The Sensability of a Long Distance Sober Companion
The phone rings mid-evening on a Sunday.
“Are you available? Parameters, a lady with significant sober time. Single, professional, late thirties. Currently, cannot get back on track - benzos, adderall, alcohol. It could be a week, it could be four weeks. She stopped working three, four months ago. Got thirty days and then went back out with xanax. Usual stuff - vulnerable, broken, lonely, brilliant, been to rehabs, knows what she needs to do, could recite the Big Book.”
Slowly I ask the inevitable. “When?”
“Desperate. Tomorrow morning, as soon as possible. East coast, urban. I will email you details.”
The job of a sober companion, either through media misrepresentation or industry falsehood, markets itself to be glamorous, fabulously well paying and a glory road to the rich and famous. It is neither and none of the above. The work is inconsistent, the hours, when employed, are 24/7 and the tasks often menial and repetitive. The truth? Working as a sober companion is an opportunity to love unconditionally, to be of service, to feel empathy and to experience the haunted desperation of the perceived incapable. At best, it is a paid opportunity to share the knowledge gained over many decades of living, working and struggling with one’s own demons. In the big and small picture, it is what I do well and what grants me serenity in my own life.
“Of course I will.”
Five hours later, I am at the airport and five days later, after many tearful conversations, raging diatribes, trips through rain, snow and sleet to the corner store for antacids, gelato, vape oils and red licorice I find myself driving through the endless expansive red canyonlands of the American Southwest. The silence, heavy but comforting, is broken only by the occasional whimper and sigh from my co-pilot who is finally sleeping peacefully, nestled deep into her soft, warm nest of lethe. Her face appears childlike in the gold of the late winter afternoon. The pain and fear of early detox disguised by the temporary kindness of an exhaustive slumber.
The first few days of engagement with a client is a whirlwind of chaos. Conversations are convoluted, end abruptly, begin in mid-thought and backstory inconsistent. The goal of a sober companion is to comfort, keep the environment safe and to subdue all unnecessary calamities. The first weeks of physical detox, no matter the toxins, present in a similar way - anger buffered by deep sadness, fear mixed with the painful lingering symptoms of withdrawal, cataclysmic exhaustion followed by either no sleep or fitful unsatisfying bouts of repose, all resulting in massive amounts of self disgust and loathing.
As the last rays of the setting sun bounce off the cliffs of the high peaked canyon, we pull into a rustic but chic abode, one normally filled with joy, excitement and the thrill of adventures. This month, it will be a spot of emotional outrage followed by fear with lingering bouts of physical wariness. The slices of clarity that come in early sobriety will surface in angry outbursts, accusations of others, self deprecation and threats of every imaginable kind. The unknown of tomorrow creates terror, the memories of the resulting behaviors while in active addiction bring horror. A sober companion can ride the emotional wave, the roller coaster of entropy. Always, the goal? To inspire a future of sobriety, a life of serenity, peace and hope.