My son just celebrated 14 years in recovery.

January is his anniversary month, holding the day he gave up his obsession with drugs and began a new way to live.

It is the reason we relocate to South Florida this month every year – to be with him and his friends – and to acknowledge this important milestone.

Jacob says many people in recovery consider this a second “birthday” each year.  Sometimes there are celebratory dinners and other festivities.

Even more meaningful for his father and me is the AA meeting where fellow men and women in all stages of sobriety applaud his progress.

At the end of this gathering he is given a few minutes to address the attendees.  We sit quietly on folding chairs in rows alongside some 40 people, many with years of sobriety like Jacob.  There are others, too, who look less certain, eyes on the floor, hands rubbing knees.

The theme tonight is powerlessness over addiction, and how it makes life unmanageable

Everyone nods. I do, too.

My mind spirals 15, 16 years ago, stirring memories of the times my son’s compulsion to abuse opiates paralleled my obsession with him.

Surely I must have caused this?  And if I had, then I had to control it – and cure him.

Today, 15 years into my own recovery with Al-Anon, I know that these three “Cs” can be replaced..

Not cause, control or cure.

But compassion, connection – and what keeps both me and my son healthy – community.

As the meeting ends, Jacob says that actions speak louder than words.  He points to us in the audience and our close friends marking the moment with us.

Tonight, I, too, celebrate.  How far we both have come!

And if we have, maybe others can, too.