“Honey, with your past, it just seems like you might want to stay away from people who are like that,” my father added.
They meant well. I knew they loved me and were only worried that I might get mixed up with a bad crowd of people again. But it wasn’t going to happen. I loved my new, sober lifestyle, and I had so many dreams for my future that certainly wouldn’t happen if I went back to drinking.
By the same token, I wasn’t about to go work at the ski resort my parents managed. I needed time away from them each day. Even a loving family could get annoying if you were around them constantly.
I liked working at Paradise Peak. It wasn’t anything like the state-run facility that I had done my treatment in, but the principles of the place were the same. Get yourself centered and make your own wellbeing a priority. I tried not to judge the people who came to Paradise Peak because they were used to having money and nice things.
Coming to Paradise Peak took a lot of guts for someone who had the money to buy anything they wanted. And in some respects, I thought it was probably harder for them to be in rehab than it was for me. I imagined that having a lot of money might actually complicate someone’s life more than being poor did.
I didn’t have newspapers reporting on my every move. I didn’t have staff that depended on me for their salary and family’s wellbeing. A celebrity, rock star, or even rich kid all had more people counting on them than I did, and many times, less people who cared if they did well.
In the last two years, I had seen some pretty skuzzy managers who even leaked the location where their celebrity client was. They wanted the publicity for them. The managers wanted to keep their celebrity clients in the news. It wasn’t a good way to live, that was for sure.
At least when I went through treatment, I had my family by my side. They were angry with me for getting myself into the situation I was in. But they loved me, and I saw that in their eyes from the moment they visited me.
Treatment would always be a place where you had to take care of yourself and not worry about others. But it was a lot easier to take care of yourself when you knew that people outside of those walls loved and cared about you. I couldn’t imagine trying to get sober and not having anyone outside of treatment that was rooting you on.
“Whatever works for Cassidy is fine, Bob,” my mother said.
“Honey, you know I just worry about you. I don’t know what I’d do if anything ever happened to you.”
“I know, Daddy. But I’m taking care of myself now. Nothing will happen to me.”
My father worried about me like crazy, but I couldn’t fault him for that. I couldn’t fault my mother for being over protective, either. I had caused them to worry so much in my adult years. Even though I had gotten my life back together in the last two years, the old wounds were still very fresh for them.
Alcohol was a difficult substance for families to deal with. It was a legal substance that both my parents partook in on occasional events. It wasn’t something that seemed dangerous to have around the house. But I soon showed them. An addict can flip a family upside down and only truly strong families make it to the other side of the mess.
“Are you going to your meeting tonight?” Dad asked.
“Oh, crap. Is it eight o’clock already?”
I jumped up and dashed to my car so I could make it to my AA meeting at the local church. Alcoholics Anonymous was one of the key ways I had stayed sober for the last two years. The people at my meetings were all going through the same things as I had, and we supported each other along our journeys.
Alcoholics Anonymous wasn’t something I had ever thought I would do. Even while I was going through treatment, I had refused to attend the meetings we had at our facility. But as soon as I got home, I realized I needed more help than my family was able to provide. They loved me. They unconditionally loved me, but that didn’t mean they understood what it was like to be an alcoholic. I had to find people to talk to, and eventually, that landed me at AA meetings.
“Nice of you to join us, Cassidy,” Krysta, the head of our local AA meeting, said as I burst through the door about ten minutes late.
“Better late than never,” I said with a smile.
“Very true. We are glad you made it.”
My Monday night meeting was by far my favorite. It seemed to have a lot more people in it and we all had gone through so much together. Many of the people there had been sober for years longer than I had. But there were new people there, as well. Monday was a poplar meeting for people who only came to one meeting a week. They could come, get their plan for the week, and focus on their sobriety.
I preferred to go to two or three meetings a week, but I was fairly new at the sobriety thing and really wanted to make sure I was on the right path. I couldn’t afford to fall off the wagon. I had a great job, my family was supportive, and I was applying to colleges. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew I wanted to go to college and get my degree.
When it was my turn to talk, I was about to pass, but then decided I wanted some feedback from the group. I didn’t always speak up in my meetings. People weren’t my favorite, especially people outside of my small group of friends and family. But over the previous months, I had become more comfortable in my AA group and I had made more and more of an effort to connect with the members in there. I was searching for more sober friends.
Kaitlin was a great person and she never drank around me. But she still liked to drink and didn’t have an addiction like I did. We struggled to find things to do because she always wanted to go out dancing at a bar, and I couldn’t stand the idea of entering a bar. We were working on it, though. She would come with me to do boring things, like read books at the local bookstore, and I would go with her to horrible hot yoga.
“Hi. I’m Cassidy, and I’m an alcoholic,” I said as I stood up.
“Hi, Cassidy,” the group replied.
“I’ve applied to a couple colleges, and I’m deadly afraid that I’ll get accepted. How on earth am I going to stay sober on a college campus? They are filled with parties all the time.”
“You’ll find your support network,” one younger man said. “When I started at the University of Colorado, the very first thing I did was find all the local AA meetings. I also got myself an individual counselor at the school. It was free of charge.”
“I also went to a counselor while I was in college,” another woman said.