About Me

My photo
I'm not doing this project to necessarily make new longterm friends, or go have a drink with these people. Nor is it to pass any judgements on ones life. My goal is to simply meet interesting, and maybe not so interesting strangers who I wouldve never taken the time to talk to otherwise. One that may differ, or perhaps relate to my own life. So many times, you walk past someone, and they wont even raise their head in the slightest to say hello. I'll never understand why. The challenge to myself is not only to surpass that simple hello with one person a day, but to convince them to look into my lens and tell me something about themselves. My name is Amanda Surkin, and this is my journey of meeting 100 new faces. Take the time to listen, you may learn something :)

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Stranger #39



I dropped my mom off at a meeting today. Not your typical meeting, such as a work meeting, but an AA meeting. My mom has been in and out of recovery for 10 years, and has been sober for 19 months. Telling anyone this information doesnt bother or embarrass me one bit, it's a part of me, and I'm very proud of her. I thank god for this program every day of my life because it has brought my family back together. Through my moms addiction and struggles, it's made me into the person that I am today. Watching her go through what she went through, and what we all went through with her has proved my strength, and showed me what I would never want for my own life. It was the hardest thing that I've ever had to experience, but life was never promised to be easy. Today, with her determination to stay sober along with the support that the program as well as myself, friends and family offers to my mom, I have her by my side again. It's such a wonderful feeling, a feeling that I would never trade for the world.

When I pulled over to drop my mom off, I saw a girl standing outside. I told my mom that I wanted to go up to her and tell her about my project. My ma told me that she was in AA, but if I wanted to go up to her then "go for it." So, I did exactly that. I wasnt expecting her to tell me much, if anything at all, because it's an anonymous program, but I went up to her anyway. My mom walked up to one of her other friends as I walked up to her, introduced myself, and explained the purpose of my blog!

Meet Danielle Cooley.

"I'm in AA, but I'm also a recovering drug addict. I'm 23 and have a 7 year old daughter, and the ony thing I want in life is to keep getting better. I was addicted to all types of pills, and dope. I've been clean for almost 30 days. I want to work with people like myself. I've been through a lot. I was molested and raped. If I were to give someone that can relate or may be going through some of the same problems, I would say that you need to reach out, you can get help no matter what!" - Danielle
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)