Unfortunately we never rekindled our friendship. We did have some strange conversations and meetings together these past few years. The best I can describe it was it seemed like the old him was gone and we both new it. That pink elephant in the room made us both uncomfortable.
and the current news of my day…….
I received a call a few hours ago and was told my old friend committed suicide. He was found this morning in a seaside town in Mexico. He left a note. I do not know what he had to say. Apparently he took a hundred or so xanax. He also shopped around for his own casket a few days ago and told the salesman (undertaker?) he wanted to be buried in Mexico when he died.
This fellow was always cooking up crazy schemes. I guess this was his last big idea.
I pray that he has found the peace he was always seeking.
Goodbye my friend.