When we were young in recovery we looked to the old-timers with awe. “She’s got 35 years” He’s got 40 years.” We’d listen when they spoke.

We knew that all that time meant something. We knew it meant they had been through a lot and they still did not use or drink. We knew they had faced all kinds of hard things and had learned a lot about recovery and spirituality and personal growth.

But as much as we admired the old-timers, we didn’t always ask them to be our sponsors—we needed people closer in age to us and we needed people closer to our life stage: other people who were dating or having kids or building careers or making a new life after divorce.

We used the principles of the program—we prayed for God’s will. We surrendered. And, just like the odds in anyone’s life, some of us got the book contracts or the VP titles or the babies. And some did not. We celebrated, and we grieved.

So, it turned out that as much as we whispered our admiration for the old-timers in our meetings, we also didn’t look too closely.

What we missed by not looking closely was the grief, the physical pain, the family losses, and death moving closer. Maybe we knew they had a child that died but the comments in meetings just sounded so wise, still. And we heard that “so and so” had a bad diagnosis or was in the hospital, and maybe we even visited but we missed the fine points.

“How do you get to be an old-timer?” the old joke asks. “Don’t drink and don’t die.” And we laugh. But behind closed doors, and in small living rooms where everyone is over 65, the story changes. The physical stuff is hard, death is not a theory, and we have to face things that platitudes cannot remedy.

Then as it happens, we got older too. We had the career disappointments, and the divorces. The small crises and the huge, shocking ones. If we had kids it turned out that they pleased us, or they didn’t. The baby we prayed for 30 years ago is a drug addict or a too busy parent. They married someone who likes us or who doesn’t.

We lose our jobs—the ones we liked and the ones we hated, and we are shocked that can happen to someone in recovery. Life happens to us the way it happens to the rest of the world. What we have is recovery and maybe a little bit more sanity than some others and some great habits and a community or people who speak our language.

But the divorces hurt, and the wrinkles shock, and the scary diagnoses come slowly and then quickly. Time keeps passing. We sponsor young people, but our recovery friends are aging too.

It’s not a question of staying sober or abstinent. That habit is pretty solid. And over this many years your lifestyle runs itself. You don’t buy wine, and no one offers it. You are not in bars or parties with drugs. Maybe the grown kids are a problem if they bring their substances home post-divorce. You need to tell your recovery friends about that. 

And something else happens with those friendships: They get farther apart. As the illnesses and disabilities get more serious, our friends start to move away: they go to special living places or to the town where their kids live. Oh, we promise to call and visit, and we do, but then it’s harder for us too. And the gap grows.

We go to meetings and we speak when asked. Our stories are still admired. But we don’t raise our hands as often. We may be a little bored with ourselves.

We are the old-timers, but we are not fixed. No one is, after all.

It doesn’t matter who you used to be. Who are you today? What does your commitment to recovery look like now? How do you sustain it? And how will you move toward the end of your life?

Diane C
Albany, New York