Going to AA meetings with Jacob during family vacations has become as routine as visiting the “100 Flavors” of ice cream on the boardwalk each evening.

But this year held a highlight.

It began when I learned that a close friend from Annapolis was vacationing the same week with her family nearby.

Nine years ago we had met at an Al-Anon meeting. She was a woman to heed.  Something about her calm, resolute manner drew me in.  It wasn’t just her wisdom, but her travails growing up in an alcoholic family and trying to prevent her children from doing the same.

She was especially worried about her son, close in age to mine.  Privately, we shared the anxieties, the long nights of worry, and fears about the future.

Her own sobriety was hard-won.  As she spoke at meetings, little sparks of hope brightened sad faces around the room.  Men and women who are members of both AA and Al-Anon are often the most profound.  They understand addiction.  It’s in themselves.  It’s in those they love.

By the time of this year’s vacations, our sons were winning the war against alcoholism and drugs.  Thanks to something we’ll never fully understand, they had found sobriety.

So here we were.  Two moms in the same seaside resort with two sons in recovery.  Where to meet?  The ideal spot:  a local community hall where an open AA meeting allowed us and our families to attend.

As the hour-long meeting progressed, a book was passed around.  Both sons read aloud.  Both shared.  So young, yet with so much wisdom.

The moment passed almost without notice.  Before we stood to close the meeting, it struck me.  She and I were together with our adult sons, now both clean and sober, and sharing their experience to help others.

Two mothers who once met weekly nearly crazed over the effects of addiction on themselves and their families – now sat in quiet celebration….

… because two young men were restored to the world.