{"id":196,"date":"2014-07-16T20:27:03","date_gmt":"2014-07-16T20:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nashvillerecovers.org\/?p=106"},"modified":"2017-07-09T06:21:53","modified_gmt":"2017-07-09T06:21:53","slug":"a-jersey-boy-breaks-my-heart-for-a-minute-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/2014\/07\/16\/a-jersey-boy-breaks-my-heart-for-a-minute-anyway\/","title":{"rendered":"A Jersey boy breaks my heart \u2014 for a minute, anyway"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019ve heard of Jersey Boys, guys with Italian surnames who came from the wrong side of the tracks in the Garden State to form the singing group The Four Seasons.<\/span><\/p>\n

Well here in the Nashville recovery community, we have a different kind of Jersey Boys, thanks to a few beloved\/aggressive recruiters from Cumberland Heights.<\/span><\/p>\n

These are recovering addicts from the rich side of the tracks, the kind of addicts who started snorting pain pills in high school and eventually took Mom and Dad\u2019s Beemers and Range Rovers into the worst parts of Newark to cop.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many of them \u2013 to my great delight \u2013 decide to stay in Nashville when they finish treatment.<\/span><\/p>\n

These recovery Jersey Boys \u2013 also with mostly Italian surnames \u2014 tend to travel in a fun-lovin\u2019 pack, rowdy and bawdy, bustin\u2019 balls and swarming the gym or recovery meetings or NY Pie in the Nashville West shopping center. (\u201cIt\u2019s the only decent pizza in this friggin town,\u201d they whine.)<\/span><\/p>\n

But don\u2019t let the bluster of these cologne-spraying, hairy mama\u2019s boys fool you.<\/span><\/p>\n

Their shares in recovery meetings have the kind of insight, vulnerability and emotion that make you cry. Or make me cry, anyway (which, granted, is not that hard to do).<\/span><\/p>\n

And get \u2018em one-on-one, and these Jersey Boys are some of the most caring, loving guys I\u2019ve met.<\/span><\/p>\n

A couple of years ago, I met one of the latest Jersey Boys arrivals, a good looking 20-something guy I\u2019ll call Richard (because his name is Richard).<\/span><\/p>\n

I heard him share at a meeting while he was still in treatment, and it turns out, we both had the same painful experience when we were boys. I talked with him about that afterward, and we formed a great bond that night.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before long, I became Richard\u2019s sponsor.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"hug\"<\/span><\/a>Love this kid. He\u2019s considerate, mellow, polite, earnest. We hung out some, did some steps, heck, he ended up living in my spare bedroom for a week or two after things got rocky at his sober living house. (Did I mention he cleaned up after himself and made his bed every day? Rare behavior for most of my past temporary recovery roomies.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard even invited me along to dinner one night when his mother was visiting from \u2013 you guessed it \u2013 New Jersey.<\/span><\/p>\n

Did I mention that I love this kid!?<\/span><\/p>\n

After a few months, the calls got less frequent. Step work slowed dramatically. I\u2019d see him at meetings and we\u2019d hug and just talk briefly.<\/span><\/p>\n

My sponsors have told me: Always let the sponsees call you. Your job is to serve them, do steps at their speed, answer their calls. Don\u2019t chase them or pester them, and don\u2019t give advice; just share your experience with whatever those challenges or problems are that they bring to you.<\/span><\/p>\n

OK, OK, gotcha.<\/span><\/p>\n

I can say emphatically that I love all the sponsees with whom I\u2019ve ever worked.<\/span><\/p>\n

I can also say that Richard holds a special place in my heart. It made me sad when our contacts slowed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then one day, seemingly out of the blue, he invited me to dinner. Uh oh. Richard had never invited me to a one-on-one dinner before. I\u2019m getting dumped!!<\/span><\/p>\n

We met at \u2013 you guessed it \u2013 NY Pie. It\u2019s the only decent pizza in this friggin\u2019 town, I\u2019m told.<\/span><\/p>\n

We caught up on jobs, friends, girls. And then, I couldn\u2019t wait any longer.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why, I asked Richard, why did you want to have dinner?<\/span><\/p>\n

He paused, and looked genuinely pained.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I said it for him: \u201cYou got a new sponsor.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHow\u2019d you know?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve never asked me to grab dinner before.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard hung his head and smiled.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Turns out that Richard, for his new sponsor, had picked \u2013 you guessed it \u2013 a fellow Jersey Boy, and one whom I love a lot.<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard\u2019s new sponsor, in fact, helped\u00a0me<\/i>\u00a0get clean, and today, he is one of my best friends. So I gotta give it to Richard, he chose well.<\/span><\/p>\n

And this blog has been a little tongue in cheek so far. But I have to cop to the fact that it stung a little to get dumped.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s my own stuff. I have some abandonment\/rejection issues, partly from my dad dying when I was a boy, partly from other life events.<\/span><\/p>\n

I know, I know, all sponsors are temporary, we\u2019re only spiritual guides through the 12 steps, we\u2019re not your banker, your taxi or even, necessarily, your friend.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I can\u2019t help feeling how I feel, and that stung.<\/span><\/p>\n

Solution: I talked it over with my sponsor and with other recovery friends, prayed for Richard and his new sponsor \u2014 and that sting subsided after a few days.<\/span><\/p>\n

I got to spend a lot of time with Richard recently when we helped a fellow recovering addict move. And I still see him often at meetings.<\/span><\/p>\n

And he is still the sweetest, most earnest kid in the world. But today, Richard is calmer than before, and he hasn\u2019t taken any drugs for a year.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m so happy to have had a front-row seat to those changes.<\/span><\/p>\n

And regardless of whatever titles our relationship may or may not have, I have a feeling we\u2019ll be connected for a long time.<\/span><\/p>\n

God, grant me the serenity to accept that relationships change, in and out of recovery, and that has no reflection on my value as a human being.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You\u2019ve heard of Jersey Boys, guys with Italian surnames who came from the wrong side of the tracks in the Garden State to form the singing group The Four Seasons. Well here in the Nashville recovery community, we have a different kind of Jersey Boys, thanks to a few beloved\/aggressive recruiters from Cumberland Heights. These […]<\/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":[3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196","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=196"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":218,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions\/218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}