A Boy & His Bicycle, and What He Taught Me About Healing
- Brainz Magazine
- May 28
- 5 min read
For nearly 14 years, I've helped individuals navigate the complex landscape of addiction in order to achieve recovery. Nicknamed "The Casual Counselor", my approach is unconventional, but undeniably effective.
He came to the clinic, and he did all the things that a client at the clinic is supposed to do. He attended groups, saw the shrink, took his meds, attended weekly one-to-one sessions with me, went to the gym, self-help groups, and so on, and he was doing okay. He wasn’t struggling by any means, but he wasn’t necessarily thriving either. He was somewhere in the middle, and the middle is okay.
Around the 3rd month of attending the clinic and living in the supportive men’s residence, it came time for him to find the “get-well job”. A “get well job”, typically, isn’t going to be a forever job. It’s a place to practice getting up every day, getting to work on time, punching the clock, working under a manager, and with colleagues. It’s a place to get started. A place to begin to reintegrate with society when you’ve been sidelined for a while. A place to practice living an ordinary life.
And so, he found some crappy job, a retail thing or something just a town over. He didn’t have a car. He had lost his privilege to operate a motor vehicle by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and he wouldn’t be re-eligible to drive for another year or so. He needed transportation. The bus or a train was an option, but the weather was just starting to get nice.
May in New England is a beautiful time of the year.
So, instead of using public transportation, he instead opted to go online, and he purchased a cheap $30 bicycle on Craigslist. I’m not sure if Craigslist even exists anymore, but it was an online forum in which people would sell used items, among providing other services. He purchased the bicycle, and his transportation problems were solved. He started work on a Monday, if I remember correctly.
The job was ‘whatever’. It provided him with a pittance of an income, and he was a model employee. He always showed up on time, and it was what it was. Just a regular job. In the midst of working the 40-hour work week, he continued coming to counseling sessions, taking his meds, and going to a few self-help groups in the evenings throughout the week.
After about a month or two of staying in the rhythm of this routine, something started to change. Where once he was doing “okay” in his recovery, he started doing and feeling much more solid and strong in his journey of healing. But it wasn’t counseling at the center of it, nor self-help groups, nor the meds, and it wasn’t the job with the lousy pay either.
It was a bicycle.
He started squirreling money away so he could upgrade his daily driver, and in a few months time, he did just that. He had saved up a couple of grand by then, and he bought himself a very high-end, used road bike, the kind you can ride in the city, or use for more long-distance adventure.
He kept riding it to work, but he was an adventurous spirit by nature. So, his next investment was gear. Camping gear. He got himself a little one-man tent. He got a propane stove and some cookware. He got a lantern and a mini-cooler, and some saddlebags for the bike, a pocket knife, and other assorted outdoorsy accouterments.
On his off days, he would load up his gear and go the distance. When I say distance, I’m talking 40-50 mile rides from Eastern Massachusetts all the way up north to New Hampshire. Just him, his bike, his gear, and the open road. When nightfall hit, he would set up camp, sometimes just off the side of the highway, fire up the propane stove, cook himself a meal, and read a book by the light of the lantern, or scroll his social media.
He was adventuring!
Whilst still doing all of the typical recommended suggestions for those navigating the early months of recovery, what really became the cornerstone of his very obvious improving health was this bicycle, and whatever was happening on these long-distance treks that he would prioritize as often as possible. Schedule permitting.
I’m not sure what was happening with his relationship with his bicycle, but I would describe it as something akin to a spiritual experience.
Whatever it was, he was finding his “thing”. This bike had a meaning and purpose that I don’t even know how to properly put into words, but it was profound. From being “okay” in his recovery, to “good”, to suddenly, “Wow!”, as I witnessed the transformation of this young man and his adventures on his road bike, I learned a valuable lesson. He was the same person, but this was a different man in every subsequent meeting.
He taught me about connection. That bike, for whatever reason, made him feel connected to himself, the world, and just life in general, in a way that all of the other resources at his disposal just could not provide. Why? Search me! I just know what I saw, and what I saw was that every time he stepped into my office over the span of that spring, into the summer, and into the autumn months, it was powerful and profound.
It was a bike. Whatever he was sorting out inside of himself on these quests, these solo-adventures to God-knows-where, was providing him with a sense of belonging that he was never going to be able to find in a church basement on a Thursday night, with people sharing about their experiences in recovery. That, I know for certain. But that bicycle could, and was, and maybe would indefinitely.
The bike? That might not work for me, or for you, or for anyone else with a similar story to this young man in recovery, and that’s okay. He didn’t have any clue that whatever was happening was going to happen on the day he first responded to that Craigslist Ad. He was just looking for a way to get his “get well job” done.
Well, the job didn’t help him get well, though I’m sure it didn’t hurt. Therapy was a good resource, but it had its limitations, and the same goes for the self-help groups. His meds kept things in good chemical order in his brain as he was in the early stages of recovery, but after some time, he realized that he didn’t need them anymore, and he worked with his doctor to titrate off of them in a safe manner. He hasn’t needed them since.
We still keep in touch. He works a much better-paying job now, and one that afforded him the financial freedom to get a brand new, never used, really high-end bicycle, which he purchased without a second thought. He still goes on long-distance adventures on those two wheels whenever he can find the time, and they still provide him with what all of those other resources never really could:
Freedom from his addiction. He is thriving in his recovery. That damn bike! Search me!
Read more from Joshua Bennett-Johnson
Joshua Bennett-Johnson, Licensed Addictions Therapist
After working for 7 years in an amazing clinic, I launched into private practice in 2018. I love my job. I can say that without reservation. Watching people rebuild their lives is something that is worth more than any dollar amount.
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