Cheerful Capitalization

There are parts of my experience at the end of my use and in the early part of my recovery that I have been hard pressed to imagine would ever be an asset; something I could share to help another addict recover, chief among them my relationship with Dan, the Imaginary Future Ex-Husband (IFX). Dan’s skill at using my lonliness at the end of my using days, his disappearance on my birthday, and most particularly his extrarodinary meanness when he got out of prison and started showing up in 12 step meetings places him at the center of some of the most painful moments of my life.

I think it would be really easy for me to hate him; perhaps too easy. Yet I don’t. I don’t even hate what happened, what I allowed to happen. It is so central to the story of my recovery, which I am so grateful for, that I can’t really separate my gratitude from the pain. I just never really expected the details of this part of my experience would be useful to anyone but me. So last night when the Cheerleader and I sat down to finish his 1st step I had the chance to share the intimate details of that experience. Dennis has an identical character in his life. In fact my IFX and Dennis’s spent time in prison together and know each other well. Dennis is going through almost identical circumstances to mine and experiencing almost identical loneliness and pain over it.

To have the opportunity to share that pain with him, to show him what I did, to demonstrate to him that I haven’t had to repeat that or feel that again and why has given me so much joy and gratitude that I can barely contain myself. My most particular joy in sharing all the gorey details with Dennis has been to see him set aside what he’s done in the past and throw himself at trying somehting new, and to see that, at least so far, it’s working for him, too.