"Show me your friends and I will show you who you are.” This seems to be a bastardization of the proverb "Show me your friends and I will show you your future." Either way, the quote hits home.
Friends really do tell a lot about a person. When I was younger, I hung around with a tight-knit group of five guys. We all liked to drink and party. While we all seemed to like each other's company, there always seemed to be some dissension among the group. I have told the story of the troublemaker a couple of times now on this blog, and that is not what this post is about. What it is about is that at that time in my life, I was hanging out with a number of guys who liked to drink heavily, and at that time in my life I was an alcoholic. In fact, I think three of us could have been defined as alcoholics at that time, and the other two were trying hard to catch up. As the quote says, show me your friends... Later on in life, I was hanging out with another group of friends. These guys also drank heavily, and I might describe them as functional alcoholics. They were functional in that they were all holding down high-paying jobs, yet partying hard at the bars two to three nights a week anyway. At this point, I too, was a functional alcoholic. I was making a lot of cash, but I was drinking like a fish... just like them. The funny thing is, as time went on, nearly all of us (from both groups) stopped our heavy drinking. None of us hang out together on a daily basis anymore either. We are spread out from Buffalo, to New Hampshire, Connecticut and New York, all the way down to North Carolina and Florida. Many of us still talk every once in a while. Hell, some of us even get together every once in a while to go fishing together and catch up with what is going on in each other's lives. Even so, while we are friends, we don't hang out with each other on a daily basis anymore. The people I hang out with now on a weekly basis are much different than the people I grew up with. Most of them are black belts, or are working their way towards a black belt. Many of them, similar to me, do not drink at all. None of us went to the same schools growing up. None of us work the same type of job, and yet our belts and the training we undergo together or the training some of our family members may be undergoing with us tie us together. No one is getting high. No one is behaving badly because we have had too much to drink. After 22 years of heavy drinking, I have spent the last seventeen years without a drink. My wife had a lot to do with that. My wife was an alcoholic, and I gave up drinking to help her to get sober. She asked me to help her, oh so many years ago. She could never give it up, though, and she drank herself to death three years and one week ago. Sharon was my best friend... yet I could not help her. Although we divorced, I continued to try and help her until the day she died. So who am I? I am still friends with my heavy-drinking friends from my past who have (for the most part) stopped partying and drinking. We don't hang out regularly anymore, but I know which of them I can trust when the chips are down. At the same time, I spent most of my days from 1999 through 2010 with my wife on a daily basis. She continued to sneak alcohol on a steady basis for the eleven years we lived together. At the same time, I never touched a drop. Now, I socialize with a number of people who don't really party or get blasted. So who am I? To me, In front of all else, I am a father. At the same time, I am an alcoholic who has gotten sober. I hope to remain sober for the rest of my life. I am a black belt... and I am really proud of that. I believe in peace over power, and I try to live my faith. On a daily basis, I hang out with my daughters and my Mom. I speak with my sister nearly every day. I am now, for the most part, a recluse. I go out twice weekly to train at the dojo, and I try to go hiking or do something interesting with my girls as much as possible. Other than that, I have no clue who I am any more. In the past, I identified myself as a basketball player, a football player, a student, a partyer, an analyst, a husband and a father. I will always remain a father... and right now, I am a stock analyst. The sad part is that I no longer identify myself with my profession. A lot of the passion for that business has left me now. So who am I? I know who I think I am. I just have no clue who others think I am. And if they told me, I don't even know if I would be able to recognize myself in their words. Below is one more quote from the book of Proverbs. "Homes are built on the foundation of wisdom and understanding. Where there is knowledge, the rooms are furnished with valuable, beautiful things." In the end, maybe I am a builder. And I hope I am setting a strong foundation for my daughters.
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