![\"photo\"](\"http:\/\/www.nashville.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/photo.jpg\")
<\/a>Several months later, Mascara Man relapsed, but he came back to recovery and moved in with a mutual friend.<\/p>\nNow, I delivered hugs and kind words to Mascara Man at meetings and in his apartment. Never offered him any advice or guidance, just hugs and kind words.<\/p>\n
Eventually, Mascara Man took off the mascara and turned down his volume, a little, at any rate. But I still, for the most part, steered clear of No More Mascara Man.<\/p>\n
About a month later, he asked our mutual friend for my phone number.<\/p>\n
What the\u2026? Uh oh.<\/p>\n
The next time I saw\u00a0Mascara Man, he \u2014 voice shaking, hands twitching \u2014 asked me to be his sponsor.<\/p>\n
Shit.<\/p>\n
I blanched, smiled and thanked him for asking me,\u00a0and I told him I\u2019d have to ask my sponsor.<\/p>\n
But I already knew what my sponsor was going to say.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey John,\u201d I said to my sponsor, \u201c(Mascara Man) wants me to be his sponsor.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did you tell him?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat I\u2019d have to ask you.\u201d<\/p>\n
My sponsor laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou already know what you\u2019re gonna do. You already know the answer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shit!<\/p>\n
My sponsor knew what I was just starting to realize. Mascara Man wasn\u2019t the problem; I was.<\/p>\n
*\u00a0\u00a0 *\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/p>\n
I had to take a step back and really look at this: Why did Mascara Man bug me?<\/p>\n
Why did all his attention seeking get under my skin? There\u2019s a clich\u00e9 in recovery \u2013 You spot it, you got it.<\/p>\n
Ya think Brad About You ever sought attention?<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t enough for me to be loud and obnoxious in bars and restaurants, I had to do it on the radio, in a newspaper column. I said yes to almost every event-hosting request that came along so I could get MORE SPOTLIGHT!<\/p>\n
I absolutely used attention to fill a spiritual void inside me, to try to quiet that voice that always told me that I wasn\u2019t good enough, that I was less than.<\/p>\n
So when I see attention-seeking in someone else, it brings up my old shame, and I have a bad reaction. That can come out as judgment or hate. And all it really is is self-loathing.<\/p>\n
Time for me to knock it off. I have to stop putting my shame out as disdain for someone else.<\/p>\n
And while I\u2019m at it, I need to stop judging others, or at least start to put myself in their shoes.<\/p>\n
That guy who says we\u2019re gonna die if we don\u2019t work steps? Maybe he\u2019s full of fear because a friend just died from addiction.<\/p>\n
The woman who always takes home the snacks after meetings? Maybe she\u2019s hungry, and she might have hungry kids at home.<\/p>\n
The guy who\u2019s hitting on newcomers could be looking for something, anything, to fill that spiritual hole that he used to fill with drugs and alcohol. Just like I do with food and binge TV watching and, still, to a lesser extent, attention.<\/p>\n
Mascara Man started working steps with me, calling often, and we built a great trusting relationship \u2014 and we eventually, because I jumped around between fellowships,\u00a0parted ways.<\/p>\n
But I do know that he is now a loving husband and a loving father, to a beautiful girl. He and his wife, both active in church, are expecting another baby soon.<\/p>\n
And he is soooooooooo much more mellow and at peace \u2013 and doesn\u2019t wear mascara, around me, anyway.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s all well and good, and I\u2019m very happy for him and his new family. And I love him more than he knows.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m also happy that the guy who really needed to change \u2013 me \u2013 has in fact become more accepting and loving.<\/p>\n
Now I\u2019m among the first guys to greet the newcomer dude wearing makeup and a crazy T-shirt.<\/p>\n
Too, I have to keep in mind something that my sponsor\u2019s sponsor once said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hardest people to love in recovery are the ones who need love the most.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every time I saw him at a 12-step meeting, the guy was wearing mascara \u2014 and sunglasses, earrings, a graphic T-shirt, some sort of hat. His lip was pierced. He often posted half or fully naked pics of himself on Facebook. And when Mascara Man would share in the rooms, he\u2019d usually raise\u00a0his voice and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}