Never knowing where I'd sleep, where my next fix would come from, whether I'd survive the night.
Every day was a crisis.
Every moment was desperation clawing at my insides.
Now I know what tomorrow looks like.
And the day after that, and the day after that.
It's terrifying in a different way.
The fear of losing something good is almost worse than the fear of having nothing at all.
But I'm learning to live with it. One day at a time.
The NA meetings help.
It's a small group—maybe a dozen regulars—that meets in the basement of the Methodist church on Pine Street.
Folding chairs arranged in a circle, bad coffee in Styrofoam cups, the faint smell of mildew and old hymnals.
Fluorescent lights that flicker sometimes, casting strange shadows on the water-stained ceiling tiles.
Not glamorous. But honest.
I didn't want to go at first.
The idea of sitting in a room full of strangers and talking about my addiction made my skin crawl.
I'd spent years hiding what I was, lying about where I'd been, constructing elaborate stories to cover the track marks and the tremors and the desperate hunger in my eyes.
The thought of stripping all that away, of standing naked in front of people I didn't know and admitting the truth—it felt like suicide.
But Patricia—my counselor from the rehab facility—made me promise I'd find a group when I got home. "The work doesn't stop when you leave here," she said. "Recovery is a daily practice. You need people who understand."
And Garrett drove me to the first meeting himself, waiting in the parking lot for an hour until I came back out.
When I slid into the truck, shaking and exhausted from the emotional weight of it, he just took my hand and said, "I'm proud of you."
Now I look forward to it.
There's something powerful about being in a room with people who understand.
Who don't judge.
Who've been exactly where I've been and are fighting the same fight.
When I talk about the cravings that still hit me sometimes—the sudden, overwhelming need that comes out of nowhere—they nod.
Theygetit.
They don't look at me like I'm broken or weak or dangerous.
They look at me like I'm one of them. Because I am.
"My name is Vanna, and I'm an addict."
"Hi, Vanna."
