Portly Recovery.

On Saturday I bumped into someone I knew from back in the hospital days. I would say friend, compatriot, survivor but he was exceptionally obnoxious, aggressive and unpleasant at the height of his illness. He had few friends just people who tolerated him in limited doses. My background was different to his and my many others companions on the road of madness yet we were held together by that madness. Souls thrown together by circumstance, illness and stigma. That was a bond few could break.

Seeing him there entering my friend Mandy the butcher's shop almost exactly 23 years since I first met him showed 2 divergent path. He has lost so much weight. He has stopped drinking and using drugs. He no longer shouts at people but is polite. He takes medication. And he said he now has friends who care for him.

I have put on weight-he called me portly. I no longer live there and as the years pass have less and less contact with those from back then. I take medication. I have a career, a place to live, some influence and an independence I never dreamed I would gain. And I have friends.

So who did the best of us? In truth neither. Each recovery is as valid as the other. Recovery is not a model it is a philosophy. In the wrong hands it is very dangerous. The man I saw on Saturday is no lesser or more person than me. He may never work but he has come so far from whence he once was. Those with power should acknowledge that not just blanketly tar us all as worthy or unworthy. We have each moved on and for the better.

I feel heartened by this encounter. Back in my life now I'm reflecting on a weekend away, seeing dad, my friend's birthday, and a day's study. Yes I got round to that today as we had a tutorial. I appear on the right lines with my enquiries. Long may that continue. So with baroque music accompanying my reflections I pose you the reader the question, do we take enough out of those chance encounters and marvel at how far we have come?

I Heard a Voice.