Bittersweet Maintenance of Conscious Contact: Sobriety Isn’t Easy

Originally written May 5, 2024

I spent the weekend with an amazing group of sober ladies, where we shared our experience, strength, and hope with each other, with a focus on maintaining a “Conscious Contact” with the higher power of our own choosing. It was such a fulfilling time, and yet, there was someone missing…

Some of these ladies and I share a mutual friend, someone who I group up with, who was as close to me and my family as any two sisters could be. It’s been several years since we’ve spoken, which breaks my heart. This is the longest we’ve ever gone without speaking. Even when I lived in Italy and Greece, we spoke on a regular basis. She was the first person I called almost 20 years ago when I knew I needed help to stop drinking. I was the first person she told that she had been pretending to be someone she wasn’t. 

I’ve been worried about her for a while, wondering if she is okay, and at least safe. I was excited to meet ladies who knew her, hopeful that my fears could be laid to rest. After talking with our mutual friends, and learning that they have not seen or heard from her in a long time, none of us even knowing where she lives right now, I am more concerned about her than ever. I’ve reached out to her, but I haven’t gotten any sort of response.

I’ve been around the rooms for almost 20 years, and I have seen people come and go. Some of them have longterm sobriety, and they begin to isolate and put other things in front of their sobriety until, one day, they have no protection against that first drink and they are off to the races again. I worry that my friend has found her way back out there, and I just hope that if she has, she is safe, and that when she has had enough, she will find her way back in to the program. I hope that she is keeping a “Conscious Contact” with her own higher power. I know that when I have been in places where meetings were scarce and sponsors were even more scarce, I have really had to turn to mine to carry me through some pretty dark times, even times when I came dangerously close to picking up another drink. That “Conscious Contact” is what kept me from falling off the wagon.

I also know that this worry I have nagging at me is not just about my old friend, but about me… if she could go back out there after 20+ years, what would stop me? I know that complacency, a lack of self-vigilance, and a lack of “Conscious Contact” are all sobriety foes. They will surely kill us if we are not watchful, working the steps, doing some sort of service work.

‘Admittedly for me, my service work has been to a different kind of service than AA – taking Grubby’s story to the streets, advocating for better mental health awareness among our law enforcement. It not only is helping me heal and work through the trauma and grief, it is keeping me grounded. After all, it’s very humbling to stand in front of a room or hall and tell a bunch of strangers that you didn’t see any signs that your own spouse was about to take his life.

So, yes, I still have a healthy fear of what would happen if I were to take a drink again, and it’s that fear that drives me to make each day count and to celebrate every day that ends in ‘y’ with something positive, instead of celebrating them in a bar.

As for my friend, I hope that my instincts are wrong, but whether or not they are remains to be seen. I just know that I miss my “sister”, and whenever the time comes that she reaches back out, I will be here to welcome her back. Someday, hopefully, we will have a really long talk about all that has happened to the both of us since we last spoke. For now, I will continue to send out love and positive energy into the universe to her… wherever she may be…