Old-timers share experiences to help those in recovery

To The Daily Sun,

The people who have been sober and clean in recovery for many years continue to take an active role in the recovery community for themselves firstly and to pass the message on down to newcomers. These people are called “Old-timers” — not my favorite term but it is concise.

Old-timers share their experience, declare their recovery beliefs, sometimes over-assert themselves with a sincere intention and offer recovery community wisdom that cannot be found anywhere else. More valuable than gold! My heart warms when I watch old-timers strive to make their point. I laugh at we old-timers as we try to be cool. But when an old-timer who has lost his own to addiction — and there are many — hugs a young man or young woman, they are hugging their lost family member … it is a miracle in the making.

Old-timers are retired business owners, machine specialists, men who drive around the country fixing manufacturing equipment, then, possibly before they even go home, they help a young couple newly in recovery to move. They are working grandmothers with two jobs, nurses, law-enforcement officers, long term 1 percenters who have educated themselves and become published authors or motorcycle dealership owners, doctors, lawyers, teachers and human service workers who give back through the professional component of the recovery community by taking low-paying jobs as case managers or outreach workers.

Old-timers help usher the newcomers toward a much better life.

Michael Tensel-MLADC

A&D Recovery Counseling

Laconia