My Fair Junkie

by Amy Dresner

  It took me years to really understand what he was getting at—that having a routine helps create emotional steadiness. For years, I had been waiting for the steadiness so I could finally get into a routine. I was doing it backward.

  There isn’t a whole fuck of a lot to do in Inglewood, and I am desperate not to sink into my old cycle of depression and self-destruction, so I create a routine: gym, supermarket, write; or gym, write, supermarket. And, holy fuck—it works. I stay emotionally afloat, and I am unbelievably productive. More importantly, my ass looks great.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  One day, I go to pick up Bradley at the Coffee Bean in Hollywood. He gets into my car as I am blasting music, chain-vaping and drinking a five-shot latte.

  It doesn’t occur to me that this is out of the ordinary until Bradley says, “Oh, my God, your people need constant stimulation. No wonder you did coke and eight balls.”

  I laugh. “Eight balls are coke, dude.”

  “Oh.”

  Being around somebody who isn’t a junkie really spotlights my obsessiveness and gluttony. Through his eyes I notice the vigor and speed with which I drink everything, my absolute terror if I run out of nicotine, the way I channel my compulsivity into exercise or binge-watching the newest series.

  Dating a normie is strange. I can’t use the well-worn AA slogans and catchphrases only known to those in the secret club. And when I say, “I’ve had a warrant out for my arrest!” I won’t hear back those two reassuring words “Me too!” There is an innate comfort to dating another recovering addict. They aren’t going to be shocked by the things you did or how many people you fucked. You don’t need to feel ashamed about your past or explain why the homeless guy on the corner probably has better credit. They get how your mind works because their mind works in exactly the same fucked-up way. They aren’t going to think “Okay, weirdo” when you pause during a fight to say, “Time out. I need to call my sponsor.”

  But I didn’t get sober to live my life in the comfy confines of the recovery world or for addiction to be the epicenter of my life. I got sober to get back into the real world, to recast myself and rebuild my life. I know I’m an addict, but there’s a middle ground between being ashamed of it and wearing it like some distinguished military medal on your lapel.

  What probably astonishes me the most about Bradley is how nonjudgmental he is about all I’ve done.

  “I don’t care about your past. I mean, if we were all judged by our past… yikes.”

  “Why don’t you care?” I ask him. “I had a guy cancel a second date because I told him I had HPV back when I was nineteen.”

  “Everybody has HPV.”

  “I know!”

  “Well, people have judged me for having a daughter from a one-night stand, for my career, for my lack of career, for never having been married. I guess I feel we all have baggage. You just gotta find someone with matching luggage.”

  “Umm… you’ve never done drugs in your life, and I shot cocaine in my neck.”

  “Okay, bad analogy.”

  Unlike people in the program, Bradley doesn’t see me as some “renegade” or Olympic champion of narcotics taking. He isn’t impressed that I stayed up for seventeen days on meth. He doesn’t think it’s romantic or cool or punk rock that I shot speedballs or had a seizure snorting coke in an airplane bathroom. He just thinks it’s sad that I was in so much pain I had to do all that. He sees it all as a measure of my illness, of how far off the rails I went.

  “You’re just a sweet girl who had some problems and, thankfully, got over them. You’re not a badass, Amy.”

  “I’m not?”

  This makes me feel good and also makes me nervous. Let’s be honest: nobody really wants the reformed bad girl. They want the party girl or the sweet wholesome girl. Nobody wants the girl who “doesn’t do that anymore,” the girl who used to have threesomes and do coke off strippers’ asses but now meditates and drinks decaf.

  Ethan (Mr. post-fuck hot, wet towel) texts me out of the blue: “I’m in town, so if u wanna get ur pussy pounded, lemme know.”

  “I’m seeing somebody,” I text back.

  “So?”

  I don’t text back.

  “Must b luv. Whatever. If u want me 2 suck on ur clit lemme know. Staying @ usual place.”

  I don’t text back.

  “Hello?” he texts.

  I finally text him: “I find this whole thing super disrespectful, but I get that I am to blame. I set up this dynamic. You might cheat on whoever you’re dating, but that’s not my style.”

  “I’m sorry. Seriously, if u wanna have coffee… I’m sorry.”

  “It’s cool. No worries.”

  “But if u want 2 grab a cup of java… & my big hard dick…”

  “Fuck off, Ethan.”

  Bradley headlines a lot of comedy clubs on the road. He’s milling around the Inglewood apartment, looking for his favorite hoodie and his special hairbrush. He’s packing up his stuff to head to Reno for seven days, and I systematically start to shut down—but without quite realizing it. My abandonment issues are kicking in big-time, making me sad, angry, withdrawn. I immediately immerse myself in my sober woman trifecta of distractions: iPhone, vape pen, and loud music. I don’t want to feel what I’m feeling, and I don’t want him to see that I’m feeling it.

  I am lying in bed, blaring Cage the Elephant, arms folded, vigorously vaping, playing Ruzzle. In retrospect, I guess I can be a smidge obvious in my defensiveness.

  “Are you upset that I’m going away?” he asks.

  “Of course not,” I snort.

  I refocus on my incredibly important game of Ruzzle.

  “I’m coming back, Amy… You get that, right?”

  I drag on my vape pen like it’s salvation.

  “I’m leaving like all my stuff here!”

  I continue to play Ruzzle with life-or-death concentration.

  “Hello?”

  “I heard you.”

  Bradley is annoyed. “Come on… turn the music down. We’re trying to have a conversation. It’s eleven a.m. and you’re jamming out to death metal.”

  “Cage the Elephant is hardly death metal.”

  “Either way, turn it down. Communication is what marriage is all about, right?” he says, barely cloaking his contempt for the word.

  “Shut up.”

  “I’m coming back.”

  “Are you?” I ask. And then the tears start. Goddammit. I’m losing power to him, and now I’m losing at Ruzzle, too.

  He crawls into bed next to me and holds me from behind. I cling to his arms.

  “You’re like a wire mesh monkey, you know that?” he says.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I sniffle.

  “They did these experiments, in, like, the sixties, where they took baby monkeys from their moms and then… didn’t you ever see those black-and-white photos?”

  “No.”

  “Some of the monkeys were raised with a fake terry cloth mom. And some were raised with a fake wire mesh mom.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “The ones raised by the wire mesh moms were fucked up. They were, like… forty percent more likely to brandish a knife.”

  “You’re an asshole.”

  He holds me for a bit in silence and then kisses my neck.

  “I’m coming back. So don’t freak out, my little wire mesh monkey.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  While Bradley’s in Reno, he isn’t texting as much as I want or need, and I get upset. That’s another thing about addicts: we have a really hard time differentiating between wants and needs. They feel like the exact same thing. In what I decide is my final bid for a response, I text him a sexy topless photo. Four hours go by. Nothing. I finally break down and call him.

  “Are you getting my texts?”

  “Yeah, but it’s not like all of them require a response, right?”

  “Oh, my God! Just reply in some way!”

  “
To all of them?” he asks incredulously.

  “Yes!”

  “So if you write, ‘I like cheese,’ I gotta text back something like, ‘Yay cheese!’?”

  “First of all, I would never text ‘I like cheese.’ I’m lactose intolerant.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “When I text you, I’m making a bid for connection. It’s not about what I’m texting. Come on! You’re smart…”

  “Every time you text, I have to text back?”

  “You don’t have to do anything, but yeah, it would be nice to be acknowledged.”

  “So, you’re making a rule?”

  “I’m not making a fucking rule. But if you can’t be bothered to text back a goddamn thumbs-up emoji or whatever, just because it’s important to me, why would I even consider taking this relationship one tiny fucking step further?”

  “Let me get this straight: a thumbs-up emoji would quell the savage beast?”

  “Yeah, it would, actually.”

  “What if I text back ‘message received.’”

  Even over the phone, I can make out that stupid smug smile like he thinks he’s teaching me a lesson.

  “Oh, come on, that was funny,” he continues.

  “Look,” I say, “I know you’re stressed out about money and your career and stuff. I want to be there for you. I want to be your anchor.”

  “You want to be my anchor?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I doubt anchors have meltdowns when you don’t respond to their titty pic after twenty minutes.”

  I can’t help but laugh.

  While Bradley is away, I decide to do some fun and easy work on my abandonment issues. Hooray! I got wind of an ex-meth head doing “breathwork” with addicts, both privately and at various rehabs. It all seems a bit hippy dippy, but AA is a slow burn, and I need to get into that primary wound and get some goddamn spiritual enlightenment now! My fears and anxiety must feel like a house arrest ankle bracelet on Bradley: limiting and exhausting. I call up this breathwork guy, Nathaniel Dust, and I make an appointment.

  When I walk into his cute little house, I expect it to smell like patchouli and dirty feet. I also expect Nathaniel to be some long-haired modern flower child with Birkenstocks and thumb rings. Shockingly, he is not your typical hippie weirdo. He’s a completely different kind of weirdo. He’s wearing a button-down shirt with a pink tie, pink socks with the words “sock whore” and kitty cats all over them, and a plaid suit jacket with a pink handkerchief peeking out of the pocket. He also has a legit Mohawk.

  “Hello, Amy. Have a seat. Don’t look so uncomfortable. I’m not going to have you put a fucking rose quartz on your heart chakra or offer you a yoni massage. But how about a glass of water?”

  “Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks.”

  He brings me a glass of water and looks at me expectantly. Oh, I guess I have to say why I’m here and stuff.

  “Ummm, okay. I’ll cut right to it. As fucking gay as this sounds, I’m terrified to open my heart.”

  “I would appreciate if we wouldn’t use the word ‘gay’ as a pejorative.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” I cringe. “I actually have lots of friends who are lesbos—”

  “‘Lesbos’… really… Stop,” he says.

  He motions for me to take my shoes off.

  “Okay, what I’m hearing is that you don’t feel like it’s safe to love or be loved,” he continues.

  “Exactly! I’m dating this guy and he’s… um… got some intimacy issues, and I just wanna run away.”

  “Well… even if he does have issues, you have the opportunity to choose to love. Not because it’s going to work out, or he deserves it, or some bullshit like that. But if you run away, you just reaffirm that negative core belief that you’re not worthy of love. So why not give it your all? ’Cause if you don’t nail it down here, you’ll just carry it into the next relationship you have… which is a barrel of fun, as you know.”

  “Oh, I know.” I sigh deeply. “Okay. So what the fuck are we doing today? I’ve never done this before.”

  “It’s simple, but not easy. It’s a two-stage breathing technique that will help distract the mind long enough for you to have an experience of what it’s like to connect to the most intimate parts of yourself, the emotions that have been suppressed for years.”

  “Oh, my God, that sounds terrifying and exactly what I got high to avoid.”

  “You and me both, sister. Fear is a normal response, but you have a choice. You can choose to move through the fear that has been preventing you from having the relationship you want, or you can continue to let your neuroses dictate how you live your life. It’s one or the other.”

  “Extremism. I respect that! Okay, one warning. I have epilepsy, and my other epileptic friend used to do a lot of breathwork and it gave him a seizure every time.”

  “I’ve seen one single human have a seizure doing this, but she had a traumatic brain injury, and the seizure had nothing to do with the breathing. But if you feel weird or overwhelmed, stop. I’ll be here the whole time, guiding you through the process.”

  “Cool. Okay. Let’s do it. I don’t want to be an old cat lady… No offense. I saw your socks.”

  “No offense taken. I’m already an old cat lady.”

  I lay down on the table. He covers me with a blanket and hands me two stones to hold as he guides me through the breathing technique: two quick deep inhales and one slow exhale. The whole time, he’s playing super-groovy but sort of melancholy music. This is not going to work, I think. I have a running mantra in my head that, despite Nathaniel’s protestations, is basically “thisisgaythisisgaythisisgaythisisgay.”

  Nathaniel dabs me with some special oils and says, “Keep breathing.”

  Out of nowhere, I just start sobbing. Bawling like a small child. There is no conscious thought attached to it. It is just pure emotion. After I stop crying, I start trembling. I feel like I’m hooked up to a generator or holding on to a live wire with wet hands.

  “That’s your source. Feel that? That’s what it’s like to be connected to you.”

  “Whoa” is all I can manage.

  “That’s your life force,” he continues. “I didn’t create it. Your sponsor didn’t. It’s yours. And no one that’s hurt you, or abandoned you, or let you down can take it away. It’s yours.”

  “Well, I hope my life force doesn’t give me a fucking seizure.”

  “You’re okay,” he says soothingly. He puts his hands on my feet.

  After twenty or thirty minutes of this, he slowly guides me out of the exercise, and I open my eyes.

  “Take it slow as you get up.”

  I stand up and almost fall over.

  “Holy shit! I feel totally shit-faced. No wonder addicts like this!”

  “Yeah, all those neuropeptides feel good,” he says with a grin. “You’re not broken, Amy. You have a lot of power, a lot of love.”

  I smile as I spacily try to put my shoes back on.

  “Also, you should be writing a fucking book. Don’t be an idiot.”

  “I am writing a book. How did you know that?”

  He just shrugs.

  “Are you like… a wizard?”

  He laughs.

  “Write your book. It will help you gain clarity around the things that are preventing you from trusting. And also there are a lot of people that need to hear your story.”

  “’Cause if I can get my shit together, anybody can!”

  “I hope your writing is funnier than you are in person.”

  “You’re mean. A mean healer!” I tease.

  I get into my car to drive back to the hood. I do feel lighter, hopeful, more open. I look at my phone. No text back from Bradley. Seriously? How can I open my heart if this fucker never texts me back? I need cigarettes.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  A female comic friend of mine invites me to a film screening. Bradley, who’s back from Reno, knows this woman, too. A lot of our mutual fri
ends from the comedy world will be in attendance.

  “We should go. It will be like our coming-out party,” I tease.

  “Ugh,” he grunts.

  “Come on, I’ll buy you a ball gown, bitch! You can’t keep me a secret forever, you know?”

  He puts on a creepy Nazi accent and says, “There is a long history of German people keeping Jews a secret.”

  I laugh.

  As we walk up to the tiny theatre deep in Hollywood, our comic friend greets us. “It’s so cute to see you two together! I’m not putting any meaning on it, but I just wanna say it’s nice to see.”

  “Yeah, we kicking it,” Bradley says.

  Kicking it? Kicking it?! In case I didn’t mention this before, Bradley is white. Very white. Almost translucent. He doesn’t “kick it.” Maybe back in high school, he “kicked it” a little, but not now, as a forty-year-old man. I say nothing, but immediately go into a pouty-girl huff—which does not go unnoticed.

  He pulls me aside. “What’s up?”

  “I’m going to say this one time, and you can do with the information what you will. We are not ‘kicking it.’ We are in a relationship. You are living with me. And it really hurts my feelings when you don’t introduce me as your girlfriend. I feel like you’re ashamed of me, or you worry that I’ll pussy-block you.”

  “I was totally joking, but I’m sorry. I hear you. I’ve never introduced anybody as my ‘girlfriend.’ I hate that term. It feels so unnecessarily… possessive.”

  “Well, get over it,” I say. “I’m fucking rad,” I add lamely—trying hard not to cry. Fuck… I’m such a crybaby with this guy…

  Bradley strokes my hair and kisses me.

  “Come on. Let’s go to the after-party, and I’ll be all over you like a black guy on a chubby white chick.”

  “Okay,” I sniffle. “And don’t call me your ‘lady friend’ either. You did that once, and it sounded like some obscure nineteenth-century term for ‘prostitute.’”

  “Can I call you my ‘shorty’?”