I wake up. I don’t know where I am. Someone hands me my glasses. I put them on. I see. A nurse.

“You’ve just come out of surgery,” she says. “How is your pain?”

“Not good,” I mumble back.

“I’m going to give you some fentanyl,” she says.

“OK,” I reply.

—

I’m sitting on a beat up couch, his head on my shoulder. Empty bottles of vodka are on the coffee table, an ashtray full of cigarettes. A cell phone. The place smells like stale smoke. 

It’s 8am. 

I’ve driven nearly two hours to get here.

My friend had relapsed.

He called me at dawn.

He needed to get home.

He was shit-faced.

“Thanks for being here, Baba,” he says.

My nickname.

An endearment. From when we worked together at the treatment center where it was our job to help people climb out of situations like where we were right now—to climb out of addiction.

Fuck this disease, I remember thinking.

—

“How’s your pain now?” the nurse asks.

“About the same,” I reply. “No change.”

“I’m going to give you some more fentanyl,” she says.

“OK,” I reply.

—

It takes an hour and a half to convince him to come with me even though he called me because he wanted to go home.

Nothing was making sense.

Nothing makes sense.

Sitting here on this couch with my friend and former co-worker—one of the best. A man who had crawled himself out of his alcoholism and into working as a substance abuse counselor, turning his pain and trauma into service. He had the toughest clients, the hardest dudes.

Heroin addicts.
Alcoholics.
Gang members.
Incarcerated people.

He helped them all.

That’s how it’s supposed to go.

Step 12.

Live of a life of service.

That’s how it’s supposed to go.

This is not how it’s supposed to go.

I am not supposed to be sitting on this couch two hours from my house in a stranger’s place wondering at what point I need to take my friend to the emergency room or take him home. I’m not supposed to know his cell phone password to respond to the texts he can’t. I’m not supposed to be here. This is not supposed to be happening. This is not supposed to happen to people like this.

But it is.

—

The nurse asks again, “How is your pain now?”

“A little better,” I reply.

“I can give you some oxy before you go home, if you want,” she says.

I close my eyes. 

—

I get him out, down the stairs, and into my car.

We go to a McDonalds. I order us greasy breakfast sandwiches. A large cup of water for him, coffee for me. 

He insists on paying, a piece of him still present, though I could barely get his body down the stairs.

“Eat this,” I say.

He does.

He wants to DJ our drive to his house—over an hour. But he can’t type. Still too drunk. So I hit the mic button and let him dictate the songs.

“Do you know this one, Baba?” he asks. “Classic.”

We roll the windows down and eat our sandwiches.

“Classic,” one of his favorite sayings.

—

In the hospital I remember the last time.

I remember not being ahead of the pain. I remember sobbing in my bed. I remember shaking. I remember being scared I’d get addicted. I remember thinking I could do it with just the Tylenol and just the ibuprofen. I remember being wrong. Really wrong. I remember being scared.

I’m still scared.

I haven’t answered her question yet—the nurse’s question. 

I stare blankly at the ceiling. I hear the beeps of the machines. The fluorescent lights. The blood pressure cuff as it squeezes my arm. 

“I found out last night that a friend of mine overdosed and died,” I say. 

Last night. I was anxious about the surgery. I had told myself I needed to get into the right headspace—that this surgery was going to be easy, as far as surgeries go. Not like the last one. Something to be excited about. The conclusion of a chapter.

My phone rang and I didn’t answer. Another co-worker from the treatment center.

I texted him, “My mom’s here. You good?”

He replied, “Can you call me.”

I call.

He answers.

I say, “Is this like before when you’d call and I’d answer and the first thing I’d say to you was ‘Is he dead?’”

My friend says yes. Except this time it’s true. He’s gone.

In the hospital I stare at the ceiling, the nurse awaiting my answer.

My answer about the oxy.

“Yes,” I say, “I’ll take it. This is what it’s for. I’m safe here.”

She tells me she’ll be watching me for the next 30 minutes.

I swallow the pill.

—

My friend insists on taking a detour and going to his parents’ house. I am afraid of walking this man into his house and his mother seeing him like this.

But it takes a village, so I do.

At this point, I need help too.

“Mom!” he exclaims as he hugs her. “This is Alli! Remember me telling you about Alli who I used to work with?!”

“I do,” she says.

“It’s nice to meet you,” I say to her, my eyes saying I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

She invites us in for a glass of water.

I sit at the kitchen table while they catch up.

She asks if I’m ok.

She asks him what the plan is.

I know what she means. It’s not the plan for the day. It’s the plan for how to get sober again. The crisis plan.

My first day at work I sat in a group where he reviewed crisis plans with his clients.

By this point I had texted our friend, another counselor. Texted his roommate. Gotten his sponsor’s name and number.

So I took him home.

I met his roommate.

I said, “Hi, it’s nice to finally meet you. I need you to go to 7-11 and get two large bottles of Gatorade and a pack of cigarettes, now.” 

He does.

Then, my friend’s sponsor came.

And my friend got pissed and threatened to go to the liquor store.

And his sponsor said, ok go.

And he did, without his wallet.

“He doesn’t have his wallet, though,” I say to his sponsor, optimistically.

“It doesn’t matter,” he replies. “He uses Apple Pay.”

—

I get off the phone with our co-worker.

Fuck, I think. Fuck this disease.

Fuck my disease.

He helped so many people.

He helped me.

I sat at the table in the kitchen at his childhood home. Piles of papers. His mom handed me a glass of water. I set it down. Just to my left was a book: How Al Anon Works.

I know I needed to go.

Three days later I was driving and pulled off to the side of the road. I called into my first Al Anon meeting. I quietly cried the whole time.

I needed help. 

I couldn’t do it alone. 

I can’t do this alone.

Three years later I’m in a hospital bed, being administered the fentanyl that’s killed people I know. Taking the oxy that got people into my office. 

Powerless.

“In step one you can change ‘alcoholism’ to whatever you want,” my sponsor said back in January. “Like, ‘I am powerless over cancer.’ You are powerless over cancer.”

I am powerless over cancer, I think.

I don’t think my friend even knew I was sick.

My co-worker told me that the woman who found our friend dead said, “It’s too bad he died such a shameful death.”

Fuck you, was my response. 

It’s a disease. Just like mine.

Neither one of us asked for this.

And it’s not fair that I’m the one that gets flowers and he’s the one that gets judgement.

I take the oxy around the clock for the next 24 hours.

I think of my friend, who would never want me to suffer like this.

I think of my friend, who I never wanted to suffer like that.

 

---

 

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