California

I recently traveled to the community where I grew up to attend to matters for my youngest brother, who has been disabled with a severe form of cerebral palsy all his life. His health had taken a downturn and I had to arrange for him to receive hospice services. Needless to say, the trip involved some hard discussions, and facing my baby brother’s mortality was not easy.

The trip there was a tribulation in itself. I arrived ten hours later than planned be- cause of mechanical problems, weather delays, and missed connections. This meant there wouldn’t be time for me to attend a meeting while I was there. How- ever, I finally made it to my daughter’s house, where I was energized by the love of her four children.

The morning I was to return home, I met my brother at his favorite restaurant so I could explain the upcoming changes. He didn’t like what I was telling him, but indicated that he would go along with the changes. He began asking me for kisses, and we shared more kisses than we had in quite a while.

It was a long flight back. We landed at LAX in a dank rain, which matched my mood. This trip was one of the hardest weekends I had experienced, and I was worn out emotionally and physically. At the luggage carousel I spied the back of my suitcase. For many years I’ve used a white NA keytag as a luggage identifier, but imagine my surprise when I reached for the bag to discover a black keytag had been added somewhere along the way. I snapped a picture with my phone and uploaded it to my social networking page with the caption “We are everywhere.”

The next day a friend from Missouri let me know that at a meeting the night before, a member who is a baggage handler shared about seeing a white keytag on a piece of luggage while he was at work. He recounted how he added one of his black keytags, thinking about what reaction the suitcase’s owner might have at the end of the trip. A couple of weeks later I was put in contact with that baggage handler, and I was able to express my thanks to him for the reminder that recovery is always available to me and that I was not alone.

Bob, California, USA

Missouri

It was almost 4:00 am. I was covering a guy’s overnight shift at the airport and I was in a really bad space. It had been a rough couple of months; I was just feeling down on myself and feeling depressed—and a friend had just passed away, too.

I headed to the humongous conveyor belt where everyone’s luggage was waiting. The morning flights were full and the conveyor was jam-packed. I was standing next to my supervisor (who’s not in the program, but knows that I am), separating bags on our belt, when I saw it: a suitcase with a white keytag on it.

I yelled, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Look what we have here!” I pulled it off the conveyor to look at the name tag, thinking that maybe it was someone I knew. The name wasn’t familiar, but I saw the LAX destination and the name of some guy named Bob from California. I said to my supervisor, “I’m gonna get one of my keytags and put it on this guy’s bag.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” he replied.

I shot back, “I know you wouldn’t, but I would! That guy’s gonna trip when he gets to LA and sees my tag on there.” I put the bag back on the belt and ran in to get one of my keytags, but then had to find the suitcase again. Pretty soon, it was my supervisor who excitedly called out, “There it is; it’s coming back around!”

As I attached my black keytag, I thought maybe there were other recovering baggage handlers working at LAX who would see our tags, too. As I put the suitcase back on the belt, I felt good, happy. I had been in such a bad space, but seeing that white keytag and imagining the owner’s response when he saw mine touched my heart.

Later that day I shared at a meeting about what happened, and a then a guy told me that a woman he knows saw a picture of the suitcase on her friend’s social networking page. I don’t have a computer, so I went to the woman’s house and saw it: a picture of our keytags together on that suitcase—and comments on it from about forty recovering addicts from all over the world! I’m a tough guy, but I stood there and cried looking at that. I thought I’d just give a guy a laugh, but it turned into so much more. And now I have a new friend, too. I call him Keytag Bob.

Lloyd L, Missouri, USA