Day Fourteen

Day Fourteen

Everyone is a little on edge today.

Fran says in group that she understands, because tomorrow is parents day, and do we want to talk about that ?

No one says anything.

"Anyone?" Fran asks. "It can be hard, I know. A lot of complicated emotions."

Charlotte says, "Frankly, Fran, I'm all talked out. I think we all are. Maybe you could talk about yourself for once."

Fran looks at her. "Well, what do you want to know?"

Nick pipes up. "Like, I know we've heard the story of you and your friend in Anza Park, am I right? We all hear that, like, the third day in Detox."

"Get new material, Fran," Josh says.

Everyone laughs.

"But what about after that?" Nick asks. "Like, what was it like for you after? When you tried to kick? What was the hardest part? You're always telling us we have to do our work, like on ourselves, inside and out, but you never actually tell us what that's like. After. Trying to live."

Fran thinks for a moment. "It's different for everyone," she says slowly. "But if you want to know the truth, the hardest part was quitting cigarettes."

"Fuck off," Charlotte says. "No way."

"Language," Fran says.

"Sorry," Charlotte mumbles.

"I had tried to kick drugs before. I tried cold turkey. You get pretty sick. It's one of the most awful things I've ever experienced, going cold turkey. You think you're going to die. But after a while, the sick goes away and the work begins. And sometimes it doesn't take. For whatever reason. It was hard for me, for a long time. Stop, start, stop, start. There were a lot of things working against me. Sometimes it felt like the easiest thing to do was to sink back into it. Who cared about me? A dirty woman living outdoors. Some people think you deserve that life."

She clasps her hands together in her lap.

"I found some people who didn't. And they believed in me. Little by little, I believed in myself. They don't make it easy for you out there. There's a lot of shame. But I saw my friend die, and yes, you've heard that before, and I think, in the end, I was ready. To put in the work. Because I didn't want to die in a park. I didn't deserve to die in a park. No one does."

"Cigarettes," Josh says. "Back to the smokes."

"Right," Fran says. "I needed those when I was withdrawing. I needed them through the first parts of my recovery. I needed to do something to myself. Cigarettes are insidious, but they're legal. Glamorous, to some. Isn't it funny how no one wants to give more money to get people into safe living spaces with good therapy and safe withdrawal, but hey, smoke up, pal, even though this thing will eat you alive from the inside, slowly and, finally, painfully. Nobody shames you for getting cancer from smoking the way they shame you for other addictions."

She gets up and moves around the room, her hands behind her back.

"I have never missed heroin as much as I miss cigarettes. I used them partly to get sober and then I used them because they were my new addiction. I had to stop the first cigarette in the morning at first. Do something else. The laundry. Go for a run. Write in my journal. Every day, I went a little bit longer without one until one day it was nine o'clock at night and I hadn't had a single one. I promptly put myself to bed and stayed there, afraid I'd run to the store for a pack."

Brandy laughs. "Those things are like twelve bucks a pack now."

"But," Fran says, "I still get cravings. I smell it when I walk outside in the city and something perks up inside me. Pokes me. Tries to rile me up. I pass by people in trouble all the time, high as kites, and you kids coming in here high to Detox, and I never feel that way about heroin. I see you, and I don't have that craving to get high. But smell cigarette smoke? It takes me hours to get that out of my system."

"Just hearing you talk about it makes me want a smoke," Nick says. "I haven't here, although I know some kids can if they want. I'm trying not to."

"Addiction of any kind sits in your brain like a cat with yarn, Nick," Fran says. "Batting around your synapses and impulses and logic for sport. And then it says to your body, hey you, want to play? Hence, the shakes, the DTs, withdrawal symptoms, the whole awful lot of it. Then you're in for it."

I pick at the hem of my T-shirt. Maybe I had hangovers, but I never had anything like what she's talking about. I don't even have that craving right now. I miss drinking, but thinking about it doesn't make me salivate or shake or anything.

"Some of you are thinking, well, that's not me, and maybe it isn't. Not yet, anyway. But it might be, someday. Because the weird thing is, you might work hard and get sober and stay sober, but it never leaves your brain. There's always a little scrap left, waiting to take you down. Once I had nineteen months and there I was walking down a street and I noticed some people getting high and something came over me and I turned down that alley and blew my nineteen months. I cannot explain it. And then I started over."

She goes back to her beanbag and sits down with a gruff sigh.

"There's a lot of starting over," she says. "But isn't it great if you get that chance? Some of you are on your third and fourth chances. Some are on their first. But you have this chance, no matter the distance you traveled to get here. No matter how many times you've started over, here you are."

"It's tiring," Nick says softly. "It's really exhausting."

"I believe if you can walk into the darkness," Fran says quietly, "then you have the strength to walk back out."