From dope dealing to hope dealing. That’s how I roll now.

We all know at least one still unrecovering addict whether you realize it or not.

Statistically, 12 is the number of addicts you’ll know in your lifetime, probably a lot more.

Some will make it over the addiction hump and sadly, some will be buried under it.

But addiction’s not going anywhere. There’s too much money to be made from it.

The real question is: who do you become when you’re around them?

That depends on a number of variables and your life experiences. So to bring the question closer to home: who are you called to be around them?

Is there any moral or spiritual imperative that supersedes the common, reflexive human emotions of hate, disdain, disgust, or mistrust?

I’ll be first to suggest against wholly trusting an addict.

Addiction 101 clearly taught me that manipulation and lies are the tools along their pathways that lead to using.

However, to maintain hope for all people, we have to believe that all people are redeemable and worthy of redemption en route to getting clean.

That means we addicts need chances at becoming what once and one hundred times in our lives we always wanted to be: clean and sober.

Like “normal” folks, addicts struggle every single day to be better people, some more successfully than others. They are the fortunate few who’ve been surrounded by people of compassion.

To be a people of compassion is our calling.

They are the people of the Second Chance, just as we, ourselves, were once and again given.