OVERTURE
BODHI
Rehabilitation.Noun. According to the dictionary, it’s the process of returning to a healthy or good way of life. Restoring something to its former condition.
But what if the “before” wasn’t good or healthy either? What if the person you used to be wasn’t much better than the one you are now? Did you deserve to have a second chance? Hell, was there any point in even trying?
Apparently, someone thought so. That’s why I was sitting in an overstuffed armchair, nursing a migraine and with muscles that ached like I’d done two triathlons back to back, part of a circle with eight other recovering addicts. Because that’s what I was. An addict. At least, that’s what the people who ran this place said. My bandmates said it too. My manager. My mom.
Of all the labels in the world, that one had to stick itself onto my already less than desirable personality. Talk about rotten luck.
Though maybe if I hadn’t been high off my ass after a recording session, I wouldn’t have decided to level up my cocaine habit and try heroin for the first time. Not that the needle ever made it. Clara, the band’s manager, found me at some divebar after I’d disappeared from the studio, a dirty needle about an inch from my vein and a dealer waiting for payment via Venmo.
So maybe what I’d called bad luck was actually self-inflicted.
That sounded a whole lot like acceptance, which, if I remembered right, was supposed to be part of this whole rehabilitation crap.
My little mishap was followed by a lecture from Clara, an intervention from the band, and an ultimatum from the label: clean up your act or you’re out. Since I wasn’t a total idiot, I’d agreed to whatever terms they threw at me—though I couldn’t recall what half of them were—and a few days later I was on a plane to London. From there, I was held hostage in a tiny hotel room by security for three days, expected to “sweat out the toxins” until my room was ready at a rehab facility.
And that’s how I ended up here, at a group therapy session in the sunroom of Willowbrook House.Where every ending is a beginning. Sounded like a crock of shit to me, but I’d already proven I wasn’t the best judge of character.
“Today, we’ll be discussing thewhyand thewhat.” Ricky, one of the counsellors, sat at the head of the circle, bathed in the rays of afternoon sun that shone through the large ornate windows behind him. “Why we used, and what we were running from.”
I had to hold back the scoff that wanted to erupt from my mouth at his use of “we.” Based on the tailored suit, expensive haircut, and the Rolex on his wrist, a part of me doubted Ricky had ever used an illegal substance in his life. I knew I shouldn’t judge, I mean, look at the brokers on Wall Street who lived on a diet of coffee and uppers to clinch their international trade deals at all hours. But since I was paying more than a pretty penny to hole up in an old-timey manor in the Kent countryside, I highly doubted the powers that be would let any sort of actual addict, recovering or not, run a group session.
“Most people think addiction is about the substance—whether it be alcohol, pills, or a needle—but addicts see it as the solution rather than the problem. Perhaps they used because they were hurt and needed to numb the pain, or a burden was too heavy to carry on their own. Or maybe they just didn’t know how to sit with themselves without wanting to crawl out of their skin.”
The person next to me shifted in their seat, tugging at the hem of their oversized sweater. I couldn’t see their face in my periphery; it was too covered by a large hood that blocked my vision. The leather chair creaked as they crossed one long, pale leg over another, before deciding that wasn’t comfortable and switching. If I had to guess, the talk of substances made them twitchy, and they were jonesing for one last hit before they entered the shiny new world of sobriety.
Hell, I could relate. If I’d known my last one would be mylastone, I’d have skipped the dive bar and heroin and scored some grade-A coke to snort off the glass coffee table in my apartment without interruption. Instead, I was playing lord of the fucking manor, practically salivating over the phantom taste of coke drip at the back of my throat while Ricky lectured us on substance abuse.
“Addicts don’t wake up one day and think, ‘I’d like to destroy my life,’” Ricky continued, bringing me back to the present. “They wake up thinking, ‘I need help coping,’ until somewhere along the way, coping becomes surviving, and surviving becomes drowning.”
This time, someone did scoff, and it came from the fidgeter beside me. Ricky, however, continued like he hadn’t heard a thing.
“Recovery isn’t about shame or blame, and it definitely isn’t about reliving every mistake you’ve ever made. It’s abouthonesty. With each other, but most importantly, yourselves.” As he looked around at every person in the circle, I dropped my gaze to my hands, curled into fists in my lap, not wanting to meet his eyes. “If you’re brave enough, I’d like you to answer one question: what were you trying to feel? What were you running from?”
“That’s two questions,” the person beside me mumbled, still tugging at their sweater. It was petulant and childish, but it still made the corner of my mouth twitch.
“There’s no right or polished answer,” Ricky continued. “There’s only your truth. So...” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his spread knees. “Who’d like to start?”
For a minute or two, nobody spoke. But eventually, a young woman who looked barely a day over sixteen raised a shaking hand. “I...” she began, but trailed off, anxiously looking around the room.
“Go on, Fiona,” Ricky urged, mouth ticking up in what I guessed was supposed to be a supportive smile.
“I-I didn’t want to feel like a disappointment,” the girl, Fiona, whispered. “My mum used to say I had so much potential, and everyone said I could be anything as long as I applied myself. But I just... didn’t.” Her voice grew more confident the longer she spoke, the words seeming to pour out of her. “Nothing really stuck. I dropped out of uni, and I’d quit every job I had after only a few weeks. I’d always start something and bail when things got tough or boring or I realised I was just... f-faking it.”
When Fiona let out a single sob, Ricky was straight in there with a full box of Kleenex, and she tugged a tissue free to wipe her eyes. “One weekend, I was dragged to a house party with someone from my old uni course. I, um, took p-pills for the first time, and it was like... like everything went quiet, and thepressure just shut off. I wasn’t just wasting my life doing nothing. I was okay, you know?”
Heads around the circle nodded, and a few people grunted and mumbled in understanding.
“It was amazing,” Fiona breathed, her eyes growing distant, like she was falling into the memory of the high. “In the end, I chased that feeling until it was all I had left. I wasn’t trying to ruin anything; I just didn’t want to hate myself... at least for a little while.” Then she blinked, as though the spell had lifted, and shrugged a bony shoulder.
Ricky smiled. “Thank you for sharing, Fiona.”
Fiona slumped in her chair like a marionette whose strings had been cut, all the energy zapped out of her. She stared down at her lap, the damp tissue crumpled between her small fingers. When she finally looked up, I expected her to look... ashamed? Worried? I don’t know. But I was surprised, because there was none of that. Instead, she looked relieved, like a weight had been lifted.
And then Ricky said, “Who’d like to go next?”
