
Recovery has gifted me so many things, but the gift that overwhelms me the most is the love it has enabled me to bear. Itโs a beautiful thing, really, but oh, my Lord, can it be overwhelming. Iโm blessed with so much love and connection that I havenโt learned how to carry it all.
Staying in touch with everyone I care about feels like an impossible task -not because I donโt want to but because I miss them so damn much. Itโs the ironic and antithetical truth: that I miss people too much to give them a call.
Letโs take the ladies from New Lane Senior Center, for example. During my time with NY Project Hope (a FEMA-funded program responding to the COVID crisis), I visited New Lane every Thursday. Tina, Gale, Yolanda, Rosemarie, and Doรฑa Julia made those visits unforgettable -as well as my awesome colleagues. They were all sharp, funny, and endlessly kind.
When my fiancรฉ and I were on a cruise ship leaving New York Harbor, waving during the sail away, heading under the Verrazzano Bridge, we held up a sign that said, โWe love you, New Lane!โ Tina and Gale actually caught a picture of us, which was unsurprising considering they were the star members of the photography club. It was a small moment, but it meant everything to me. These and so many other beautiful memories were shared in our short time together, and I still have the pleasure of enjoying Tinaโs photography on Facebook. Their support, humor, and presence made those months a whole lot brighter.
I care deeply about them and think about them often, but I havenโt contacted them in a long time.ย
I think about picking up the phone to send a text, and I hesitate with a memory heavy on my heartโฆ
When I was around 12, I volunteered at the nursing home where my mom worked and became close friends with a resident named Elvira. She was the best thing since sliced bread, which is inaccurate because she was probably older than that. She was funny, bright, and one of the few adults -senior or otherwise- who could hold the attention and admiration of a young boy who just wanted to go home and play video games. I remember her hands; I remember how, one day,ย she used her limited funds to buy me a chicken pot pie for lunch in the cafeteria. I remember that pot pie. Thatโs the kind of person Elvira was: giving, even when she had very little to give.
Life got busy, and I stopped visiting as often. One day, my mom came home and told me Elvira had passed away. I wasnโt ready for that loss, and my heart was stunned into silence. You see, itโs fascinating to me because I had already lost my grandmother (and several father figures,) so itโs not like loss was a stranger. Her loss wasโฆ her loss cut me deeply because I had never considered that losing her could be a possibility. I didnโt know how to process it and still donโt think Iโve fully processed it.
That experience shaped me in ways Iโm still doing my best to understand. It taught me how much it hurts to lose someone you love, and it taught me how deeply you could come to love someone you donโt see every day. My life is a story of loss that damned me to carry fear, a story that all of my brothers, sisters, and others in recovery have written and read. That fear holds me back from reaching out to the people I love, not because I donโt care, but because I care so much that Iโm afraid of what happened since the last time they picked up the phone.
I tell myself itโs easier this way, and who knows, maybe it is. Perhaps I donโt give myself enough grace when I move to save myself from pain. Excluding a message on any of Metaโs products, I always try to respond when people reach out to me, perhaps because it gives me some sense of balance or probably because, in my mind, it absolves me of the responsibility to stay in touch unless they stay in touch first. Maybe itโs because humans werenโt designed to know as many people as I know, and perhaps our hearts arenโt big enough to handle the love that flows into and out of them from so many sources. Speaking for myself, I know those lovely ladies at the senior center are the tip of the iceberg.
I wonder if Tina, Gale, Yolanda, Rosemarie, and Doรฑa Julia know how much they mean to me. I wonder if I know how much I mean to others in my same situation: missing me too much to shoot me a meme. I hope Iย do; I hope they do. I think about them, love them, and hope they feel it.
And now this article ends the same way it began: with recovery. As recovery transformed me inside and out, I know that without the healing and introspection that it brings, this beautiful problem would just be a ghost in the back of my mind.

Welcome to theย Speak Out Speak Loudย section ofย The Sober Curator, a space echoing Madonnaโs call to โExpress yourself!โ This is where our readers and contributors take center stage, sharing their transformative sobriety journeys. Often, sobriety uncovers hidden talents, abilities, and new avenues of self-expression. By sharing these stories, we facilitate personal healing and offer hope to those still navigating the path of recovery. So, letโs raise our voices, Speak Out, and Speak Loud! In doing so, we combat the silence that often shrouds addiction, offering solace and inspiration. We invite you to share your unique expressions of recovery hereโthrough videos, poems, art, essays, opinion pieces, or music.
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Recovery is hard 24/7, 365 – Please know that resources are available
If you or someone you know is experiencing difficulties surrounding alcoholism, addiction, or mental illness, please reach out and ask for help. People everywhere can and want to help; you just have to know where to look. And continue to look until you find what works for you. Click here for a list of regional and national resources. If your life or someone else’s is in imminent danger, please call 911. If you are in crisis and need immediate help, please call:ย 988.




