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People I’ve wronged: Frank, my parents, my boyfriend by not setting boundaries, (too many, this Step is harder than I thought it would be. I’ll finish the list later)
Shopping List: bread, eggs, broccoli, carrots, cereal, milk, shampoo, soap, EPT, tampons
To Do: get organized, go shopping, clean up lawn, get motivated, set boundaries in relationship, better myself
What I need to clean up in my lawn (what I can see in my lawn): rake leaves, pick up downed branches, pick up after neighbors dog, paint fence (future project)
Motivation (reasons to live): Live up to my sponsors expectations, make my parents proud of me, start that book I’ve been meaning to write, move away from this place, the job I deserve, falling in love with my boyfriend
Boundaries in the relationship (things I would never say): don’t say “I love you” for at least two months, don’t say that “it is ok for you to leave a tooth brush,” don’t say “it’s ok to not use condoms”, don’t say “it’s ok for you to go through my phone,” don’t say “it’s ok for your kids to call me mom.”
Things to change: better posture, be more positive, stop thinking about martinis, start jogging again, see if that book club is still going on, get more involved with politics? (maybe)
The Thirteenth Step
Something nagged at Rachel’s mind, as she sat at her kitchen table with papers sprawled out in front of her. It wasn’t that rent was due next week, and her landlord had made it clear that if she was late again that she would be seeking another place to call her home. It wasn’t that she needed to get outside and clean up some downed tree limbs, rake, or clean up the shit that her neighbor’s dog kept gracing her lawn with. It was the broken ideology behind what she was doing. It was “The Steps” themselves.
Last February she had gotten involved with her local AA chapter that met in the basement of Frank’s house. Frank, the old Vietnam veteran who ran the chapter, had taken responsibility for her sobriety. No one else in the program wanted to sponsor her because, as Frank had said, “They don’t think that you really believe that you have a problem. People who don’t think they have a problem don’t stop drinking.” Frank’s weathered face, with its deep creases and wrinkles bearing testament to a life hard lived, hadn’t betrayed if he thought the same. Rachel hadn’t asked.
Now she sat at her kitchen table, with its linoleum top peeling at the edges, scribbling list after list. The clock on the wall—one of those cat clocks with its tail that swings back and forth in tandem with its eyes to mark off the seconds—was staring down at her with slitted eyes of accusation. God damn thing, always looking at me. Her phone vibrated. It was Frank.
“Hello Frank. Yes, I know I haven’t been in attendance the last couple of weeks. It’s this Eighth Step. It’s hard to do a personal inventory of your life. I don’t know, because it’s draining? I’m almost done. No, I haven’t been drinking. I know that’s not what you asked, I’m sorry. I’m doing fine. You have a great rest of your Sunday, too. Thanks for understanding.”
Rachel got off the phone with Frank and stared at the dingy top of the table. As her eyes traced the little smeared eclipses that the condensation of past drinks had left as water marks, her mind started to drift. It started out as her mind being blank, her contemplations being nowhere in particular. Then worry formed in her mind, as thoughts of money problems and her budding relationship with her boyfriend overtook her. Her hands wrung together, but slowed as something comforting came to mind. She thought of the bottle of gin in her fridge’s freezer. She thought of a tall glass of gin and tonic, but mostly gin.
This is when she would drink. While the cat watched, casting knowing glances side to side; while things looked bleak, with rent closing in, and the threat of losing her shanty in the slums. You have to admit to having a problem for The First Step, the Eighth Step makes you do a personal inventory of your life and people you have harmed. The cat’s eyes flashed side to side on the wall. Her thoughts blurred. It was always like this before she drank.
“You have to go through all the steps in sequence, but you can jump to the thirteenth anytime,” she heard her own words as if they were spoken by someone faraway, as if they came from the other side of a hill. It was an old joke that she had overheard one of Frank’s war buddies whisper to him one night; Frank ushered him out as the AA chapter filed in. Frank had looked at his friend, gave him a sad smile and squeezed his arm. When Rachel asked Frank what the thirteenth step was, the corners of his mouth turned down and his eyes squinted. His face hardened. “Relapse. Relapse is the thirteenth step.”
Rachel’s hands shook in anticipation as she opened the freezer. As she poured herself a tall glass of gin and tonic she told herself that it was just the ice clinking around in the glass, it wasn’t the shakes.
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