How to Grow an Addict

by J. A. Wright

  I was usually late, so when I was the first to arrive at the van, the driver laughed and clapped. “Miracles happen every day,” he said, chuckling. I laughed too, and for some reason, the closer we got to the meeting that night, the less opposed I was to going.

  I was getting used to the AA meetings. The older women who always sat together asked me how I was doing, and one of them, Mickey, handed me a piece of paper with her phone number on it that night. “Call me anytime, and keep coming to meetings. That’s important.”

  I liked it when people told me to keep coming back. It made me feel special, like they cared about what happened to me.

  On the drive back to the Facility after the meeting, I talked to a guy who came in the same day as me about my plan to read aloud my twenty pages of writing on Saturday, my last day at the Facility. “I’ve written a lot but I still don’t know for sure what my three worst things are. Do you know yours?” I asked.

  “It’s a trick, ya know? Telling us we have three things, or secrets. They know we’ve got way more than three, but telling us to confess a few things doesn’t scare us as much as being told to give them our entire life story. They don’t want us to have any secrets left when we leave here.”

  I felt better about my progress after he told me that. It made sense to me suddenly. It was a clean-out exercise. Alone in my room, later that night, I read my twenty pages out loud to myself so I could hear myself say each crappy thing. It was awful. I felt sad and ashamed and eager to get rid of my three things and much, much more.

  Before I went to sleep I walked down the hall to the payphone and called Tammy. I wanted to remind her about the family meeting the next night, but when her message machine came on I blurted out, “You’re probably really busy, so don’t bother coming to the family session. I’ll call you another time.”

  I figured she hadn’t responded to the previous invite because she wasn’t interested in hearing about my problems, and I didn’t want to make a big deal about it.

  On Thursday evening, the last night of the family information series, Aunt Flo showed up alone. She sat down right next to me in the back. I don’t think she understood a word of the lecture on sedativism, and neither did I, but I was sure glad she came. Afterward, we sat together on a bench in the hallway and talked.

  “I lost the earrings you gave me, Aunt Flo, and I killed Uncle Hank. I’m so sorry.”

  “Both of them?” she asked.

  “Yeah, both of them.”

  “Well, I’ve lost lots of things too. I guess that’s the way it goes.” She smiled as she wrapped her arm around me, squeezed me tight, and whispered in my ear, “But you didn’t kill Uncle Hank, he had a heart attack. I thought you knew. I discussed it with your dad when I got the report from the medical examiner.”

  “Oh God, really? He didn’t slip on the suntan oil I’d spilt on the diving board?” I was shaking hard and I was practically screaming.

  “He never set foot on the diving board that day. He fell into the pool from the side when he was scooping out leaves. I had a hard time believing it myself. He was in such good shape.”

  We sat for the longest time, sniffling. I felt sad and good at the same time. But I had a feeling Aunt Flo wasn’t feeling as good as I was, and I wanted to change the subject, so I interrupted her weeping and told her how I’d gotten myself into so much trouble that I couldn’t cope and how I’d gotten to the point where I was drinking and using pills almost every day.

  When I finished telling her the milder parts of my story she patted my hand and told me she’d cut way down on her drinking and that Arnold had found someone younger and divorced her. “That bastard. The only things I got out of that marriage were a lot of grief, a few nice clothes, and that stupid car!”

  Aunt Flo said she’d moved back into her cottage house a month ago and had been trying to clean it up because it was a dump. “Your Uncle Bill didn’t keep his promise and the place was a disaster. When Genie left him, soon after your dad died, Bill started drinking and gambling and got pretty depressed. I had to throw out half my furniture because it smelled like cigarettes and booze. I only just started working on the garden yesterday and I’m pretty sore today. I could really use your help if you have the time. I can’t pay you, but your room is just waiting for you.”

  Suddenly I had choices of where to go after I left rehab. I didn’t want to turn Aunt Flo down, because there was no place I’d rather live than the cottage, so I explained about Mom and how she needed me and asked if it would be okay if I moved in with her in a month or two, after Mom moved to New Zealand. She thought that would work. “But can you come over to help me a few days a week while you’re at your mom’s place?” she asked.

  “I’m sure that will work out just fine.”

  I had a couple of things to do before I checked out of the Facility on Saturday. The first was to call my apartment manager to tell her I was sorry for being so late with my rent and that I was moving out. I phoned her Friday after group therapy and it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. She sounded happy to hear from me and told me my mom had paid the back rent and moved all my stuff out the day before. I called Mom to tell her thanks and that I was sorry about how messy I’d left the place.

  “Why so many empty prescription bottles?” she asked. “You must have been really lonely, because Gavin and I threw out about sixty empty bottles and none of them had your name on them.”

  “Yeah, I used the names Vera Purse and Sally Munch when I went to the doctor,” I confessed.

  “Oh, I would have never thought of doing that,” she said, chuckling, “but I’m not the one in rehab.”

  I guessed I was glad Mom could joke about my situation, even though it felt a little weird. But Mom and I hadn’t connected like this in years, and it felt good, like things were going to be okay.

  “By the way,” she said, interrupting my thoughts, “there were lots of messages on your phone, and I didn’t want to lose them, so I listened to them before I unplugged the machine and packed it away.”

  My legs went weak at the thought of Mom hearing one of Nick’s nasty sex messages. “Eight hang-ups and one message from Cory,” she said, “who said he was off to Portland and hoped you were okay because he hadn’t seen you around. Maybe you should call him?”

  “Oh yeah, maybe I will, but maybe not.” I sighed, relieved that she hadn’t discovered my relationship with Nick. “I’ll think about it. Anyway, I’ll see you Saturday at 5 p.m., okay?”

  I sat outside in the courtyard and chain smoked for the next hour, trying to calm myself down and feeling grateful for having dodged another bullet.

  The last thing I needed to do before leaving the Facility was to read my twenty pages to the group the next morning, and I was ready. I slept well that night knowing I was about to let go of a lot of garbage and regrets.

  I herded my group into the therapy room early Saturday morning, right after breakfast, so we could get started. I listened to two others read their stuff and had to try hard not to interrupt and ask questions. Finally, at 10:30 a.m., it was my turn to read. I did my best not to sob too loud, or read too fast, and I looked up every so often to see if people were listening or if they’d fallen asleep.

  When I finally finished reading it was almost noon and I immediately began to fold the pages up.

  “Is that it—nothing else?” my therapist said.

  I hesitated for a second or two before I told her I had one more thing, “It’s probably not that big of a thing, and we’re late for lunch already, so I’ll just save it for another time,” I said.

  “Why don’t you stop by after lunch and we’ll talk about it,” she said.

  After lunch, when I stopped by her office, she patted the chair seat next to her and I sat down. “Here’s your chance, kiddo. What do you have?”

  I told her about taking money from Uncle Hank’s secret box years ago to pay for an abortion and replacing it with an IOU. I hadn’t even tried to pay that money back, and worse,
I’d been back to the box three more times and helped myself to another fifteen hundred dollars to pay for drugs. I was so ashamed, and even though I knew confessing was the right thing to do, I also knew there was enough money in the box to help me to pay for drugs for a long time.

  I also told her I’d been lying to my Mom for years about my boyfriend. “Nick used to be my Mom’s boyfriend, and she was madly in love with him. She’d be really hurt if she ever found out I’ve been sleeping with him for the past four years,” I said. “And the truth is, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stay away from him when I get out of here. He has a weird control over me.”

  My therapist didn’t say anything for the longest time, and I didn’t look up or try to wipe away the tears that kept rolling down my face either. I just sat, hoping I hadn’t forgotten anything.

  When I finally composed myself and looked up at her, she had a serious look on her face. “It’s over, kid. It’s all over if you want it to be. You can decide to choose recovery and you can tell the prick to fuck off and really mean it. If he hassles you, you can make a phone call and report him to the state for handing out drugs without a doctor’s prescription. I’ll even give you the phone number before you leave.”

  I almost laughed, because it sounded so simple the way she said it, and a perfect way to free myself from Nick.

  “You’ll need to make a decision soon about your Uncle Hank’s box, though,” she said. “Having access to a secret stash of anything isn’t a good thing for an addict.”

  Later on in my room, I tore a piece of paper from my journal and wrote a letter to Nick. I told him I’d already told a few important people about all the drugs he’d given me from his pharmacy. And just to be sure I’d never call or try to see him again, I told him the hairy mole on his top lip was a super gross-out. I was shaking when I finished writing the letter, but I sure felt good.

  My last day at the Facility had been hard. And now I was confused. I couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to leave a place I’d never wanted to be in to begin with. I sat on the bed in my safe little room for ages thinking about how comfortable I was there. When I finished packing, I took the letter I’d written to Nick to the management office and got an envelope and stamp from the secretary. I cried as I put the stamp on, and she gave me a tissue and said, “I sure will miss you, sweetheart. I hope everything goes well for you from now on.” That made me cry even harder, and I continued to cry as I made the rounds to say good-bye to everyone.

  My therapist arrived at my room just as I was getting ready to head to the parking lot to wait for Mom. She gave me the phone number to call if Nick ever hassled me, and a book of morning meditations. I opened it to see that she’d written her name and number on the front page and a few words: “Don’t drink or drug no matter what.”

  Then she told me we had one more thing to do before I left, and she guided me out to the large empty field behind the building. There was a big metal pot on top of a cement block.

  “I heard about this cleansing pot from Mike, but I thought he just made it up,” I said.

  “Oh, if this pot could talk.” She smiled, handed me a lighter, and invited me to tear and burn each page I’d written. As I watched the papers burn, I said good-bye to those three things . . . and a few more.

  CHAPTER 24

  Being at home with Mom and Gavin was odd—maybe because I wasn’t using, or maybe because I wasn’t accustomed to a man who did stuff around the house. He vacuumed my room the day I arrived and washed Mom’s good clothes by hand before hanging them outside on the clothesline he’d put up in the backyard. The next night, after returning home from an AA meeting, I found him in the kitchen making cheese scones.

  Mom had surgery two days after I moved in, and everything went okay. She came home from the hospital the very same day. I didn’t know anything about helping someone who’d had surgery and I thought Gavin would be much better at taking care of Mom than me, but she insisted that I help her get dressed and change her bandages because she didn’t want him to. It wasn’t too bad. The drain tubes were the worst part, but her incisions were just a couple of inches long, and not bloody or very bruised. The hardest part for me was her medication: four prescription bottles sitting on her nightstand. Sometimes I could actually hear them talking to me, and a couple times I had to call Mickey from the AA meetings to ask if she thought it would be okay for me to hold a bottle of pills for a while.

  “Your mom’s pills are none of your business,” she said. “If you’re finding it hard to stay away from them, ask her to hide them.”

  From then on, every time Mom took a pill I was able to walk away, and even though I was curious about what they gave her, and why they gave her so many, I didn’t look at them and I didn’t ask her how it felt after she took them.

  I went over to Aunt Flo’s for the first time later in the week because she’d been calling to ask how Mom was and to see if I had time to help her cut back some vines that were killing her favorite trees. When I drove over that morning, I was surprised to find both O and B (Olga and Boris) sleeping out front on the garden path. I’d never thought any of the cats would still be alive; I’d forgotten they’d been kittens when Uncle Hank died. When I went out to the backyard with Aunt Flo to start the pruning, I noticed that Mayadelsa didn’t have any water in her and I asked Aunt Flo about it.

  “The pool filter is broken and I don’t have any money to get it fixed. I found out last week that Bill didn’t keep up with the property taxes, like he promised he would, and that I owe the city twelve thousand dollars. I don’t have twelve thousand dollars, though, and I’m pretty sure the city will take the cottage and sell it to get their money.”

  She cried the entire time we were chopping away at the vines and tree branches in the backyard. “I don’t have an income, other than social security, and it isn’t enough to get me out of the mess I’m in. I sold my mother’s wedding ring last month to an antique dealer for two thousand dollars. It was just enough to pay the electric company so they’d turn the power back on and to buy a few things for the place. The used car dealer down the road says he’ll give me four thousand for my Mercedes, but then I won’t have a car.”

  Aunt Flo told me she had other problems besides owing back property taxes. “The roof leaks, the pool is in bad shape, and most of the fences Uncle Hank put up are falling down. It’s going to cost thousands to get things fixed around here, and I can’t imagine where I’ll ever get the money.”

  “What about the bank, have you gone to the bank?” I asked.

  “I can’t get a loan because I can’t afford to make payments. I even went to a pawn shop to sell the ring Uncle Hank had made for our anniversary, but after standing in front of an old man and watching him inspect it, I decided I’d rather die homeless than live without Uncle Hank’s ring on my finger.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I almost told her right then and there about Uncle Hank’s hidden box, but I didn’t because of the money I owed it. I didn’t want her to find my IOU. Plus, I hadn’t been into it for almost a year, and for all I knew Uncle Bill could have found it and taken everything. But if I’m being honest, I guess there was also still a piece of me that wanted to keep the box to myself. It was a lot of money, and I knew I wouldn’t be seeing that kind of money again for a really long time, maybe ever.

  I cut and chopped away at the vines for another few hours. The whole time I kept hearing my therapist’s voice in my head saying, “The truth will set you free.”

  By the time I was done for the day, I knew I wanted Aunt Flo to have Uncle Hank’s box. I wanted her to know she might not have to worry about losing the cottage ever again.

  Before I drove back to Mom’s that night, I spent at least an hour inspecting Mayadelsa, looking for cracks and making mental notes about missing pieces, hoping I would be able to find replacement crystals and stones in Uncle Hank’s shed. When I finished, I told Aunt Flo I wanted to bring Mayadelsa back to life, and she half laughed, half
cried. “It’s gonna take a whole lot more than wanting.”

  When I got back to Mom’s that night I told her and Gavin about what was happening with Aunt Flo and the cottage. They seemed surprised and worried. Gavin said they had a few weeks before they were moving to New Zealand and he wasn’t doing much until then except helping me out with the garage sale. “I’d be happy as Larry to give her a hand,” he said.

  I wasn’t sure what that meant but I gave him an air hug anyway and said thank you.

  I didn’t sleep very well that night. I couldn’t stop thinking about Uncle Hank’s box and wondering how much money was in it, and whether it would be enough to help Aunt Flo keep the cottage. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that I’d known about the box since I was eleven. I didn’t want her to open it and see the IOU I left years ago, either.

  I only needed fifteen or twenty minutes alone in the shed to get my IOU out of the box, and I planned to do that as soon as possible. After the IOU was taken care of, I thought I could casually bring up the box in a conversation with Aunt Flo and we could go to the shed and discover it together. That was my plan, anyway, until I remembered the garage sale and how much money I might make—maybe even enough to put the nineteen hundred dollars I’d taken back.

  I spent the next two days preparing for the garage sale, which was a big hit. I made more than thirty three hundred dollars selling everything from appliances to ugly dishes. But it was Dad’s car parts and tools that brought in the most money. The day before the sale, Gavin had suggested I call Mike from Dad’s car club to tell him about the parts I was planning to sell. Mike told me not to put any prices on them. “There’s some great stuff there, worth lots, so let people make offers and then jack up the price fifty percent,” he said. “See if they go for it.”

  The sale had been going for about three hours when my sister and John showed up. She said she’d gotten my messages: the one about the family evenings at the Facility, the one with my apology for being a bad sister, the one with the garage sale details, and the one with my offer for her to come over and get a few of Dad’s things. I was glad to see her, even though I was a little pissed off about her ignoring me. I was about to mention it when I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked around to see John standing next to me.