Cheer for the Willing

Tonight I witnessed one of the greatest acts of faith and willingness I’ve ever seen in someone new to recovery. I don’t even know what word describes how I feel. Fulfilled. Grateful. Sruprised, Happy. Blessed. I don’t know. Full. I feel full.

I’ve been spending more time with the Cheerleader lately and I’ve been doing it because he’s been reaching out. I’m probably the only guy in town who understands about what it is to be a gay man in early recovery from crystal meth addiction that actively makes himself available to other men trying to get clean. Maybe not, but when I was trying to get clean I had a hard time even finding honest voices out in the blogosphere. Marc and Rod were the first and only for quite awhile.

So this afternoon CL calls, he’s 5 days sober now which was always a difficult point for me (as I”ve documented here -a couple of times), and he’s struggling. People call him looking for dope. His phone is repleat with the numbers of connections.

I suggested he do what I did - change his number. And I suggested he meet me after my group. I had to blow off a commitment at the Second Road to do it but we got together at a coffee house at 9 this evening and talked a bit. He had a new phone number and he had deleted his call history and most of his phone numbers.

We talked about it for ten minutes or so and then he deleted the rest of the numbers. Even the number of the man he feels like he’s in love with.

I changed my number right away, but it took me 4 months to be able to delete the contacts. I never talked to anyone about it. And to delete the IFX’s number? That took a level of suffering I can barely describe. But I did delete all my numbers as an act of faith that this whole recovery thing was going to work out, and to be present with someone as they took that same leap of faith was just completely incredible.