Thirty-Six
Aidan Jr.
“Hi. I’m Asher.”The guy in front of me hesitated, his head bobbing as he hunched his shoulders. “I’ve been sober for fourteen years and three months.”
“Hi, Asher,” the room intoned apart from me.
I was in the corner. At the back. Just not as far back in the corner as I’d thought because this guy was in front of me, and everyone was shooting him looks which meant I might be in their line of sight.
I never spoke at NA meetings, but attending them was cathartic.
Every day, I’d say to myself that it was going to be the last day I took some Oxy, but it just never fucking worked out that way.
The men and women in this room were a hell of a lot braver than I was. They might not own as much as I did, might not command fear or loyalty in people, might be average Joes and Josephinas, but they had the balls to do what I couldn’t.
They were clean.
The guy, Asher, didn’t speak after he was greeted, not until the group leader, a guy called Christopher, prompted, “Is everything okay, Asher?”
It was a testament to how long the guy let the silence last that Christopher said anything, period. This was, after all, a safe space. People were never pressured into talking. Like me. I’d been coming here for a month, and I’d said dick.
Asher was new, though. From what I’d seen of him, he had shaggy blond hair in need of a trim, his arms were covered in inked sleeves, and he had what I thought was an MC cut, just worn inside out so none of the insignia was showing.
To anyone else, it’d just look like a leather vest, but I knew differently.
I was the second-in-command of the Five Points’ Mob—this kind of shit had been fed to me along with sweet potato mash when I was a brat.
“Not really,” Asher replied eventually. “Everything isn’t okay. The drugs... I got them under control a long time ago, but what replaced it is much worse. It’s destroyed my life. Ruined my marriage. It’s wrecking my kid’s life too. I—” He sucked in a breath. “My name’s Asher and I’m a sex addict.”
My brows rose at that admission. I mean, come on. What guy wasn’t addicted to sex?
The thought was instinctual, but when I thought about the last time I’d gotten laid, when I’d started preferring popping Oxy to orgasms... Jesus.
Reaching up to rub at my eyes, I realized how fucking low I’d sunk.
The only reason I wasn’t shooting up heroin was because I could afford the Oxy. Only my position saved me from tacking on a ‘yet’ to the end of that.
Heroin was a lot fucking easier to score, and were I anyone else, there'd only be so many doctors I could call on for prescriptions... As it stood, I was a prescription junkie, one up from a regular hood rat because I was an O'Donnelly.
Go figure.
“When I got off the drugs, I switched to fucking everything that moved. My lifestyle isn’t regular. There’s a lot of easy pussy around—” Talk about a confirmation that the guy was in an MC. “—it was okay until I met my wife. I tried to stay faithful to her, but when she got pregnant, she was... she couldn’t have sex.” He gulped, and the sound was audible. A quick glance around the room told me the guys were sympathetic and the women, if they had a desire to get locked up, would have stabbed him on his wife’s behalf. “I tried. I fucking tried so hard. I was jacking off twenty, fucking twenty-five times a day. So much I was getting goddamn wrist strain, but then a bit— I mean, a chick came onto me. She... offered herself, and I was desperate. I hated myself after, and every time I cheated on her, it was like a knife to the heart.” He shook his head. “I hate myself now. Every time I have sex with someone who isn’t her, I hate how weak I am.
“I had to leave town... and I promised myself that I’d do everything in my power to get a handle on my addiction. I want her back, want them both back in my life, full time... Hell, all the time. But to do that, I have to get this under control.” He sucked in a breath, straightened his shoulders, and declared, “It’s been seven weeks since I had sex. F-Five since I jacked off.” He clenched his hands into fists at his sides. “It’s difficult. Some days, it’s impossible. It’s harder than the drugs, because what I’m chasing is as easy to grab as a donut.” He tightened his fists some more. “For my kid, for my woman, I have to do it. If I don’t, I’ll lose her, maybe both of them, and I know I’ll deserve it.”
With that, he plunked himself down on his seat, abruptly ending his monologue and prompting Christopher to lead into a round of applause that most of the women in the room begrudgingly took part in.
I stretched out my legs, wincing as the agony in my knee ricocheted through me. That bastard was why I had to attend these fucking meetings.
Until the drive-by shooting on my best friend’s wedding day, one that had destroyed my fucking patella and had nearly killed Finn’s bride, I’d been fine. A little heavy handed with the whiskey, okay, a lot when it was hard to sleep at night, but nothing like this with the Oxy.
I glared at it, a part of me wishing that they’d just chopped the fucking thing off, but instead, it was plaguing me. Killing me as I chased a way to escape the pain.
Wasn’t that what we were all doing here?
Chasing a way to escape the pain?
And didn’t addiction lead to other addictions? Just like that schmuck in front of me?