Imagine two astronauts go to the moon, and while they’re there, there’s an accident and their ship can’t take them back to Earth. They have only enough oxygen for two days. There is no hope of someone coming from Earth in time to rescue them. They have only two days to live. If you were to ask them at that moment, “What is your deepest wish?” they would answer, “To be back home walking on our beautiful planet Earth.” That would be enough for them; they wouldn’t want anything else. They wouldn’t think of being the head of a large corporation, a famous celebrity, or the president of the United States. They wouldn’t want anything but to be back here—walking on Earth, enjoying every step, listening to the sounds of nature, or holding the hand of their beloved while contemplating the moon at night.
We should live every day like people who have just been rescued from dying on the moon. We are on Earth now, and we need to enjoy walking on this precious, beautiful planet.
- Thich Nhat Hanh
***
One of the things about the Recovery life that I find hard to explain is how much we laugh in meetings, laugh about some fucked-up shit we lived through (or barely lived through). Sometimes we laugh at someone else's fucked-up shit, but I should be very clear that this is a laughing-with kind of thing, not a laughing-at scenario. If you haven't lived through it, you might misunderstand.
I had a fellow who was in and out of the rooms a bit, and while I was in my tenure hosting meetings twice a week at the Treatment Center he came along with me a few times. He finally got in and stayed clean for a while and gained some weight right away (lots of people do, that's normal and healthy) and he started to look and sound pretty good. Anyway one day we were up there and he was telling his story. On his latest adventure in active addiction, he'd ended up holed away in some shitty hotel with a firearm, out of his mind with paranoia, while his mother was trying to get him to come outside and talk to her.
His voice drops and he scans the room: "I wasn't getting in a car," he tells the group. As if getting in a car was the equivalent of diving bare-assed out of an aeroplane. "I just needed a nap, and a sandwich."
Dear reader this man almost died and his poor mother had to live through something no parent ever should. Nevertheless listening to this story I laughed to tears. To tears! To this day, my dear friend E. and I repeat that phrase - "I just needed a nap, and a sandwich" to punctuate a situation where we know we are one-hundred-percent, absolutely, entirely out of pocket.
Like when you're running down a hill and it's fun but then you can't stop and your arms are windmilling about and you're about to trip and eat shit but maybe just mayyyyybe you won't fall!
***
It's been going on twelve years I've been sober and I still feel as giddy as a schoolboy that I get to be here and I get to live a different way. I can't believe it. Another thing that people-who-don't-get-sober don't understand, is how utterly impossible it is to explain to anyone. It's not that no one could understand, it's that few people do (besides other sober addicts).
Because if you tell a big scary story about active addiction they get all serious and solemn and pull the Dr. Drew sad-yet-superior face. But if you tell a funny entertaining story they're like, "Whoo-hoo rock star!" And neither thing is correct, not really.
Besides in active addiction we never really know how close we were to death. Some of us got very close indeed and we know it. Some of us aren't sure. But all of us who survived, well if we're sober long enough we come to realize we were only inches away from screwing up in an irreparable way.
It happens all the time. To rich and poor alike! (Then the surviving family pens our obituary thus: "peacefully passed", "died suddenly", or "natural causes". The final insult!)
***
Last night walking with my partner on a warm summer night, a beachy mist in the air and I can feel my footfalls on our messed-up sidewalks. My boots are old, really old and the inner sole is finally starting to peel and I'm not sure how to fix this? But hearing my partner's voice and feeling his body alongside mine, and it's amazing that I've been a visitor to a far-away place but now I am here, and here I get to be with my Beloved.
But back then I found myself in this far-away place and at some point I knew I couldn't make it back. I knew it was impossible. It was impossible and it was impenetrable.
And then something amazing happened and I got a chance. And I clung to that rope and I pulled myself up. And there were all these people shouting encouragement and telling me I was doing great but no one could pull me up but me. And I had a sweaty face and I flubbed and cursed but I didn't let go. And I got myself up.
Sometimes I feel so precious, so special that I'm here. I don't think I'm more special than anyone else, but it's like this secret I live with, just how precious I really am, this little flame that lives on, for a little while longer at least. I took care of that flame. When the chips were down it turns out I didn't want to die.
I was on the moon, and I was stranded for sure, but I made it back.
