I only have the faintest recollection of our conversation.
I remember she told me I’d go back to Chicago someday.
And I remember her telling me that strife was a blessing.
And ..
Whoa.
I just remembered: Her name was Therese.
Though that didn’t mean anything to me at the time.
Driving away from the wreck of the day ...
... with a lopsided smile.
It’s almost 10 years to the day I found out about Wayne somewhere along I-55 with all my possessions in tow from Chicago to Texas. This time it’s I-35 with all my possessions in tow from La Crosse to Mexico.
Rest in power, Emi
I’d put in a contract to build a house then.
I’d just had a house built this time around.
I spent way too long somewhere out there circling the drain with a hole blown through me in the stillness of the memory of what I’d had and what I’d lost , thinking the table was tilted and the bottle was empty and ...I’d never get back up.
All my life’s a circle: I have a short list of things I wish I hadn’t done or that I’d do differently. May I not do those things, and may I handle them differently this time around. It cost me everything but my life.
One thing I now know I cannot do: Expose myself to the bitter, relentless, toxic bullies in that group — who will NEVER, EVER leave me the fuck alone — or engage with the high maintenance people in that group anymore. They say in the rooms that “the only thing you have to change is everything,” and even if you do, I promise you that will never be good enough for a narcissistic , perpetually disgruntled , abusive, shitbird , “twelve stepper.”
Quotes used because you know they’re not working steps. Imagine a hundred AA Karens pecking you to death like a pack of rabid geese for a half decade because they have an endless litany of complaints for “the manager” and do not give a single fuck about welcoming or encouraging a newcomer. You would blow a gasket and walk away too.
Oooo Karen is going to leave me a bad Yelp review.
Ooooo Karen is going to DDOS and hack me or sue me or arrest me or call NA World Services on me or ALL of the above.
Oooo Karen is going to name and shame me on Facebook or Reddit or in an email blast to 100 people.
When they banned me Danny said “oooooo, Alex done fucked UP.”
Mmmhhhnnmmmmm.
Now you understand this post and why I might say you’d have to be sick or crazy or have a really big heart to covet that role. I think most of them mean well and we all have our bad days but a couple of them are only there to cause strife or tell us what the fuck to do or demand we entertain THEM. They don’t do shit for our newcomers and they think they’re God’s gift to a group because of their alleged clean time. If they weren’t so delusional they might finally come to realize that ... for most of us ... they’re about as “awesome” as having an intractable cancer on your fucking dick.
And they say I make the program look bad because I tell you what they have done to me.
I might have been angry and bitter and hopeless myself but then every once in awhile someone said they had hope or they wanted to live now. And that’s why we do what we do in spite of how determined some of you have been to make that as difficult or as unpleasant as humanely fucking possible.
Emi was so excited to meet me, she told everyone at the West Hollywood Recovery Center “aids is coming! aids is coming!”
And all these straight white girls from sober living up in , oh hell I don’t even know anymore, Van Nuys or whatever are like “ohhhhkayyyy......”
“Everyone, this is aids!”
“aids? Why would you call yourself that?”
“I didn’t! She did!”
“Do you ... have aids or something?”
“Honey this is West Hollywood, everyone has aids!”
She was like a little kid: “aids is a very nice man!”
I just laughed remembering how sweet and sincere that sounded rolling off her tongue.
I’d told her my name but she never could remember it. And so now the steppers at AA in Los Angeles are already like “That’s not ___, that’s Robert.”
Thanks to Emi, some of them go “NO, that’s aids!”
We go back to the l0de radio hour, and everyone wanted to know if we fucked or if she made me relapse. I rolled my eyes and said “Emi hugged me and they had to give me two shots of narcan ... and then I gave her my aids.”
She was super nice and happy go lucky but she never really forgave herself for giving her friend the bag that killed him and the last time we spoke she said the walls were about to close in on her over that and that her life was over.
I told her I knew she didn’t mean any harm , and that nobody ever thinks it’s going to happen to them. 70,000 people a year think they’ve got this and know what they’re doing and they’re totally not going to die.
And, well...
A lot of us would have made different choices if we fully appreciated that we didn’t have this, and didn’t know what we were doing, and were totally about to die right here right now.
Wayne, totally had this.
Totally knew what he was doing.
And now he is totally gone.
Even if it doesn’t kill you right away it might put you in a place where you’re back to not caring if you live or die.
I told her I thought my life was over too and that I’d be going to prison when I was sitting in Vicki Peters’ office probably looking at a half dozen or more charges for computer intrusion. But for whatever reason they gave me a break.
People come and go so strangely around here.
