I don’t know how to process this situation and I am seeing. There is this young girl (A) that has been coming to our little group for a bit, I met her at another meeting in the area. She is only 18 years old and is coming to AA after going through a 2 month treatment program. The center that she went to did not go through 12 step recovery with them but encouraged them to go to meetings after they left the place. Which is interesting because they describe their site as doing “evidence based recovery” and not 12 step recovery. I find this interesting because while they don’t “use’ the AA methodology they certainly use many of the same concepts. They talk an awful lot about triggers and getting to the root of the reasons why a person was trying to escape from themselves. But whatever, not my program, I know what works for me and that has been AA so far.
So here we are with A coming to our little meeting for a month or so and she seemed to be doing OK. She was in regular attendance, she came out for coffee and she went to the local roundup with us. All signs pointed to the fact that she was enjoying the early recovery life, until she started to open up a little bit. She stopped coming for a few days and then reached out and informed me that she has been drinking every day. When I encouraged her to come back she started to unload a lot of information to me that included how she has a lot of suicidal thoughts and ideation. She apparently has tried to end her life a few times, this makes me so sad. I understand the “call of the void” thing and I go through that many times myself. But this was different; she was telling me that just genuinely feels like she is not built to exist in this world. That she cannot see a future that she will ever be happy with. I am not equiped to help someone with that sort of mental anguish. I am wrestling with the old character defects that have me wanting to try to save this girl. But I have to realize that I am not responsible for her and her well being. I’ve said many a prayer for her and I wish her well but that is about the extent of what I can offer her. I am always willing to listen and guide and point people to others in the program taht I know can help, but this one is outside my control.
Be well my friends, and A…I hope you’re doing OK. I truly wish for you to find some peace in this life, with us.
B
My Recovery 