from "Sober Mercies, A Memoir: How Love Caught Up With a Christan Drunk," by Heather Kopp
[Sounds so familiar...]
I could have chosen a less diverse meeting to make my "home group" (the one you attend regularly). But something about this motley crowd appealed to me. You got the sense here that everyone in the room was in dire need of, on the verge of, or in the middle of a miracle...Every time I walked into the room, at least several people said hello to me by name. They seemed glad, even relieved, to see me...
[After a man in the group shared that his son had committed suicide the night before and she wondered why he had come to group that day...] The love and compassion in the room was palpable. And I finally got it: Danny is here because this is his family.
After that, I quickly figured out that these folks didn't know each other only because the hung out for an hour at lunch. They had formed a tight-knit community that happened largely outside of this room. They helped one another move, or went bowling together or played poker together. The hosted each other on holidays and celebrated sobriety milestones as "birthdays."
You'd think a close-knit community like this would feel at least vaguely familiar to me, that it might be reminiscent of church in some way, or of small groups I'd been part of. But the particular brand of love and loyalty that seemed to flow so easily here wasn't like anything I'd ever experienced, inside or outside of church.
But how could this be? How could a bunch of addicts and alcoholics manage to succeed at creating the kind of intimate fellowship so many of my Christian groups had tried to achieve and failed?
Many months would pass before I understood that people bond more deeply over shared brokenness than they do over shared beliefs.
I could have chosen a less diverse meeting to make my "home group" (the one you attend regularly). But something about this motley crowd appealed to me. You got the sense here that everyone in the room was in dire need of, on the verge of, or in the middle of a miracle...Every time I walked into the room, at least several people said hello to me by name. They seemed glad, even relieved, to see me...
[After a man in the group shared that his son had committed suicide the night before and she wondered why he had come to group that day...] The love and compassion in the room was palpable. And I finally got it: Danny is here because this is his family.
After that, I quickly figured out that these folks didn't know each other only because the hung out for an hour at lunch. They had formed a tight-knit community that happened largely outside of this room. They helped one another move, or went bowling together or played poker together. The hosted each other on holidays and celebrated sobriety milestones as "birthdays."
You'd think a close-knit community like this would feel at least vaguely familiar to me, that it might be reminiscent of church in some way, or of small groups I'd been part of. But the particular brand of love and loyalty that seemed to flow so easily here wasn't like anything I'd ever experienced, inside or outside of church.
But how could this be? How could a bunch of addicts and alcoholics manage to succeed at creating the kind of intimate fellowship so many of my Christian groups had tried to achieve and failed?
Many months would pass before I understood that people bond more deeply over shared brokenness than they do over shared beliefs.
posted by melilotnfosco | 12:06 AM
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