Then: Guys Men, unless you’ve grown up a hermit, you have some very longstanding and very close male friends who would do anything for you. Right? They’d probably rally around you without asking if you were sick or going through a trauma. Right? So, why not ask them for help to get more support sooner? Go for it. I'm afraid too many men never ask.

Me? When I think about the chaps I’m going to write about below, I imagine a figurative bookshelf and on it are volumes for each of these guys. When I needed a dose of a particular kind of friend-therapy, I’d pull the right volume off the shelf. Meaning I’d call that guy. Or, when the phone rang, I’d wonder which book was going to open in my mind.

These guys occupied niches in my healing that they never realized. One was for pure stupid humor. One was for thoughtful examination of things like the power of prayer. Another kept me up to date on my industry and contacts I had to abandon for the fight. Still another was amazed I had started to seek answers to spiritual questions I’d never asked before, but that he had been asking for years.

And then there was one particular friend I avoided for dumb reasons with detrimental results for us both. What follows are a few of the stories of the guys who helped me.  ¶ 1:36 PM