LONELY TIME

Back about 1996 I got sick. Came in from work one day and fell on the couch, fevered and exhausted.
My then-wife asked me what I needed for medicine
“I don’t know” yelled, “Just get me something” I fell asleep on the couch.
When I woke up, Shila was nudging me awake.
“Here , I got you all this” she said, and there were about 10 bottles of medicine lined up on the coffee table.
I groaned and said “What is all this SHIT?” and she said “To hell with you”.

And so fast forward about 6 years. I’ve run everyone in my life off, in my addiction, including Shila.
I was working at Subway, and my only friends really were the High School kids that worked there with me.
I got sick. Bad case of flu. There was no one to call for medicine. So I drug myself up to the Albertsons to get some. I stopped at the Subway on the way. I stood there feverish in front of the counter and told these two kids that I worked with:
“Don’t do what I did, kids. Don’t run all the people in your life off, or you’ll end up just like me”
And I just broke down and wept, right there in the Subway.
Like the old Dylan lyric "An old man with broken teeth, stranded without love".

Sometimes I wish I could run into one of them, and show them how I'd changed, and find out if they had taken my words to heart

It would be another 4 years before I got clean and came to a program that said:

"One of the signs of having had a Spiritual Awakening is and end to the feeling of loneliness"