Page 61 of The Intimacy of Finding You

She held her hand out, shaking mine with a big smile on her face. “Hi, I’m Kathleen, and I’m an alcoholic.”

I blinked at her, not sure what to say to that. “Um, hi. I’m Tobi.”

Kathleen took a seat on the leather chair in front of me, letting me get situated on the long couch. It was a pretty comfortable couch, honestly. “It’s nice to meet you, Tobi. I like to introduce myself like that to kind of normalize it for the people who come in to see me. I read through your online intake forms, but I was hoping you could tell me yourself why you’re seeking therapy with me.”

There was a throw pillow right beside me. It had a circle on it with all sorts of emotions written on it highlighted in different colors. I picked it up, holding it in front of my stomach, like a shield. I felt too naked. Too vulnerable sitting in her office like this.

Picking at the seam on the pillow, I took a deep breath. “I’m an alcoholic, too. But I don’t want to be. I want to stay sober.”

“I bet that felt weird to say, huh? Is it the first time you’ve said it out loud?”

“No. I’ve said it to my boyfriend, but I was still drinking then.”

“So it feels different.”

I huffed a laugh. “You could say that, yeah.”

She grabbed a water bottle off the table beside her chair, twisting the cap. “How long have you been sober?”

“It’s been twenty-one days since my last drink.”

“That’s quite the achievement. Almost a full month. Have you had recovery services available to you during this time?”

Was it? It didn’t feel like it. “Uh, no. I was in the hospital for a week during detox, and then I’ve just been waiting for an appointment with you. I don’t think AA is for me, so…” I trailed off, shrugging.

Her eyebrows rose. “You’ve been doing this all by yourself? Well, I assume your boyfriend has been with you, but wow. No support from other people in recovery or anything?”

“No. Was I supposed to?”

“Well, it’s recommended to at least go to a meeting or a peer group. All that to say, I’m really proud of you, but you don’t have to do this alone. We won’t go into anything too deep right now, since this is an introduction, but I do want to make sure you know your options in between sessions. Is that okay with you?”

I stared at the paintings on her walls. A few of them were nothing but abstract colors in swipes across a white canvas. “Sure. Sounds good.”

She took out her phone and pulled something up. “Awesome. I hear what you’re saying about AA, but I want to challenge that for a second. I have quite a few clients who practice the ‘take what you need, leave the rest’ mentality. The first three months are often the most crucial to recovery. I would heavily recommend going to at least one meeting and seeing how it feels. You don’t have to do the steps—you don’t even have to interact with anyone. But hearing the stories from other alcoholics and having that community can help when the cravings strike. You don’t have to listen to the higher power stuff or anything you don’t want to. Just be in a place with people who get it.”

She turned her phone, showing me an app. “This is an app that will tell you where meetings are held and what times. I actually did this method myself. It was too religious for me, and the step process wasn’t fully beneficial for me. I did a few of them, but I didn’t personally find it healing to do the rest. It is incredibly important, even though you’ve gone this far, to find people like you. To surround yourself so you don’t feel alone and that addiction won’t leech off that loneliness.”

I fell back against the couch, thinking it all over. “So, I don’t gotta follow their program?”

“No. Treat it like group therapy. Take what you need. Leave the rest behind. Go periodically. Go when the cravings get far too close to becoming actions. You need support, Tobi. You deserve support. Don’t do this alone.”

“I guess I’m not used to not bein’ alone.”

“You’re not anymore. You are strong, but being strong all the time is unrealistic. You will have weak points, and that’s okay. That’s when you gather the support system you need, and you fight back.”

Owing people scared me. Being vulnerable scared me. Being weak scared me. Being sober scared me. But so did being drunk, so I guess I had to choose my scared and do it anyway.

I nodded, pulling out my phone. “Okay. I’ll download the app right now and check it out when I can.”

“Awesome. Now that’s out of the way, let me backtrack a second and tell you a little about myself.” She smiled, setting her water bottle back down. “I have been sober for fifteen years, after drinking for a little over a decade. My recovery journey is what sparked my love for therapy, and the rest was history. You might have seen on my profile that I also specialize in PTSD and sexual trauma, and I’m also trained in a few different types of therapy. Every journey looks different. I’m here to give you the tools you need to make your own as fulfilling as possible. I don’t believe in the idea of magically fixing people, or whatever some people wish for.”

I hugged the pillow tighter against me, my eyebrows pulling together. “If you’ve been sober for that long, why did you say you’re an alcoholic?”

“Because alcoholism isn’t something that’s cured. It’s managed.”

“Oh. So, I’ll always be an alcoholic?”

“You’ll fight for sobriety so that you don’t relapse. Think of it like major depressive disorder or ADHD. It’s always there. It doesn’t go away. It’s chronic. But it can be managed. It isn’t bad to say you have ADHD or to say you’re an alcoholic. It’s something you manage, not something that defines who you are.”