The Look on Their Face | Why Recovery Still Moves Me

My pocket, 2007. The meeting directory got worn down fast. The cigarettes stuck around longer. Both had their place.

I’ve been in recovery spaces for decades. I’ve seen the bravado, the resistance, the masks. But every now and then, something breaks through. A single word. Some silence. A magical sort of moment in group. And someone hears something—not with their ears, but with something deeper. Their face shifts, their body softens. The truth gets in.

It’s not always that dramatic. But it’s unforgettable.

For me, it is the most exciting and affirming part of recovery: someone else’s recovery and watching it happen right in front of me.

Lately—well, for the past year or so—I’ve been watching this strange little genre on YouTube: young people hearing classic songs for the first time. Pink Floyd. The Who. Procol Harum. You name it.

And these really are ordinary listeners—not stars, not polished personalities. Not even deep-cut music historians or slick podcast hosts. Just young men and women, open to experiencing something new, usually music from long before they were born.

What strikes me most is how comfortable they are just sitting there, with their eyes closed, zoning out to a song—while we watch. There’s something surprisingly honest about it. Even vulnerable. And I find it deeply moving.

They sit there with headphones on, just listening. And then—it hits. Their eyebrows lift. Their jaw drops a little. A smile creeps in. One might glance at the other, trying to make eye contact, but the other is off in their own journey, eyes closed. Sometimes they freeze. Sometimes they cry.

It’s pure presence. No filters. No ego. Just being moved.

And I think to myself: this is what recovery looks like when it’s real.

Because recovery isn’t straightforward. It’s not always about insight, or language, or strategies. Sometimes it’s just about recognizing something true—usually, something that’s been there all along, just waiting to be heard.

I’ve had many of my own moments like that over the years—in the rooms, in late-night conversations with the old crocodiles of recovery. Sometimes it came through what someone said, but more often it was something else entirely. The moments of clarity that moved me were just as often your moments—when something opened in you, and I got to witness it.

In those early years of recovery, at night, when I lay in bed, it wasn’t the words from three, sometimes four meetings a day that I replayed—it was the aura, if I can call it that. The atmosphere around someone who had just shared something—or heard something—that suddenly rang true in a deep, unmistakable way. A visible connection to the emotional wreckage of someone else’s story. And somehow, in that reflection, there was hope. There was calm.

The way they sat afterward—quiet, still, changed—the whole room could feel it. That glow—they didn’t even know they had it—but that’s what I carried with me. That’s what I often saw as I drifted off to sleep.

And I know I’m not the only one. Every recovery coach I’ve come to know, work with, or call a friend—they’ve all spoken of this something. This moment. The way a room softens. The way a person becomes more themselves by saying something they didn’t know they were ready to say. It’s not in the training manuals. But it’s what we all live for.

A moment, a memory, something someone said—or didn’t say: reminders of why I’m still here doing this work. Why recovery still moves me.

And why I believe truth doesn’t have to be explained—it has to be heard.