▸ Column · Present-day, grounded Marvel Comics America
JUGGERNAUT replies.
Replied to by Juggernaut, with a rebuttal from Professor X.
The letter
Two years this Friday since my last drink. I honestly didn't think I'd see thirty. And now I'm somehow the person my coworkers come find when they're having a rough day, which — I don't know, it still surprises me a little.
My sponsor, Declan, is a retired electrician. He sat with me through some really bad nights and never once made it feel like I was a burden or a project or whatever. I want to do that for somebody. I've been looking into peer recovery coaching — getting certified, the whole thing. But Sofia, my wife, is scared that being around people still in active addiction is going to drag me back under. And honestly, part of me is scared she's right.
How do you give yourself to somebody else's recovery without cracking open your own? I owe Declan, I owe a lot of people. I don't want to waste what I got.
— Two Years Clean in Queens
Juggernaut replies
Two years. You were in the dark and you kept moving until you came out the other side. You know what that makes you? UNSTOPPABLE. And now you're standing at the door to the next thing, asking whether it's safe to walk through.
Here's what I know about standing still: that's how the old life catches you. Momentum's the cure. You start helping somebody else through the worst nights of their life, you're not sitting around with silence and old ghosts — you're MOVING. You go so fast in the direction of who you are now that the other thing can't keep up. That's the protection. Not caution. Not "let's be careful." Careful is how people get smaller.
I spent my whole life with somebody telling me to be careful. Wait your turn. Know your place. Stay inside the lines. And every time I listened, I shrank. I know that wall.
Sofia loves you. I get it. But what she's describing is a wall, and your job isn't to stand in front of it asking permission. Declan didn't help you by watching from a safe distance. He walked into it. That's what made it matter.
Stop asking if you're ready. You survived yourself. That's the only credential that counts.
Pick a date. Sign up. Go through the door.
— Juggernaut
Professor X weighs in
My step-brother sees every door as a wall to charge through, and occasionally he's right. This time he charged past the person standing at it.
You wrote that you owe a debt you can never repay. I'd ask you to sit with that phrase. Recovery work done from debt runs dry. Recovery work done from vocation doesn't — and only you know which engine is running.
As for Sofia: her worry isn't doubt in you. It's terror of the version of you she nearly lost. That deserves a real conversation before you go anywhere. I have watched frightened young people become whole precisely by holding that door open for someone else — so your instinct may be exactly right. But bring her in before you walk through it.
— Professor X
▸ Read next