‘A living, breathing, screaming invitation to believe better things’
Four men met each other in treatment for substance use disorder. When they completed treatment, these four strangers left as friends. And as chance — or something else — would have it, they all were planning to come to Doc’s Recovery House after treatment for long-term recovery housing, connecting the dots between treatment and all of the other parts of their life and their dreams for the future.
With our culture of community, connection and dignity, this continued friendship led to something stronger for these four — brotherhood.
One of the men in this group had been at Doc’s House before, caught in a back-and-forth struggle in his pursuit of long-term recovery.
On Easter, after an evening of dinner and fellowship, this man left for something simple, and for reasons we didn’t know at the time, he didn’t come back that night.
Cunning.
Baffling.
Powerful.
This kind of unexplained disappearance is never a good sign. So the calls were made and the concern was shared — because when strangers become friends, and friends become brothers, the disappearance of one of your own isn’t something to ignore.
It’s enough to break the hearts of an entire house, and this year on Easter, we all felt it.
When our friend left on Easter, he received calls from our staff, and texts from countless fellow friends and brothers — urging him to come back, and reminding him that help would be waiting.
Thankfully, a few days later, he did come back to the safety of his recovery community, and for the last couple of weeks, that’s the extent of what we knew about our friend finding his way back.
But this past Tuesday, I learned there was a much more beautiful chapter in this story — which may have been the reason he decided to come back at all.
What we learned later was that the three remaining friends who had been trying to reach out to their brother were running and errand together a few days after he left. As chance — or something else — would have it, they drove past an apartment complex on their way through town and noticed a familiar car.
They parked, got out of the car, and together, stood on the sidewalk outside of the apartment complex and began yelling up to the windows:
“We love you!”
“We love you, come back!”
“_____, we love you!”
Over and over and over, they screamed these words outside that apartment complex, hoping their friend and their brother would hear them, come outside and go with them back to the safety of his recovery community.
They ended up yelling ‘we love you’ so many times outside of that building that the property owner came out and had to ask them to leave. He wasn’t happy, but they didn’t care.
Three grown men — tattooed and bearded with lines of life and loss on their faces — yelling, chanting and screaming — “WE LOVE YOU!”
Can you picture it?
Isn’t it the most beautiful sight you’ve ever seen?
While their friend didn’t come out in that moment, their words did exactly what they hoped: They reached the ears of the person who needed to hear the message.
The message of hope and love is the greatest promise of recovery and a beautiful reason to return to community — something worth screaming as many times as it takes.
If the opposite of addiction is connection, we absolutely need other people, and moments like these are why. There is no replacement for human connection, brotherly love, and this kind of unrelenting concern.
And because the opposite of addiction is connection, we need exactly as this quote suggests — a living, breathing, screaming invitation to believe better things.
That we’re loved.
That we’re valued.
That we matter.
“You will need other people, and you will need to be that person for someone else. A living, breathing, screaming invitation to believe better things.”
