“Stop.” I blinked, startled by his gentle command. “Stop blaming yourself for shit that’s not your fault. I came here to celebrate a really big win. And I think it’s time you got your present.”
My heart sank and he pushed the corners of my mouth up into a smile. “Come on, you can be proud of yourself too.”
“What’s the point?” I asked.
He dropped his hands back to my hips, “What do you mean?”
“I feel like it’s just setting me up for failure when you’re expecting me to, like, not fuck this up. You gonna give me a gift the next time I make it to seven days? And the next time after that?”
“I get it,” he shrugged. “But if it was pointless you’d have relapsed already.”
I cringed at his word choice, and it must have shown on my face.
“You know how many times I relapsed in the first thirty days?”
I sifted through my memory of what he and Jae and mentioned previously. “Twice?”
He shook his head. “Three times. And another time when I finally made it to seven weeks. I had to start all over again. But look at me now. I get my one-year coin next month.”
I narrowed my eyes, “And did you get a reward every time you made it to seven days?”
He smiled, leaning to the side, holding me steady as he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. I watched with curiosity as he opened his wallet and pulled out one of two coins the size of a poker chip.
“No, I didn’t receive a coin for one week. But I did get this one for 24-hours.”
He opened my hand and placed it on my palm. I picked it up, studying the silver coin.
“I know it doesn’t say one week on it, but more importantly I think it proves that you’re able to make it through one day at a time. That’s all you need to worry about. Minute by minute, hourby hour. One day at a time. You’ve made it through twenty-four hours clean and each day you can wake up reminding yourself of your commitment and that you’ve made it through another day.”
I swallowed, and he held my face, pulling my chin up to look in his eyes. “If you relapse, you’ve got this coin as a reminder to focus on one day at a time.”
“Is that what you did?”
Enoch nodded. “It’s what I still do. It’s why it’s been living in my wallet for the last almost year. But, I want you to have it.” I opened my mouth to protest but he but his thumb over my lips. “I want you to have it. I’ve already replaced my coin in my wallet with my thirty-day coin.” I looked into his wallet on his lap between us to see the red coin.
“I know it’s hard,” he said trapping my gaze again. “I know,” he implored. “But I will never be disappointed in your recovery if you relapse. And I will never abandon you because of it, no matter how tough things get.”
It took me several tries to swallow past the lump of emotion in my throat.
“I just thought that having this coin, it might be a reminder for you like it was for me.”
I sighed, my head dropping to rest against his forehead as I closed my eyes. “I almost fucked it all today. So many times.”
His hand slipped into my hair, holding me firmly in place. “Thinking about it doesn’t mean you’ve fucked things up. If that were the case, I’d have relapsed a million times in the last year.”
“Really?” I asked with disbelief.
“Yes. It’s never going to go away completely. The thoughts will always be there; you’ll just get better at ignoring them until one day you won’t even notice them.”
“You…you’ve thought about drinking?”
I braced for his response. Equally craving commiseration and to take away his pain.
“Yeah,” he breathed. “But I leaned into my support network and I didn’t drink. That’s the difference, baby. The thoughts aren’t inherently bad, it’s whether or not you act on them. That’s when it becomes a problem, when you can’t cope without acting on your compulsions.”
It didn’t feel right, it didn’t feel like I was getting ‘better’ when I still thought about cutting or hurting myself physically in any way more times than I could count in a day. But I trusted Enoch. He’d managed to fight his own demons, one that had physical ramifications when he did decide to stop. I wasn’t struggling through withdrawal like he had. I wasn’t physically ill. It was all in my head. The irritation, the inability to sit still without thinking about it, the intense sadness, the fact that I fuckingmissedit, fuckingcravedit.
“What are you thinking?”
