Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 114467 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 382(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114467 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 382(@300wpm)
“Why didn’t you call me?” he asks. “That is what a sponsor is for.” Yesterday, he was the only one to respond to the texts I sent looking for a sponsor from the list I got.
“I didn’t think it would be a good idea to call you at four o’clock in the morning because my head was fucking with me. Alain also gave me a list of therapists, so I’m going to reach out to a few this week.”
“You know why your head was fucking with you,” he finally says, and I just look at him. “It was fucking with you because for the first time in ninety days, you didn’t have anyone else stopping you from scoring that drug. You were sent into the wild, and your body knew you didn’t have to look anyone in the eyes today.” I take in his words. “Your subconscious is the devil on your shoulder when it wants to be.” He smiles and almost laughs. “You didn’t think this would be easy, did you?”
I shake my head. “I didn’t think it would be easy.” I take a sip of the water, and the cold water feels fresh in my dry mouth. “But I didn’t think it would be this hard.” He reaches in his pocket and takes out a white chip and hands it to me. I look down at it seeing the words “Just for Today” in gold.
“That is for today,” he says. “All you can see is today.”
“I thought that if I wasn’t around the people who I partied with, it would be easy.” I laugh bitterly. “But I’m my worst enemy.”
“That, my friend,” Jeffrey says, “is almost like step one.”
“I thought step one was admitting I have a problem,” I counter him with the stuff I heard at rehab.
“Repeat the sentence,” Jeffrey asks me.
“Step one was admitting I have a problem.” I stop speaking as the words finally sink in. “I have a problem.”
“If I had a sticker, I would give you one,” he says. Leaning back in his chair, he smiles while he crosses his arms over his chest.
“Fuck off,” I finally say, and I finally feel the pressure on my chest start to get a bit lighter. The crushing part doesn’t feel so heavy. “I really should have called you. It would have saved seven hours.”
“What did you do to fight it off?” he asks me. “Besides sitting in the dark.”
“I went to work out,” I tell him. “Left the house at six and then met my realtor.”
“Have you eaten?” he asks me, and I shake my head. “I had a muffin.”
He gets up now, tossing a five-dollar bill on the table and putting his cup on it so it doesn’t fly away. “Let’s get some food in you. I know a great burger place not too far from here.” I get up with him, putting the phone in my pocket along with the two chips. “Then we can hit up a meeting.”
We walk to the restaurant and take turns talking to get to know one another. You always think you have it worse than the other person, but then you hear their stories, and you realize you don’t. He tells me that he’s been sober for thirty years and that he just celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday. His wake-up call was when his six-month-old crawled onto his needle. “I will always remember that day. I was in that space where the high was just starting to hit me and I was feeling euphoria. That feeling of nothing can touch you, but then I heard the wailing of my daughter. I saw what was happening, yet I couldn’t do anything because my hands were just too heavy to raise. She cried for twenty minutes until my wife came in and saw.” My heart breaks for him. “For twenty minutes, I had no control over my body. I had no control over anything. The drug had the control. It was my rock bottom. I pleaded with her to forgive me, which she did. Eventually. I went away to rehab, and we tried to make it work, but I needed to heal myself before I could love anyone.”
“Where is she now?” I ask. “If it’s not too much to ask.”
“She’s living in Atlanta with her second husband who is the opposite of me. A soft-spoken minister,” he says, almost laughing. “It was for the best,” he says softly and puts his hands in his pockets as we walk up to the restaurant. “I have a brand-new life. I have a wife who loves me and who I cherish with every single fiber of my being. I am a father to four children, including the six-month-old who is now a mother of three kids herself.”
“So, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel?” I ask him. “After the dark, there is light.”