AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My feet move for me, grabbing one of the seats and sitting down. “I see some new faces,” Shawn says, looking at me and another man sitting across from me. “We’ll go around the room and introduce ourselves. I’ll start, my name is Shawn, and I’m a recovering addict. I’ve been clean for the last twelve years and four months. Four thousand five hundred and one days. I was on every single drug you can think of.” His voice goes softer. “OD’d five times. The last time, it took them eight shots of Narcan to start my heart again. Left me in a coma for two months, which is why I was able to get clean. Woke up and knew I never wanted to do that again. I relapsed two months later for a week, and that was when I looked the devil in the eyes and walked away. But I’m also here because I’m not only in recovery, my wife, Callie, stayed an addict long after I got clean. The pressure to stay clean and also get her clean was an enormous monkey on my back.” He smiles. “But she’s here, and I am thankful every single day.” Callie smiles at him. “Who’s next?”
I wait until I’m the last one left to speak because listening to everyone’s story makes me feel like I’m not alone. Like what I went through wasn’t out of the normal for someone who is living with an addict. Like I didn’t do anything to make him do what he did. There is a mother who is trying to get her grown son to go to rehab, and he’s not listening. He has her sleeping on the floor because he has sold everything they have.
“My name is Koda,” I start nervously, “well, Dakota, but everyone calls me Koda.” I laugh but feel the tightness right above my stomach. “I’m married to an addict.” I use the present tense, and then I catch it. “I was married to an addict.” My palms get sweaty. “Ninety-seven days ago, my husband died of a drug overdose on our couch.” The tears that I’ve had in my eyes for everyone else’s story slide out. “The day after our daughter’s fourth birthday. Luckily for me”—I look down at my hands—“or unlucky for me, I found him. I knew he was using drugs, but I didn’t know what kind of drugs. I didn’t know where he got them from. I didn’t know how to help him.” My voice trembles. “I really wish I could have helped him.”
“Wasn’t your place,” a man named Shepard says, shocking me. “I mean, it was your place to help him, but it was his place to want the help.”
I nod at him. “That’s what everyone says, but how does one go on? How do I not feel guilty that I didn’t try harder? How do I look my girls in the eyes when they get older and learn the truth that their mother didn’t do enough?”
“No one can answer that for you,” Shawn says. “Only you can do that.” All I can do is nod.
The rest of the meeting is just everyone talking about how they can get the person they love help. How they’ve tried countless times, again and again, and have come up empty-handed. When I finally walk out of there and get in the car, I think I’m about to have my first serious nervous breakdown. I put my hands in front of my face when the sobs come, and my phone rings at the same time. The speakers in the car tell me, “Dr. Mendes calling.”
“Hello,” I answer, my voice breaking.
“I guess I called right on time,” she replies softly.
“How did you know?”
“I knew you were going to the meeting today, and I was wondering how it went.”
“It was fucking brutal. So many stories about how people got better, and the only thing I could think about is, why the fuck didn’t Benji want to be better?”
“Maybe he didn’t know how?” She tries to answer my question with another.
“Well, he should have. If not for me or him, then for our girls,” I snap. “He chose drugs over everything.” My voice goes louder. “Who does that?”
“An addict,” she says softly. “You can sit down and ask the ‘why me’ question each time and hope he somehow answers you.”
“I have to accept that my husband was sick,” I admit softly. “That what he had was a sickness.” I swallow. “A disease.”
“I think if you are going to heal, you need to work on forgiving him before anything else.”
“Yeah, easier said than done. I feel sorry for him for about two point five minutes before the sorrow turns to plain-out anger that he did what he did.”
“I want you to start a list,” she suggests. “A to-do list. One thing on that list should be something to do for the kids, and one thing has to be something to do for you. Not for you that includes the kids. But just for you. Like go for a bike ride for an hour or have a picnic with yourself while the girls are at school. It has to be something for you and no one else.”
“I haven’t done something for myself in a long time,” I admit.
“Well, now is the time to start.”
“Take charge of my life,” I agree with her.
“We can call it whatever you want to call it. We can discuss it on Friday.” I can see her smile at me.
“Sounds good. Thank you for checking up on me.”
“It was my pleasure, Koda.” She hangs up the phone as I pull out of the parking lot. Going to the supermarket, I pick up things for dinner before stopping to grab myself some flowers because I’ve never bought myself flowers, and I like how they look.
When I get the kids from school and daycare, the first thing Rain asks is if I called Christopher. I know I can’t put it off for much longer. So when I’ve started dinner, I pick up the phone.
Pulling up the text chain of the two of us. Lately, I’ve answered him with a we are all good but thanks for asking. He still calls daily. I still don’t answer him, but I’ve started answering his texts.
Me: Hey, I have a question for you.
I put the phone down, thinking he’ll text me when he has a minute, but instead of texting me, my phone rings, and I see it’s Christopher. “Hello.” I put the phone to my ear while I pull out the chicken casserole I put together when we got home.
“Hey,” he says, and it sounds like he’s walking, “what’s up?”
