The morning Daniel turned up.
Two years sober and one early train to Birmingham. This is what happened next.
Daniel turned up at the visitor centre forty minutes early, just to be sure. He'd been awake since four. The train from Coventry had been almost empty.
He didn't say much for the first kilometre. None of us did. The Lickeys at six in the morning have that quality — you don't need to fill the silence, the silence is the point.
What he told us, later
"I'd done two years sober and I still didn't feel like I deserved a good morning. Walking up that hill with people who weren't pretending to be okay made it easier to stop pretending too."
That's the bit, isn't it. Recovery isn't a destination. It's a pace. And pace, it turns out, is something you can borrow from the person walking next to you.
A year on
Daniel is now one of our hike-leads. Last month he ran his first beginner-friendly walk — fifteen people, all turning up forty minutes early, all not sure they deserved a good morning.
He knew what to say.
