I’ve reached the point in my journey where I understand I need this success under my belt. Every time I’ve stumbled and fallen in the past, it’s taken a chunk of self-belief from me. I can’t fall again. I fucking refuse to because I know it’ll be the last time I do.
Regardless of what my therapist tells me about relapse being the rule, not the exception, I know there won’t be any coming back from it again. Not this time. My mind is a fucked-up mess that I’m only starting to sort through and put back together in a better way; if I crash again, I fear that mess won’t ever untangle like I need it to.
“Jack! I’ve missed you.”
I turn in time to see Shona McElroy moving into my space. She slides her arm around my waist with ease, like it’s the most natural thing for her to do, and brushes her lips over mine. “How are you?”
Shona and I hung out for a short time a year and a half ago after working on a film with each other. We spent a few weeks together, maybe four. I can’t be entirely sure because we indulged in enough alcohol and coke to wipe most of the memories from my brain.
I’d work with her again, but that’s the extent of the time I’d give her. I certainly don’t want her arm around my waist the way it is.
Extricating myself, I say, “I’m good. You?”
She blasts a sexy smile my way, moving into me even though I just signalled my disinterest. “I am great, my friend. And the good news for you is that I have everything at my place that you’ll need for some fun before you start filming next week.” She throws a glance around the party before looking back at me. “How about we give it another fifteen minutes and then get out of here? That should allow you enough time to show your face and convince everyone you’re on the straight and narrow.”
“I am on the straight and narrow, Shona.”
She cocks her head and shoots me a wink and a smile. “Right. But for reals, we both know what you’re craving, and I have it for you.” She spots someone behind me, and her attention easily diverts there as she waves and gushes, “Darling, you are looking fab-u-lous! I need the name of your stylist.”
How the hell did I manage weeks with this woman? That voice, along with all that fake is too much for me. I’m unsure how I even managed an hour with her.
But then, that’s what I did for years.
Fake, and plastic, and whoever wanted a piece of me.
That’s what the drugs and alcohol did for me.
They helped me filter out the shallowness of it all so I could get through my days.
Shona’s attention comes back to me right as a text hits my phone.
I hold it up. “I have to deal with this.”
She nods. “Of course. I’ll just go and say hi to Barry while you do that. Come get me when you’re finished.”
Jesus.
I blow out a long breath.
Get in, do your thing, get the fuck out.
A waiter comes by, holding a tray of drinks, and offers me one.
I eye the alcohol.
It would be a lie to say I don’t feel the pull. But I draw on the months of therapy I’ve done and decline, letting him pass. I then walk in the opposite direction. Away from him, but mostly away from Shona and all the shit she has for me back at her place.
The truth is I don’t act on my desire to drink, but I fucking feel that desire deep in my soul.
It claws at me some days.
Hell, some days the seconds stretch into minutes and then hours while I think about just one more taste.
Learn to sit with the discomfort, Jack.
My therapist’s advice.
I’d tell her where to shove that advice if I didn’t know she’s had to learn to sit with her own discomfort. If I didn’t know she’s had to battle her own demons with the bottle and come out the other side. Her words, not mine.
I don’t think you ever come out the other side. No, I think the other side is a mystical, fucking place addicts talk about, while hoping and fucking praying it’s a place that does, in fact, exist. I think we just live in this never-fucking-ending tunnel, crawling, inching, treading air in our quest to pull these demons off our back. Some days, we move further through that tunnel. Some days, we mark time. And some days, yeah, some fucking days we go backwards. But every day we fight, and argue, and wrestle with ourselves in this war we’ll never stop waging.
It’s far easier to numb the discomfort than sit with it, that’s for damn sure. But I’ve numbed myself enough and destroyed too many good things in my life to know that easy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
I might think the other side doesn’t exist, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see if I’m wrong. I’ve always been a man willing to open my mind to the possibility I’m wrong about something. And fuck, I’d really like to be proven wrong on this one.
So I do my best these days to sit with that damn discomfort.
And spending my time with people like Shona who want to supply me with all my favourite things won’t help me sit for very long.
I’m willing to attend a party in order to help my career, but I have boundaries and tools in place now.
An hour max.
Walk away from the enablers.
Do not accept a drink under any circumstance. Not even water.
Do not accept food either.
Or any of my other favourite things.
And FaceTime Belinda the minute I get home, showing her I am actually home and I’m sober. And if that call doesn’t come through on time, I know to expect her to engage in ballbusting.
I also know to expect her to drop me as a client if I don’t stick to the agreed-upon rules.
Boundaries and tools. They’re in. The alcohol and drugs are out.
And I’m learning to live with this.
The fact I want to live with this is the difference this time around, and this is what I mostly spend my days hoping remains a constant in my life.
I check my phone as I make my way out to the pool.
Mum: Jessica called me this week.
Those five words cause my legs to stop moving. And my gut to tighten.
Jessica is the only woman I’ve ever truly loved. Also, the only woman I’ve ever truly fucked shit up with.
Jack: Why?
Mum: She asked me how I was doing and made out like the call was to check in on me, but that girl was checking on you, Jack.
I read her text again.
Four times.
“Jack! Get your ass over here, my man!”
I vaguely hear Dave call out to me. One of my booze buddies. He and I always indulge when we meet up. Yeah, we’re tight when it comes to the booze. A five-day bender for us is lightweight.
I ignore him and read the text one more time.
That girl was checking on you, Jack.
Fuck.
There’s no one who can read a person better than my mother. If she believes Jessica was checking on me, then Jessica was checking on me.
Jack: Are you good, Mum?
Mum: Pfft, that’s not the question to ask me, Jack.
I scrub my hand over my face, trying like fuck to stop myself from texting her all the questions I want to ask.
My mind, though, I can’t stop that fucker from taking those five words of my mother’s and running with them. Racing in the direction it should not be racing.
Mum: Okay, since you seem intent on not asking, let me tell you that I’ve been right all these years. Jessica still loves you.