Baltimore part 1: adventures in addiction

They took us to Baltimore for the weekend, whic was great. I love cities - even unamazing ones. New people and new sights were most welcome.

They had us stay in a men's shelter/recovery house, which was intense. I was much more nervous about people in my group revealing their own ignorance than I was about interacting with the men.

The first night we were there, we spent a few hours listening to those in recovery tell their stories. It was a very AA model, with people almost confessing to us what they have gone through. Some scary things, which I suppose aren't that unusual. And it happend to nice guys, who seemed to have good lives for themselves until everything went all to hell.

They second night, a crowd of us, both BVSers and residents, went to the Inner Harbor, Baltimore's newly developed tourist mecca, basically an open-air mall on the bay. I was chatting with one of the residents on the walk there when he said to me, "tell me stories about your life to distract me. I keep looking down alleys and seeing people I know involved in things I don't want to get back into."

His honesty and his fear broke my heart, but I tried to be amusing.