The first five days at the centre were the hardest.
Withdrawal symptoms woke me up with clammy skin and pounding headaches. My body trembled. I did not feel like eating. Anxiety, fatigue, and nervousness took over my mind and body until it felt like I was fighting myself every waking hour. Every minute dragged. My thoughts would race, then collapse into fog, then race again. At times, I felt like crawling out of my own skin just to escape what my body was demanding.
For almost two years, my routine had been the same. I woke up with alcohol, and I went to sleep with alcohol.
Now that had stopped.
Depriving my body of it shocked my system. I had been spiralling downhill for so long that I had stopped caring what it was doing to me. I had told myself it did not matter because nothing mattered anymore. Now I was being forced to face what I had done to myself, and there was no numbing it away.
The symptoms were painful, but I made the choice not to give up.
My life had become meaningless, and for a long time, I had wanted it to end. But that day, Lucas and Jiya had saved me. I owed it to Eva and Chloe to try. Most importantly, I owed it to myself. I had spent too long punishing myself for surviving. Maybe surviving did not have to be a punishment anymore.
The doctors, nurses, and staff at the centre were incredibly supportive and caring. After five days, when the withdrawal symptoms began to ease, I was scheduled for an appointment with a therapist.
“Good afternoon,” I said as I entered the therapist’s office.
The office was spacious and colourful, with different kinds of chairs and couches. The scent of citrus and lavender oils hung in the air.
I rolled my shoulders as anxiety churned inside me. I had never liked the idea of therapy. Talking had always seemed pointless when nothing could change what had happened.
“Hi! I’m Silvia Litt.”
She was a woman in her late fifties with strawberry-blonde hair and black-rimmed glasses. Despite her petite frame and small stature, she was beautiful in a comforting sort of way.
“Welcome,” she said with a gentle smile.
I visited Silvia every day at the centre. Any reservations I had about therapy disappeared after our first session. Her soothing voice and the way she explained things when I unburdened myself slowly eased some of the guilt and pain I had been carrying. She never pushed too hard, but she never let me hide either. Somehow she made space for both my grief and my resistance.
“The accident wasn’t caused by you, Cole,” Silvia said. “There was nothing you could have possibly done to control it. You can’t control external factors.”
“Yes, but had I been there with them, I wouldn’t feel so guilty right now.”
“Let’s talk about that.” She adjusted her glasses. “Why do you feel guilty?”
My throat tightened.
“I feel guilty because...” I said in a choked voice. “Because I chose work over them. I chose money over them. I chose the business over them.”
Even saying it aloud made shame burn through me.
She leaned forward slightly. “You might have chosen work before them, but your choosing work did not cause the plane to crash, Cole.”
I looked up at her.
“Youchose work to provide for them.Youchose work to give them a better life. Being a father and a husband, that’s your responsibility. It’s not wrong to do so.”
I sat back in the multi-coloured armchair, nodding slowly while reflecting on what she had just said.
I had never looked at it that way before, and part of me resisted it because guilt had become so familiar. But another part of me wanted to believe her. Another part of me was so tired of carrying the blame that the thought of setting even a little of it down felt shameful.
It was time to change that.
Jack visitedme two weeks after I checked into the centre.
“How are you doing? How’s it going?” he asked.
“It’s hard, Jack. I won’t lie to you,” I said, looking him straight in the eye. “The therapy sessions help, but I still have a long way to go.”
