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We Learn Who We Are Through Each Other.
I used to think getting sober meant fixing myself.
Like there was some version of me locked inside, waiting to be uncovered, if I could just find the right therapist, detox, or book.
Turns out, that version of me wasn’t buried. He hadn’t even been built yet.
Recovery didn’t hand me a clean slate. It gave me a mirror—and the people I met along the way helped me actually look into it.
I’ve been to more treatment centers than I can count. Some were well-run. Some weren’t. Most were somewhere in between—full of staff doing their best, clients doing what they could, and a system that didn’t always make space for actual healing.
What no one tells you when you’re cycling through programs is that the paperwork doesn’t heal you. Neither does the perfect progress note. You don’t recover because someone else says you’re ready.
You recover when you’re willing to stop hiding.
And if you’re lucky, there are people around you who help make that feel even slightly possible.
For me, it happened slowly. Not in one place or because of one person, but in a thousand small moments.
A guy I barely knew picked me up for a meeting because I didn’t have a car. A house manager told me to get up and make my bed even though I’d only slept two hours. A roommate gave me his last cup of instant coffee and said, “Today doesn’t have to be like yesterday.”
These people didn’t owe me anything. And maybe that’s what made it hit harder. There was no angle. They were just people who were once as lost as I was, doing better and wanting the same for me.
They didn’t only show me how to stay sober. They showed me what being a person looked like.
I come from a background where trust wasn’t easy. I knew how to perform, how to get by, how to hustle a system—but vulnerability? Asking for help? That felt foreign.
So when these people—many of them strangers—kept showing up without strings attached, I didn’t know what to do with that. But over time, I started leaning in. Started listening.
I learned that a community isn’t built by finding your people. It’s built by becoming the kind of person other people can lean on.
That took time. It took missteps. It took humility and a whole lot of self-inventory.
But I’ve learned that if you don’t have the kind of community you need—become someone who can help create it.
Not by preaching. Not by pretending to have it all figured out. But by being consistent. Honest. Willing.
There are still things about the recovery system that frustrate me—how people can get lost in the shuffle, how access to care often depends on insurance, how some programs seem to value profit more than people. But the truth is, I’m here today because of the people who made it work anyway.
The people who sat next to me in basements, in detoxes, in beat-up vans headed to early morning jobs. People who didn’t look like me or vote like me or come from where I came from—but who understood what it meant to hurt, to hope, and to want something better.
We don’t heal alone. We’re not supposed to.
That’s not weakness. That’s what makes us human.
If you’re still searching for your people, don’t give up. If you’re learning how to show up for others, keep going. And if you’ve found a little light in your corner of the world—share it. You never know who’s watching, hoping it means there’s something left for them too.
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