Winter Solstice in St. Nacho's (St. Nacho's #5) - Z.A. Maxfield Page 0,60

time I hit a little roadblock.

God help me if I ever spill my hopeless jones for him. No way.

Falling for someone in the recovery community is so common there’s even a name for it: thirteenth stepping. According to every single person I’ve met since I started this gig, thirteenth stepping is to be avoided at all costs.

Addicts like me—new to recovery—are prone to look for other kinds of escape. We’re impulsive. We’re emotionally and socially unskilled. Lots of us have never been in a serious relationship except with our drug of choice. A lot of us have never had sex sober. When all those feel-good hormones come into play, it messes with your mind in a way that can derail or even turn back the clock on your progress.

I get that.

I clearly understand why I shouldn’t acknowledge my feelings for Luke.

And I never planned to, but last night I was in that space between awake and dreaming, and the words almost came out. Thank God Luke stopped me.

Did he somehow know what I was going to say?

How embarrassing. How necessary, and kind, but still mortifying if he did. Especially if he realized I was going to go there, and he stopped me because he didn’t want to have to let me down with a rejection.

Would he have rejected me though? Sometimes I get the feeling he wouldn’t—from the way he watches me when he thinks I’m not looking. The way he takes care of me. The way he’s always there for me—even leaving a bar, I guess, to listen to me whine.

Fuck. Am I going to start picking the petals off goddamn daisies now?

He loves me. He loves me not.

Am I going to write our names together in my journal?

Tug + Luke.

Oh my God.

I should stick my head in the toilet and flush to remind myself why this is such a bad idea.

And I should leave this house.

At Hope House, I wasn’t allowed to leave other than to go on an occasional trip to the store with Roberta or on planned group outings. Here, I have the freedom to walk out the door and spend the entire day doing whatever I want, which sounds like a great thing, but honestly makes me feel sick inside.

It goes without saying that I’m in a sober living space because I can’t trust myself to make good decisions. Sober living is like riding a bike with training wheels. It isn’t forever. Just until I get the hang of having all this free time where I don’t have to nurture a crippling drug habit.

Because whatever anyone says about drugs zoning you out, there’s an awful lot that goes into maintaining that high. All of it is time consuming. It’s miserable with anxiety and frustration. Days, weeks, months pass, and you hardly know it. When you stop using, it’s as if the ticking clock slows down audibly, and the frantic pace you set for yourself to stay well turns into long leisurely hours where there’s nothing to do but sit and think.

Not my best subject.

I have nothing to do yet, but I still need a schedule so my thoughts don’t hammer away at me. I need a job. I need meetings. I need exercise, and walking is a good place to start. In order to do any of that, I have to leave the house, which—it turns out—is the first stumbling block.

Here’s my list of things to do today:

1. Ask Minerva about filling out practice job applications. They can’t be harder than the billion and six forms I’ve had to fill out to get treatment.

2. Talk to my roommates to see if they have a line on any possible jobs.

3. Print out a schedule of local meetings—yes, there’s an app for that, but I like printing a calendar to stick on the wall so I can highlight the meetings I’m going to.

3. Leave the house and walk to the meeting of my choice.

4. Buy more snacks.

5. Return to the house triumphant.

Dr. Franklin once reminded me it takes a certain expertise to live as an addict. My life wasn’t always lawful or admirable, but the way I survived could objectively be considered a skill set. Living life on the street without ending up in prison or dead requires motivation, innovation, latent intelligence, charisma, and determination—all things successful people use in legitimate jobs every day.

That’s hard to believe though.

All I see when I look back are dirty dicks and nights spent lying on the icy street with nothing