Hi guys!
An amazing thing just happened. I was sitting in my office at my language school and a delivery guy arrived with a huge bouquet of beautiful flowers. This struck me as really odd as it was nobody's birthday or any thing like that. We didn't want to open them because we thought it might be a mistake or something so we phoned the florist's who is in Barcelona (over a thousand km from here). Anyway, he said they were sent by John Smith (not real name), a teacher at a local language school. You won't believe how happy this made me feel! I opened the package and inside was a note reading:
Dear Friends,
This year I give thanks to you for helping me pass one of life's exams.
Happy Thanksgiving,
John
So, I'll start at the beginning. On Monday the 20th April this year, after a boozey, messed up weekend, I decided to give up drinking. It was something that had been coming for some time but I hadn't quite got it right. On that particular Monday I redoubled my resolve and decided that, whatever happened, I wasn't going to drink that day. Well, that particular day turned out to be a day from hell as one of my teachers, an American called John Smith, failed to turn up to work. We couldn't get him by phone either so, after working his shift for him, I decided to look up his address on our records and try to find him. He hadn't been working for us very long but I'd been mentoring him and I was worried that something may have happened to him as he seemed to be a really professional, organised and dedicated guy.
I was really surprised when I arrived at his address to find it was a halfway-house for people overcoming addiction or just out of jail. I talked with the manager who said that John had been overcoming an addiction issue but had been due to move out the following week. He was devastated because he'd seen that John had gone back onto the drink and was refusing to come back to the house. if he didn't come back in 24 hours he would lose his place and wind up on the street. The manager couldn't believe it because John had been doing so well in every sense. I, of course, couldn't believe it either. I would never have suspected that this was his "home" situation. I just knew he was divorced and lived alone.
I drove around looking for him that evening but didn't find him until 2 days later. He was in a mess. Seriously lost. He'd been in a fight and his clothes were messed up and he was wasted though it was only mid-morning. I bought him coffee and food and got him into a local hostal and then one of our secretaries who trained as a social worker managed to get him onto a state funded rehab program a couple of weeks later which he thankfully took up. I met up with him a few times and talked to him about recovery, I explained my own situation too. Maybe it helped. He came by to say thanks one day in July and he was kind of cleaned up but I hadn't heard from him since. I didn't know how it had worked out for him... until now!
One of the reasons I've been able to be so dedicated to my own recovery was because I didn't want the same to happen to me as had happened to John. I'm so happy that he's doing ok and that he has found employment. Life really does give second chances!
I just thought I'd share this here because it shows that miracles can happen. Each one of us in our own way can continue to prove that point!!!