Desperation dragged me here — 
like hope a lottery ticket 
will pay the rent. Lacking better plans, 
this at least was free 
unlike the hoped-on buck. 
Warm smiles, firm handshakes, shocking 
proof of elevated status (above pariahs,) 
even hugs despite my lacking cleanliness– 
I hung around, nice folk, kind, 
with hope and happiness encamped. 
Catchy saying caught my ears — and mind. 
Easy does it, meeting makers make it, 
one day at a time. Desperation died 
as puzzle pieces found pairs and clumps 
to paint a portrait of potential. 
And thirty, sixty, ninety days piled up! 

Exasperation tugged at me — 
like sitting at a blackjack table 
up ten bucks, down by five, dead even. 
Why leave, why stay? Because staying 
staves off desperation. 
Watching newcomers takes me back 
and keeps me here. There must be more. 
I test the water of the steps, braving waves, 
tentatively deeper to buoyancy, to sanity, 
to recovery. 
Two years, three, five, then ten pass by. 

My stool, my place, my table, the chips 
amassed, others cached and cashed. 
Recovery’s become my way of life, 
here longer than I stayed out there. 
The promises kept ten times over, 
the forth dimension as familiar as my slippers, 
truthfully beyond any possible wildest dreams. 
Fifteen years, twenty, twenty-five, just markers 
that I’ve got it all, I’ve run the table, but more awaits! 
Thank God for a life of recovery!