Love is for keeps

"How has a friend changed you or your perspective on the world this year? Was this change gradual, or a sudden burst?"

It was a gradual change, and it took me a bit to notice, but it was all there: love and understanding. It wasn't one friend, but all of them. They showed me caring and compassion I've never known, or perhaps just never noticed.

As you all know by now, I quit drinking on May 27, 2010. I was wasted the night before, and realized I was wasting my life. I was filling that sad hole inside with booze and drugs, and I was miserable. I didn't want to end up 40 and that drunken embarrassment. And so I quit. I made up my mind, and I did it.

I got a sponsor and let myself follow all the traditions of AA. And I made friends, I loved it. I moved here 4 months later and got a new sponsor. "You hang out with people who drink?" she wondered. "Our friends when we were drinking hung out because we were fun; because we drank." Really? But I was pretty sure my friends loved me.

But as the months passed I noticed something. My relationships all changed. Something happened. Each day they counted on me a little bit more. I wasn't the one who would come over just to drink, and so they invited me over more. We had dinner and sat around drinking coffee. At parties it was always, "Is it ok if I have a drink? I don't have to if it makes you want one." They were so considerate of my new found sobriety.

As the months passed they relied on me more. They called me in the middle of the night to talk about their problems; they trusted me to be there for them and not to be drunkenly complaining about my life, or whatever I did blacked out on the phone. And so it all changed. Gradually, but my friends made my life better, and I contributed to theirs in a healthier way. My whole perspective on friendship changed when I got sober: I knew I had love in my life. I knew it was for keeps.