A Life in Recovery

Below is the first in a series of 3 essays written during my time in Cartago, Costa Rica, working with adolescents in addiction recovery. While working in this amazing program I crossed paths with some of the most inspirational young men one could ever hope to meet. Each doing the best he could to better his life in spite of harsh circumstances. Although one could never hope to encapsulate an entire person’s life in a short essay, I hope that I at least, in part, captured a moment in time that might provide some semblance of insight into the difficulties many of us do not face, and very few are aware of. (Some questions will not be answered, these challenging problems go unsolved).

So much regret in two eyes. More than I’ve seen in my entire life. As I sat there with B. he recanted his sorted past with drugs, with his girlfriend, who was then pregnant, and the less than providential nature of his barrio. Sitting there we were like two new friends attempting to bridge a gap that in reality might have been a ravine. I a child of privilege, and he a victim of circumstance. Not to mention we both only spoke a semblance of the language of the other, and in that alone most would give up. But we didn’t. We spoke at length... for what must have been two hours. Trying to explain ourselves, trying to connect. He spoke of the pimps, the killers, and the dealers that had overtaken his home. He spoke about all of this and how it had simply always been this way.

B. was a skinny young man, with green-blue eyes, buzzed hair, and a prominent spiderweb tattoo on his hand and upper wrist. He wore baggy cargo shorts, converse and a tucked in white t-shirt like many of his peers in the program. With zero interaction, and a little imagination, you might judge a book by it’s cover here and think that you would avoid any engagement with him… however he was far from unnerving… he was actually quite approachable.

As he sat there expressing himself with salient body language… perfect gestures with his hands, body and feet, I could see the track covered skin of his arm that had once been like mine, that had once been clean. What was the difference here I later wondered… how did this incredibly smart, and good soul find himself down the wayward path, while I, no smarter than he, ended up, for a lack of a better term, “okay”. The fact of the matter is the answer wasn’t some mysterious, or elusive notion. In fact it was quite simple… circumstance.

So there we were… both hunched over, only occasionally turning to the other to make eye contact… I mean who wouldn’t experience at least a little opia (the discomfort of looking into another’s eyes, particularly a stranger’s) when expressing a foreign concept to a stranger? Especially when the matter at hand carried with it, so much pain, so much uncertainty… so much fear.

I remember I had asked him what his plan was. “What do you plan to do when this is over?” I’m not sure he fully caught my meaning because he told me what anyone at age 17, about to cross the threshold into adulthood, not to mention fatherhood, would say. He told me he would find a job, and try to take care of his kid (B’s words exactly in English). While I appreciated those thoughts what I really wanted to know was what he was going to do to make sure he stayed sober. “Join a gym,” I suggested? He nodded and agreed to that hypothetical. He and I both knew that a gym as well as a proper program, while undoubtedly beneficial, was only a possibility. Here’s a luxury that many on this planet of ours can’t afford and without question, may never be able to… and compared to day-to-day survival is absolutely trivial.

I then asked if he and his girlfriend would try to get out of their barrio? An insanely ignorant question, I must admit, I think I admitted it in the moment. Because here again, a luxury, the ability to escape your circumstances. This also takes money. I didn’t know at the time if B. had problems with the law, and if so, if they would be expunged from his record… An extremely important factor in the ability to find proper housing beyond just financial security. And I still don’t. I may never. What I did know was that in less than a few weeks he would be 18. As he was in a program for adolescents (ages 7-17), he would be forced back out into the same neighborhood, on to the same streets that bore him so much pain.

After some time he mentioned he never wanted to do drugs again… that they had ruined his life. For a moment I beamed with pride inside. I thought, “Have I done it? Have I just helped someone process their life in 2 hours?” Oh, the hubris of a young man wanting to save the world. Of course not. B. had been in this program for well over a year. If nothing else this could have been a conditioned response that he had conveyed to make a good impression. After all when we’re young, and we’re talking to someone who is our elder, we look up to them. We want them to think we’ve got everything handled, even when we don’t.

I don’t mean to say that he was lying. I absolutely don’t think he was disingenuous in his claims. My only concern was simple. Here was a boy, and yes a boy… who was about to return to those drug dealers, pimps, and killers that were probably my age, maybe even older. And in his world… bearing more clout than I. And if he was in fact just telling me what he wanted me to hear, and what he wanted to hear from himself… what might he say or do in the presence of the same influences who had once ruined his life? Who could protect him from a toxic environment? Who can undo the trauma of 18 years in just little more than a year? I don’t know that I could, and it’s for this reason I fear for not just B’s life, but for the lives of all the souls that we cannot protect, that reside in the places we cannot reach.