by Paul Hina
alone, at least. Call me if you need to talk about it."
Sam's phone beeps. He's getting another call, and it's a number he doesn't recognize. Normally, he would just ignore an unknown caller, but it could be Jessi.
"Sorry, Russell, I'm getting another call. Can I call you later?"
"Yeah, no problem," Russell says.
Sam clicks over to the new call. "Hello?"
"Sam? It's Jessi."
"Jessi, what's up?" he asks, trying as best he can to mask his excitement, made even more difficult by the whiplash of his changing moods—from anger to resignation to bliss.
"I said I would call. Is that alright?"
"Yeah, of course."
"And now is an okay time?"
"Yeah, now is good. I said to call any time."
"Right," Jessi says. "Well, I'm having some trouble."
"What's wrong?"
"I need a drink."
"No, you don't."
"Listen," she says, laughing nervously, "It's been almost a day and a half since I've drank. That's the longest I've gone in recent memory, and I always have a drink this time of day, and even though I know I'm not supposed to, my body's giving me very strong signals that say I need a drink."
"Do you want to meet me for lunch?"
"No, I want a drink."
"Jessi, if you really wanted a drink you would've poured one instead of calling me. You might need a drink, but you don't want a drink."
"Does it matter?"
"Yeah, it does," Sam says. "It's progress."
"It doesn't feel like progress."
"Come meet me. We'll talk about it."
"Sam?"
"Yeah?"
"How long is it going to feel like this?"
"The first couple weeks are always hard—real tough. But it really does get better. It gets a little easier every day."
"I don't know if I can—"
"Do you want me to come to you?"
"No, that's alright. I guess I should get out. Do you wanna…? There's a little coffee place by the church where we hold the meetings—you know the place?"
"Yeah. What time?" he asks.
"I'm leaving now. How's twenty minutes?"
"Great. It's just a couple of blocks from where I am. I'll be there waiting for you."
"Sam?"
"Yeah."
"Thanks."
"It's not a big—"
"Really. Thanks."
"Okay," he says and hangs up. He'd love to say that this call has pushed Kelly, and all their old problems from his mind, but it isn't true. Still, Jessi, and the prospect of seeing her, certainly makes it all more tolerable, at least temporarily. It's always easier to deal with troubling news when hope is waiting for you.
He feels bad feeling so good about seeing Jessi, particularly since he knows she is having such a hard time keeping her desire to drink at bay. And, as he makes his way to the coffee shop, he reminds himself of the very real dangers of his spending time with her. He can't deny his attraction to her, his desperate need to know her better, the hope that he can find a way to incorporate her more deeply into his life somehow.
He is inexplicably drawn to her and this is a huge problem.
The reason thirteenth stepping is such an issue is that when you come to AA, you're acknowledging that you have a serious problem that you need help to confront. The program identifies this as the first step toward sobriety. To help you confront this problem, you move to the second step, accepting a higher power, which is essentially an entity bigger than yourself to help you shoulder the burden of your alcoholism.
But what's not in the steps is the importance of the group dynamic, the AA community that surrounds you. If Sam hadn't had the support of the group, and particularly Russell, he knows he wouldn't have lasted long.
Accepting a higher power is important, and, for Sam, his higher power has been represented by an abstract monolith of order, a guiding force that makes our lives orderly and meaningful. Sam knows, though, deep down, that this is bunk, and that there are a million things that happen everyday that defy this ruling order. But Sam is believing, for the moment, that nature has provided a place for everything and a path of least resistance for all things to follow. Sam's path has been represented by his attendance at daily meetings. And, if not for believing in the order of things, and being surrounded by the group of people that he's been with these past few months, he knows he would've stepped off his path to sobriety.
Jessi came into the meeting looking for her path of least resistance toward sobriety. By accepting her alcoholism as a problem, acknowledging that she can no longer control it on her own, she has taken her first step down that path and entered the group. The group's goal, AA's goal, is to keep that path as clear for her as possible. But, in the beginning, an alcoholic is so emotionally raw that it would be easy for someone to take advantage of their vulnerability. If this happens, and if the group allows it to happen, it creates an unnecessary impediment. It can be the end of that person's clear path toward sobriety.
But Sam worries about his own fragile sobriety as well. He feels as emotionally raw as he did three months ago. And he knows from his recent bouts of loneliness that he's a person of great, unfulfilled desires. Under normal circumstances, his attraction to Jessi would be completely healthy. But these are not normal circumstances, and he can easily see himself becoming addicted to her. Maybe, in a way, this hope for her he has built proves that this addiction has already begun. And what happens if that attraction is not reciprocated? Does he feed that hole left by her—that addiction place inside himself—with another addiction? An old, trusty one?
He's scared for the future, and as he grabs a coffee, takes a seat by the window, and looks out for Jessi, he knows he has to tell her about his fears. And as hard as that'll be, it is necessary in order to protect them both from the worst-case scenario.
He thinks over the words he'll say, the way he'll tell her everything he's been feeling, and his nervousness grows as her imminent arrival approaches. He considers and reconsiders if this is the right time to say all these things. Is he getting ahead of himself? He has, after all, only known her a couple days. But he also knows, despite all the other things that would've normally dominated his thoughts today, she has been his constant. Her name, her mere presence in the world, has been the song that has played in his head all night, and all day long.
He watches her turn the corner in a black knee-length skirt and a bright white blouse peeking out from under the lapels of her unbuttoned winter coat, and all those feelings rise up in him when he sees her—his spirits brighten, his nervousness peaks. His earlier reservations about continuing this relationship disappear and are replaced with a new voice telling him that the hope, the happiness that she's giving him is too precious, too important to squander. The least he can do is let this breathtaking woman sit across from him, spend some time in the light of her company, before he decides whether or not to ruin everything by enumerating all his concerns and worries to her.
Before she enters, she sees him sitting by the window. A smile breaks over her face, and he feels some great whirlwind twist in his chest, and he knows that if he sees too many more of those smiles—shot in his direction—he will never let her go.
She approaches the counter and orders a coffee. She reaches in her purse for some money, looks over her shoulder, and sees him looking at her. He fears that she knows, senses his attraction. But, perhaps, it is not something he should fear. Obviously, he doesn't want his interest in her to be misconstrued as something aggressive, but she should know that she has sparked his interest. It's important for both their sakes that they be upfront with each other. She is engaged after all, and they're both infants in their sobriety, and swift emotional changes can do more to endanger that than just about anything else.
She walks toward him, her coffee steaming in her hand.
"Why is it that every time we see each other were both drinking coffee?" she asks.
"It's be
tter than booze."
"To you maybe."
"At least I'll remember that we had coffee tomorrow."
"Right. True," she says as she sits. "Did you have many blackouts when you drank?"
"All the time."
"Yeah, me too."
"I can't say I hated it, though," he says.
"Really?"
"I hated waking up and wondering what crazy things I might have done or said, trying to comb out the haze of details for an inventory on who I may've wronged. But the forgetting was probably better than the remembering."
"Right. I am well acquainted with the morning inventory. It was always like trying to remember a dream I could vaguely remember but couldn't quite clear the fog enough to recount the details, like it was on the tip of my fingers and I still couldn't reach it."
"Yeah, exactly."
She turns and looks out the window and says, "This is going to be a tough day."
"I know."
"This is only my second day, and the only reason I was able to make it through the night last night was because, as soon as I got home after our coffee, I took a couple sleeping pills."
"You shouldn't do that."
"I know. I chickened out. My DT's were so bad, though. I could hardly hold the water to chase the pills."
"You don't want to trade one addiction for another."
"Says the guy who's had a cup of coffee in his hand every time I've seen him."
"Touché," he says, and stares out the window, though really he is staring at her reflection.
"What am I going to do?"
"About what?"
"How am I going to make it through the rest of the day? I was barely able to make it through the morning."
"Do you have any
