Bob

Early recovery is like high school. It's said in the rooms (code for "in meetings" or "in the fellowship") that emotional development stops when excessive drug use starts. In effect, everyone comes into recovery with the emotional maturity of a 13- or 14-year-old. As the drugs wear off, emotions that have been stuffed or numbed are overwhelming and hard to keep in perspective.

Newcomers are told that they only have to change one thing about themselves - everything. They are told that people in recovery will love them until they love themselves, but they need to do some work on themselves. It doesn't take long before every thought is analyzed for "motives" and "disease vs. recovery-oriented thinking". EVERY thought.

Specifically, it's like high school when you've already gone to school with most of these people for three or four years. You go to different meetings (classes) with mostly the same people you've come to know way too much about, either through what they themselves have shared or what you've heard from other people who have already gone to meetings with these same people for several years.

It's suggested in recovery that you get a home group: a place to know people and be known; a meeting you'll attend consistently; a place to contribute your service. You are also encouraged to get a sponsor who has a sponsor. If you're lucky, your home group or your sponsorship family (others sponsored by your sponsor or her sponsor), becomes your "posse" - your clique, your extended family, your peeps.

I got just that lucky when I chose my sponsor and joined her home group. Most of the people there were warm and welcoming, and twisted in all of the right ways. Everyone was committed to recovery, to the group, and to each other, and I truly felt like I was home. I learned about area service, white water rafting, and staying clean with those people.

I learned a lot about love, powerlessness, and surrender, too. It was time for me to surrender when I had two ex-boyfriends and one ex-boss in that home group. For me, that meeting no longer had an atmosphere of recovery. While much of the hurt and anger were the consequences of my behavior, I had to find someplace else to work through all of it.

Bob - the titular Bob - was the ex-boss (one of the ex-boyfriends is also named Bob). Bob was the big brother/father figure of the group. He'd been clean for almost 10 years when I met him. He was extremely intelligent, extremely opinionated, and extremely serious about the program. After our Monday night meetings most of us would adjourn to the local diner and spend the next several hours talking about recovery (until midnight or so - then the conversation became far less spiritual). He smoked way too much, he was relentless in his mission to get all women into sensible footwear (he made orthotics for a living), and he pretty much knew something about everything (and was hardly ever wrong). You either loved Bob or hated him. First I hated him, then I loved him, then I hated him again.

Some people are good at relationships, some people are good at school, some people are good with money, and some people are good at careers. I am the opposite of good at careers. Nothing makes me anxious like having to find a new job; I have always under-achieved work-wise because I neither give myself credit for my abilities nor have the chutzpah to sell myself. When Bob needed a receptionist for his orthotics office, I was thrilled to take the job.

Long story short: there were some work practices with which I was not comfortable. Lying was a necessary part of the job; whether it was justifiable or standard procedure in the business, I felt I couldn't continue to work there without sacrificing my integrity. Which would put my recovery in jeopardy.

I shared in at my home group (I'd pick a different meeting if I had it to do over again) that I had to make a tough decision involving someone I cared about and didn't want to hurt. A few days later Bob came to me and asked if I was getting ready to leave the business. I told him that I wasn't sure, but that I would give him plenty of notice and I'd stay at least through the rest of the year (this was early December). I also shared with him a letter I'd written to him explaining exactly what my concerns were and what steps could be taken to mediate them.

The next Monday I was handed a letter accepting my resignation. I was shocked, hurt, and eventually, angry. I felt completely betrayed. Not only had he used what I shared in a meeting against me (oh, naive me), but he'd acted like he was willing to give me time to make a decision.

It got worse when I filed for unemployment. He fought me, claiming I'd quit. My claim was initially approved and the decision was upheld through the first two rounds of appeals. Bob failed to appear for the third round, calling with the excuse that he had to pick up his daughter at the airport (Bob had no children; it was his girlfriend's daughter). His case was dismissed and finally, it was over.

That last paragraph leaves out the worst of it. I was so completely unprepared for him to behave the way he did. Bob had been one of my confidants - I trusted him implicitly. More than that, I trusted him to live by the principles of the program to which he so fervently adhered. The appeals process dragged on for months and every time I had to show up to defend myself was like walking through hell. I am not confident or strong and I hate confrontation but the bottom line was that I DID NOT QUIT. That was what I held on to every time the Department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulations return address appeared in the mail and my stomach started to churn.

At the same time I was fighting the appeals process, I had to show up at my home group. I had to face all those people I loved who loved him. I would not let Bob chase me out of that room. That was also about my integrity and my recovery. I had done nothing wrong. Naive? Yes. But not wrong.

Bob's celebration of his clean time anniversary was in June. Some people call on specific people to share at their anniversaries - friends, sponsors, family - but Bob never did. After he spoke that year after he'd let let me go, he said he wanted to call on five people. Later I found out everyone was mentally counting his sponsees and closest friends trying to figure out who he was talking about. He called on his girlfriend, her daughter, two people I can't remember, and me. He didn't look at me as he said my name.

I know I introduced myself. I know I said something like "I wasn't sure I was going to come tonight" and "the importance of supporting a home group member" and "if you don't understand why I'm so upset, it's none of your business" because by that time I was sobbing. It wasn't long after that that I got a new home group.

I didn't see Bob for a long time after that. I knew he'd gotten married. I'd heard a couple of years ago that he had cancer but that his treatment was going well and, later, that he was in remission. I saw him after that at a convention - I said hello and gave him the fellowship hug and kept right on going about my business without having too many feelings about it.

Bob died on Sunday. The cancer came back in December. I got a message last week that he was extremely sick and didn't have much time. I'd made my peace with the situation (though I will admit that in my opinion, he owed me amends) and didn't want to intrude on the time he had left with his loved ones. I got all the way to the parking lot of my home group after I got the news from Danny last night (how convenient that I had to meet V. at area service to give her our group's donation) and drove straight out the other side to go to Bob's home group - my old home group.

On the way, I checked my motives. Why did I want to show up now when Bob and I hadn't talked for years? What was that about?

What it was about, I decided, was wanting to be there to offer my support to my friends who are grieving. It was about honoring the place Bob had in my early recovery - recognizing that despite the way it ended, the relationship mattered.

I'm not one of those people that says nice things about a jackass just because they're dead - we've all got an expiration date; death doesn't make you a saint. Bob was definitely an ass to me and it was just as much on him as on me that we never spoke about what happened. I made the one amend that I felt I owed him years ago; we had no unfinished business between us that was so important it couldn't stay unfinished.

Although...I would love to know why he called on me that night. Then again, maybe I wouldn't; maybe he just wanted to put me on the spot to see if I'd apologize to him for filing for unemployment. If I want to believe that it was his way of reaching out - of telling me that I still mattered to him and he was glad I was there - maybe I'm kidding myself.

I'm okay with that.