Friends were among the first gifts of the program for me. I came in lonely as well as depressed, sick, freaked out, etc. The first thing I saw was a room full of sober potheads. Their existence gave me hope, and I quickly figured out that I needed to hang out with them — in meetings and after meetings and at events — if I was going to stay sober, because most of my other friends were either not sober at all or had no idea what I was going through.
As I started getting sober and making recovery friends, I noticed a wonderful thing: that we could communicate on the usual, smalltalk, shared-interest wavelength, and we could communicate on the spiritual, how-ya-doing wavelength. I still think that’s wonderful.
My recovery friends know me much better than other people, so their friendship is especially appreciated and important to me. They are not the whole program, just like meetings aren’t, but they are a valuable resource for fun, understanding and support that I always grateful for.