Three Minutes

A few weeks ago I met this young man at an NA meeting. (Narcotics Anonymous for those of you blessed enough to not know). A lot of recovery, I feel, happens before and after the meetings. You speak with people who have been where you are. They tell you how they got through it. A lot of hope is shared in these short conversations. That’s where I met Caleb.

He was on crutches and I asked him what happened. He had an accident with a chain saw. His injury was wrapped up pretty good. He was clean when it occurred but that sparked a conversation between us about our various injuries both sober and not sober. It seems we were both pretty accident prone. I remember the conversation. What I really remember was the smile. He was sitting, I was standing and he had this grin that lit up his face. His eyes were smiling.

“I know both your sons,” he said to me. “It’s really good to see your son here tonight. It’s cool you came with him.”

He was genuinely excited my son made it back to the rooms. You see, if you see someone regularly at meetings, then they go missing for a while, you can be pretty certain they are using again. Then, you can only hope they make it back. Sometimes they don’t. There’s a phrase NA uses, “ Our drug/alcohol addictions lead to three places: Jails, Institutions and DEATH”. It’s not a scare tactic. Unfortunately, it is a reality.