I am so blessed, honored, and grateful that I get to walk into a place where people are having some of the hardest days of their lives and bring them a little experience, strength, and hope.
On Monday nights, I sometimes get to go with AA into the psych ward at MUSC.
People end up there for all kinds of reasons. Life circumstances. Drugs. Alcohol. Family problems. Mental and emotional exhaustion. Sometimes life simply becomes too much, and somehow, some way, they find themselves behind those doors trying to figure out what the hell happened.
I understand that place.
I understand having your life in the complete shitter.
I understand getting so close to death that it feels like you knocked on the door, death opened it, looked at you, and said:
Nope. Not you. Not yet.
Apparently, not even death would accept me at my lowest.
It was almost like the universe was saying, We know you’re uncomfortable. We know you’re exhausted. But you’re staying. You have something left to do here.
And thank God I did.
Because now one of the things I get to do is go back.
Tonight I went to MUSC with two other people from AA, and we sat with this group and talked. We shared our stories. We talked about alcoholism, recovery, life, fear, anxiety, shame, fun, God, and what it means to find something greater than yourself.
And I found myself explaining what I believe is one of the most beautiful parts of recovery: you don’t have to carry everything anymore.
You can find a Higher Power—whatever that means to you—and begin handing over some of the worry. Some of the anxiety. Some of the desperate need to control everything.
You can begin trusting that maybe you aren’t doing life alone.
You can also learn that sobriety doesn’t mean your life is over.
You can still have fun. You can laugh. You can belong. You can repair relationships.
You can go back to your family. Your friends. Your job. Your dreams. Yourself.
And you are still worthy of help.
Someone tonight talked about working in healthcare and being able to help everybody else while being unable to figure out how to help himself.
I understood that, too.
Sometimes we keep fixing everybody around us because somewhere inside we’re hoping it will fix whatever hurts in us.
But eventually we have to turn toward ourselves.
That’s part of what recovery has taught me.
Every time I go into that psych ward, I remember being there myself.
And here’s the crazy part:
When I was in the psych ward, I was absolutely not thinking, Wow, what a wonderful experience. Maybe someday I’ll come back here sober and help other people.
Absolutely not.
I was thinking, How do I get out of here, and where is my next bag of blow?
That psych ward wasn’t even a pit stop for me back then. It was more like getting my brakes checked so I could get right back onto the exact same dangerous road I’d been driving down.
I wasn’t ready.
But eventually I was.
And now I get to walk back through those doors as someone completely different.
There is something almost nostalgic about it now, which is strange to say because those were not necessarily good times.
But the nostalgia isn’t good or bad.
It’s recognition.
It’s standing there and realizing:
Wow. I survived that.
I did that. I lived through it. And now I’m here to talk about it.
The place that once held one of the lowest versions of me now gets to meet the version of me who survived.
How fucking cool is that?
I don’t go there because I have somebody else’s recovery figured out. I don’t.
Everyone’s recovery is different. Everyone’s journey is different. Everyone has their own moment when something finally clicks—or doesn’t click yet.
I can only tell them what happened to me.
I can tell them that there is life on the other side.
There is laughter on the other side.
There are friendships and purpose and mornings you actually want to wake up for.
There are Monday nights when you might find yourself walking back into the very place you once desperately wanted to escape—not because you have to be there anymore, but because you choose to be there for somebody else.
Maybe that’s part of my journey.
Going back to places I’ve been and loving the people who are still there.
Not rescuing them. Not fixing them. Just planting a seed.
A little love in someone’s heart.
A little hope in someone’s mind.
A little possibility in someone’s soul.
They don’t even necessarily have to know I’m doing it.
I think of it almost like sending out this silent little field of love around the room. Just putting love somewhere that desperately needs love and letting it land wherever it lands.
Maybe someone hears something tonight that they remember six months from now.
Maybe someone realizes they’re worthy of another chance.
Maybe somebody looks at the three of us and thinks:
If they got out, maybe I can too.
That’s enough for me.
Because I know what it is like to sit on the other side of that room.
And now I know what it feels like to come back carrying hope.
Hope is medicine.
And what a beautiful thing it is to get to bring a little of it with me on a Monday night.
