My good friend recently returned from rehab.........a really good rehab........a clear message of recovery as outlined in 1935 is taught there. A picture perfect setting, good food, laundry service, excellent therapists, spiritual advisors, beauty salon day on Thursdays..........a really good rehab!!!!!!!

I transported her to this rehab and I picked her up.

She is one, if not my best friend here at home. We met three years ago. I was asked to do a 12 step call on her by another woman in the program.

Her recovery has been a journey of many ups and downs. That is code for lots and lots of relapses!!!!!! Much like me in the 10 years prior.

I have recently come to a pleasant reality about myself. A gift I seem to possess. Never seeking it…………it is a positive part of who I am. The ability to perceive what is “good in me” is a rarity. The self loathing addict still lingers.

This gift I think makes me effective in my career as an interventionist and maybe more importantly with fellow addict and alcoholics that still suffer. It is this seemly inate ability of mine with my good friend and others that hopefully makes me an instrument of change in my life and others.

It is this: I never remember or see in my minds eye the drunkenness and chaos and general bullshit that my drunken friend dishes out when under the influence. I always see my friend as she is sober.

I am void of judgment of her and her relapses. Barely do I think about or recall the drunken antics, the sometimes hurtful words..............what would be the point?

It would be much like remembering the physical symptoms of a diabetic as their blood sugar soared or dipped out of control. I might remember to be of help. But to remember to judge or condemn would make no sense.

Alcoholism and addiction is a medical disease!!!

But sober in the light of day there is a phrase that my friend uttered that I cannot forget. And if I am honest I wish she did had not expressed it or felt it.

Does it really hold that much significance? You be the judge.

Done sweating my ass off at the gym I speed dial her on my fancy phone, blue tooth firmly in place in my ear............I am so cool. HA!!!!!!

"Do you want to meet me at the Noon Meeting? I am almost out of here"

She has been home from rehab for less than 48 hours.

"No, I am tired of all of this. I DO NOT want THIS THING to define who I am. I want this to be a sub-chapter in my life".

"Oh" I say, (Attraction not promotion is our motto) In other words anything crammed down a newly sober (or drunk) person’s throat will be puked back up.

It gets me to thinking. Does the disease of addiction/alcoholism DEFINE who I am?

It did not take me long to answer my question: Fuck yes.

I quote from chapter 3 paragraph 2 of Alcoholics Anonymous, “We learned that we had to fully concede to our inner most selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.”

That is the definition of me in regards to my abnormal response, allergy if you will, to drugs and alcohol. It is NOT the ONLY thing that defines me.

BUT the above description and knowledge to myself that I am not like other people in respect to mind altering chemicals has got to be at the top of the daily list of things that define Joani as a person.

Why?

Everything in my life flows from this knowledge. If the truth that I am alcoholic is forgotten and I use drugs or alcohol again, I will lose all the other things that define me as myself! Those other definitions of Joani go to shit!!!!!!!!! They mean nothing. They express themselves in distorted dishonest ways. My hobbies and interests fade away, Joani fades away...............

"I want this to be a sub chapter in my life" my friend utters on the phone.

"You are buying the fucking gas for our next trip to rehab!" I think to myself. But yes, if she needs it, I will drive her to rehab again. Didn't people do that for me, over and over and over ???????

This is the BIG chapter in my life that defines me. That realization did not come easily or quickly for me either.

So I give my friend lots of latitude.

I just hope and pray that she comes to a clear understanding of who she is before this thing kills her.

That is always the threat; that the knowledge will come too late.