“I’ve got a meeting tonight. Will you be okay with my mom for an hour?” Jeri asked.
“What kind of meeting?” I asked.
Jeri swallowed. “Remember when I mentioned I was an alcoholic? Yeah, it’s that kind of meeting.”
His cheeks were flushed, which was adorable, but I wanted him to know I supported him. “Yeah. Sure. Of course. You should go.”
“You, uh, you could come if you want. It’s at a church, and nobody will know you. You can sit in the back and—”
“Are you sure you’d want me there?” Sure, I wanted to support him, but I didn’t want to infringe on his privacy.
“Come with me. I’d like to have you there. It’s an open meeting, which means visitors are welcome. I’ll be picking up my eleven-month chip today.” His gorgeous blue eyes were wide and hopeful.
“Well, I can’t go smelling like a horse. I call the shower first,” I joked as I grabbed his cowboy hat and plopped it on my head before I raced toward the house. I glanced back to see him laughing as he shook his head and untied Thunder to put him in the pen with his mother.
“Good evening. My name is Jake, and I’m an alcoholic.”
“Hi, Jake.”
“I see a few new faces among the familiar, so welcome. We ask that you respect our rules for attending an open meeting.” He pointed to a poster at the front of the basement classroom at the Faith Lutheran Church not far from the farm.
I glanced at the list to see the rules he referenced.No crosstalk.Stick to the time limit.Stay on topic.Share your own story.Confidentiality.All of which made sense.
There were about thirteen people in the room, but I didn’t know who was a regular, who was new to sobriety, and who was a guest like me. And, really, it wasn’t my business.
“We’re here tonight to share our personal stories in hopes of reminding ourselves what brought us to the decision to get sober, so tonight, I’d like us to discuss our rock bottoms. If you’re uncomfortable with sharing that extremely personal moment, no worries. I’ll share mine first to break the ice.”
Jake then went on to tell his story of drunkenly wandering through a field as he tried to find his way to his parents’ home from a party he’d attended with friends in an unfamiliar area.
He’d stumbled off the bank of a pond, landing in the water in a bellyflop. He didn’t know how to swim and believed he wasgoing to drown. He sobered up enough to get his feet under him and found that when he stood, the water was only up to his thighs so he wasn’t going to drown. It was his wakeup call. He was twenty-two.
When he finished, people clapped, and he smiled. Jake was probably sixty, now. “Who’d like to share next?”
I’d chosen a seat at the back of the room with a couple of other people who nervously fidgeted in their chairs. One guy even slouched in his chair, making me wonder if he was new to AA and still unsure if it was for him.
A large, suntanned hand lifted in the air, and Jake grinned. “Jericho, come on up.”
Jeri stood from his chair a few rows up and stepped into the aisle down the middle of the room. He walked behind the podium and a large grin bloomed on his handsome face.
"Hello. My name’s Jericho, and I’m an alcoholic.” He appeared a little nervous until he shoved his hand into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a ball chain with dog tags and some multicolored chips hanging from it. He placed them on the podium, leaving his right hand on top of them.
“Hello, Jericho,” the crowd responded.
“My rock bottom came after I left the military on a medical discharge. I was in the middle of my own two-year pity party, and every night ended in a drunken haze to numb me so I didn’t have to think about anything.
“One night, my psychiatrist called me to say my mother was looking for me because my father was ill. I hadn’t given my mother my new phone number when I was released from the hospital, and I was needed at home. I went to my old truck and got in with the intention of driving myself the three hours home, but I was too drunk to figure out how the clutch worked with my prosthesis, and I passed out behind the wheel.”
Jeri sniffed a little before his eyes met mine. The tears slowly gliding down his flushed cheeks took my breath.
“When I woke the next morning, I was surprised to find myself in the driver’s seat at first. I thought I was too smart to ever contemplate climbing behind the wheel of a vehicle after drinking so much, but obviously, I wasn’t. Whiskey made me think I was invincible, but I wasn’t, and anyone I would have met on the road wouldn’t have been either.
“I checked my phone to see my shrink was my last call, so I called back to find out what was going on. When he told me my father was sick and my mother needed me, the previous night raced back to me, and I was ashamed for more reasons than I could count, but mostly, because I’d let my mother down.”
The room funneled to just Jer and me staring at each other as he told the story, the tears continuing to fall down his pink cheeks as he spoke. My own tears came unbidden at the heartbreaking pain in his voice as he told strangers he’d let his mother down. I wanted to march to the front of the room and hug him to ease his sorrow, but I kept my seat as he continued to speak.
“I called my mother to apologize for staying away so long. I told her I’d been too drunk to drive home the previous night, and she told me if I was a drunk, not to bother coming home. She could only take care of one sick man at a time.
“What I didn’t know was that my father had cancer. My parents had kept it from me while I was in Walter Reed, learning to walk again with a new foot. When I told her I was sorry, Mom laughed. ‘Your dad has a terminal disease that can’t be cured, but you go ahead and keep making yourself sick by drinking every night. I’ll take care of Dad, but I can’t take care of you too.’ I went to rehab instead of going home like she said. I got home a week after my father died, and I’ve been going to meetings and walking the twelve steps ever since.”
