My Remedy (Open Door Love Story Book 3) (5 page)

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T
his meeting is held in a community center across from the library. It’s a square brick building with an abundance of parking. Gotta love the suburbs. I follow Duncan there in the pickup, blasting my music. He’s got a crappy car too, an old Pontiac Grand Prix that probably gets about three miles to the gallon. He’s bobbing his head to music in his car and when we stop at the light before the community center, he looks back at me in his rearview mirror and smiles.

I smile too. I’m just going to roll with it. I’m going to try my hardest not to get attached to him because although he has secrets and has had his bad times, he’s got a really valid reason to go off the rails. I usually go off them because other people have made me.

He parks in a spot with two free spots next to it and I swing in next to him. An older man – probably around Uncle Stan’s age, nods to Duncan as he hurries inside the building.

“That’s our leader. Nice guy. I’d tell you more about him, but y’know.”

I roll my eyes.

Duncan holds the door open for me again, so chivalrous! I say thank you this time because I’m less in shock. I wait for him to get inside and lead the way. I follow him down a hallway past a bunch of small rooms with conference tables in them until we get to a larger room that’s been divided in half  by one of those heavy plastic accordion curtain things we had in elementary school.

I don’t need to tell you that the folding chairs are arranged in a circle. They are the nicer ones, though, with the padded seats covered in itchy burgundy tweed fabric. Off in the far corner of the room is your standard coffee and cookies set up. I have no need since I’ve just had superior refreshments.

The leader stands at the head of the circle and writes on the large white board on the wall behind him.

“S.O.D.?” I ask, whispering in Duncan’s ear.

He ducks away from me, a confused look on his face. “What is a type of ground covering for $1000, Alex?”

“No, dude,” I say, taking a seat directly opposite the leader, at 6 o’clock. “Step of the Day?”

Duncan chuckles. “Yep. We’ve been working three, so I’m gonna go with ... four?” He walks over and sits at 3 o’clock.

I don’t want to seem needy and like we’re best buddies in the two hours we’ve been hanging out together, but I am hurt-ish that he’s not sitting next to me.

“Psst,” he says to me, and I look up. “I want to see your face when you talk. Nothing more annoying than looking at someone’s profile when you’re trying to get to know them, right?”

The sound of throat clearing comes from the leader. “You didn’t bring a date to this meeting, did you?”

“Not at all.” Duncan gestures around the circle. “I am merely showing a new person in town where all the best addicts can be found.”

The leader gives Duncan a thumbs sideways.

We wait another few minutes until it’s obvious no one else is coming and then the leader shuts the door.

“Hello, everyone. I’m Greg and I’m an addict.”

“Hi, Greg,” everyone replies back to him.

“Before we begin talking about where we’re each at with working Step Four, does anyone else have a general topic they’d like to bring up? Anything we need to talk through?”

A woman raises her hand. She’s not in good shape. Her nose and eyes are all red and swollen, hopefully from crying.

“Go ahead,” Greg says, pointing to her.

“My name is Olivia and I’m an addict.”

“Hi, Olivia.”

She smiles slightly. “Hi. Um, I messed up this week. I smoked weed with an old college friend. She doesn’t know I’m in recovery and I was too ashamed to admit it to her. So, when she lit up a fatty after dinner and passed it to me...” Olivia shrugs, “My first thought was, well, you’re not addicted to weed – it’s not meth, so it’s not as bad. You can handle this for one night.” She sniffs and wipes her eyes. “And I did handle it or whatever, I didn’t go and use or anything, but I feel like such a loser for just going along and not standing up for myself.” Olivia sighs heavily. “That’s it. I needed to get that off my chest.”

Greg nods. “Thanks for sharing that with us. It sounds like you understand where you went wrong and you have the know-how to not go that route again. Just remember that we’re here for you and that we get it.”

“Thanks.”

“Anyone else?” Greg asks.

After no more hands are raised, Greg turns around to the white board and reads what he was writing before. “Step 4: I have made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself.” He turns back to us. “Where are we with this step? I’ll go first.” Greg sits and crosses his legs, his foot bouncing up and down. “When I worked this step for the first time in 1993, I was twenty-seven years old and had ruined my life. What were my morals? What did that mean? I had done some despicable things in the name of chasing a high. I thought my morals were pretty low. I was not above cheating my friends and family out of money. I was not above associating with people who would sell their children to sexual predators. Nothing was beneath me. So, that first time I did a searching and fearless moral inventory, I found my morals were none. I didn’t have any.

“A decade later, when I had a short relapse during my divorce proceedings, I did another searching and fearless moral inventory. And while I was in a better place, really, and I no longer was the horrible person I had once been, I still found my morals to be next to nothing. I came to the conclusion that this was always going to be true. However, after years as a sponsor and now a leader, I think about it differently. I have more forgiveness for myself and I give everything up to my Higher Power. So, when I work Step Four nowadays, I work with the morals that my experiences have given me. I find there are different morals I need to improve on at fifty, than what I had at twenty-seven. What I’m getting at is, really work with where you are now if this isn’t your first rodeo. You’ll benefit.”

Greg gestures for the woman next to him to go.

She gives everyone a nervous smile and simply says, “I’m T.” We don’t echo back.

“This is my first time, so I don’t have the benefit of his experience. I’m ... I’m not even sure I’m an addict, as I’ve said to some of you before. I suppose that’s where I need to start.”

She lowers her eyes as a cue she’s done.

There are only six of us here, so Duncan is next.

“I’m Duncan. I’m an addict.”

I start to say, “Hi, Duncan,” but he gives me a slight nod and I keep my trap shut.

“This is the second time I’ve worked Step Four. I haven’t had a relapse or anything, but I do think it’s important to take inventory of yourself from time to time, because your morals do change. Before I laid everything out. All the horrible things I had done – much the same as Greg’s. This time I’ve been digging underneath that layer. Going deeper. I’ve found that morally, I’m guilty of ego. I have on many occasions thought that I was incapable of failure and that I was better than other people who failed because I simply had worked harder at being great.” He rolls his eyes. “So pompous. I admit that my ego is dangerous and I will work to keep it in check. I’m a fallen person, just like any other addict. I am human.” Duncan gives me a pointed look.

Olivia goes next, pretty much recapping her weed story, which, if she used to do meth and smoked a little pot one evening and didn’t use ... I feel whatever about that. But she doesn’t really elaborate on any of her more pressing problems.

Then it’s my turn. I, for some reason, haven’t really planned what I’m going to say and I blurt out, “I’m Izzy and I’m an alcoholic. I hope it’s okay I’m here. Alcohol is my drug of choice. Well, and ... other things that really aren’t drugs. Ooooooo-Kayyyyyy. This is the fifth time I’ve worked Step Four, although, I didn’t know I was going to be talking about it until, like, ten minutes ago, so bear with me.” Duncan and Greg are the only people paying attention to me, the rest of the people are off in their own thoughts. I decide to go with my most sympathetic version of events.

“In the past, I’ve had a difficult time doing any sort of moral inventory deeper than,
I feel bad that I did bad things
. I’ve been to rehab several times and I mostly feel bad that I couldn’t make it work so that I can stop disappointing my dad. I have figured out that I blame a lot of my inadequacies, moral or otherwise, on other people. Namely my mom, who was or maybe still is, who knows, an alcoholic and drug addict. She abandoned me and my dad when I was two and so I kind of think of myself as having a moral deficit from the get-go. If she was my example of how to be a good person, I am not going to be a very good person.

“The other situation I’ve placed a good deal of blame on was something that happened when I was fifteen. I was already a drunken mess by then, getting into trouble with boys, lying, losing friends, barely attending school. I went to a party and got very wasted. I was not comfortable there. I knew for a fact that everyone there was better than me, blah, blah, blah. I let a boy take me to a secluded area by the pond on his property. Another boy followed us there and tried to stop me from getting taken advantage of. I laughed in his face. I tend to get defensive when people are trying to take care of me. I don’t want to be seen as out of control even though I’m out of control. Anyway, the boys fought, and the one who had defended me fell and broke his neck. The guy I’d been making out with told me to get the hell out of there. Which I did, I ran, but I hid behind a tree. He rolled the guy with the broken neck into the water and then took off, only to come back just as this girl I was friends with as a little kid, she was pulling the drowned guy to shore. He ended up not dying. She saved him, but he’s paralyzed.

“I watched this whole thing go down and I didn’t tell anyone. And the rich guy didn’t tell anyone and the girl didn’t tell anyone. For years, we all kept this a secret from the paralyzed guy. Where am I going with this? It messed me up even more. I do question my morals, but then I also question theirs. Neither one of them became alcoholics or drug addicts. Only me. We all had the same secret, but I feel like I paid more for it. So, morality. Ugh. I’m getting there. I don’t want to be a horrible person. I want to be worthy and useful. But it’s ... in my own time. I don’t like being forced to work these steps when I’m told to.”

Everyone is quiet when I finish my epic ramble. Duncan nods at me. I’m sure I’ve grossed him out. Even if his goal is to check his ego, how can he when I offer up such a shining example of how to be a whiny bitch?

The remaining people tell their stories, taking much less time than me. At the end of the meeting we all stand and hold hands and recite the Serenity Prayer, and the usual rah rah God, it works and all that.

I follow Duncan out of the meeting and we stop in the space between our cars.

“I’ve been to a meeting with you now.” I put my hands on my hips to show him I mean business ... and I think I look kinda sexy standing that way. Sexy and persuasive. “You’ll come to see my aunt and uncle sometime next week.”

“I will. And then you’ll come to the free W.O.D. next Saturday.”

I shake my head no. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

He grins. “I know, but you’re going to want to see me more.”

I roll my eyes and open the pickup door. “Way to check your ego.”

Duncan flexes his biceps. “I saw you lookin’.”

Flipping him off as I drive away smiling seems like the only thing I can do. I’m thinking I’m so cool until I realize I’m going the wrong way and have to loop through the library parking lot to turn around, which causes me to drive by the Duncan still standing by his car, just shaking his head.

I roll down my window and holler, “I saw you lookin’ too!”

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I
’m home in plenty of time to start my afternoon chores. While I’m slightly nervous my aunt and uncle are going to wonder where I’ve been again, this time I actually did go to a meeting, so at least I’m not breaking one of Uncle Stan’s rules.

I let the big dogs out into the yard and replenish their water. They’ll eat during my next round of chores, but we like to keep them hydrated. My aunt says it makes her happy, so she’s sure the same goes for the dogs.

I call Uncle Stan on the intercom. “Ready for an afternoon stroll?”

“Gimme a minute, I’m speaking with a new client interested in training. Be about five more minutes, actually.”

To waste time, I take pictures of the dogs on my phone. I’ll sketch them later and then post the drawings to my super sekrit art account on Instagram. Mostly older, childless couples or hipster guys follow my work. It’s nice to have an audience, though. One who isn’t my dad going bananas over every single thing I draw.

I maybe get caught down on the ground, with my face cuddled up against Parsnip’s, taking a selfie.

“You know there’s this thing you can do called Just Being Bored where you don’t have to document your entire existence every millisecond of the day,” Uncle Stan jokes.

“Never heard of it.” I take his picture. I’ll make a sketch of him later and do a contrast and comparison piece. One of the boarders I drew last week had an uncanny resemblance to the men in my family.

We leash up the dogs and head to the walking area.

He starts in on me almost immediately. “So, it seems like you were gone for longer than a meeting today again. Did you get lost?”

It’s moderately freeing that I can (mostly) tell the truth. “I ended up going to check out a CrossFit, uh, box. That’s what they call the gym. And then I had a honey bun at Beaverton Bakery and then I went to a meeting.”

“Joining a gym sounds like a healthy pursuit.” Uncle Stan rubs his belly. “I could probably stand to get in on that as well.”

“Maybe, but I don’t know how much weight anyone loses with the bakery and the honey buns across the street.”

“Those are good buns,” Uncle Stan concurs. “I have to stay away from that place. I was on a bit of an Almond Roca cupcake bender for a while there and gained an easy ten in the blink of an eye.”

YOM. “Ooh, Duncan didn’t even mention those!”

Uncle Stan raises a bushy eyebrow at me. “Duncan, huh? Who’s that?”