nobody said it was easy (open)
Feb 5, 2012 14:39:20 GMT -5
Post by Malcom Black on Feb 5, 2012 14:39:20 GMT -5
Becoming clean was a bitch. Oh, sure, you always learned that it was going to be. There were warnings all over the place for smokers and drinkers and drug addicts. There were nine step programs and ten and twelve step programs and chemicals and doctors you could go to and meetings you could attend.
Gamblers got a hotline. And meetings, sure, just like AA—which Malcom had attended as well, because he’d heard that quitting one could lead to another nasty habit, and he knew he was traveling down that path already. But Pilot Ridge was a small town, and GA wasn’t really nearby. Most of the work he’d done was with the stupid hotline, where they gave him all kinds of advice and told him to seek out help.
Yeah. Help. From where, exactly? There was his sister and his family, and there was Sloane. There was even his old army regiment if he wanted someone who knew him and who he knew had his back. But he’d backed away from everything. Possibly because he was scared to admit the fault that he knew everyone was aware of. Possibly because he’d gotten himself into this piece of crap in the first place and now thought he had to get himself out of it alone. The truth was, Malcom’s reasoning wasn’t rational. He was just going to have to deal.
For some stupid reason, Malcom had thought this particular process was going to be easy. No one offered him chemicals, no one offered him a padded cell and no one offered him a lot of tangible support. He’d kept working to distract himself. He cleared the history from his computer and blocked the sites he knew he visited, and the numbers from people who could supply him with the information he no longer could use. He kept count on a calendar—ninety days, they said. He informed the bartenders he knew and slowly cut back his drinking intake until it was something more moderate. And two weeks in, things seemed to be going fairly well.
This third week proved that nothing about this situation was easy. Malcom was not an even-tempered person. Once, maybe. For a very brief period between his teen years and the war. He viewed himself as kind of a warped individual who was a neurosis wrapped in addictions.
Whatever that meant. But in the past seven days, he’d gone from frantic to depressed to angry to weeping, while frustration bubbled and boiled under the skin like a nasty rash that he couldn’t itch. He took the week off, claiming illness because his telekinesis went haywire, and closeted himself in his apartment, which had long since stopped containing anything breakable. Then he went out for distraction. And, in a last minute desperate attempt to regain some control over his life before he relapsed, he decided that he would find a new addiction.
Sketching. He’d always liked doing it. Back in his army days he’d scrounge what paper he could get, beg some more from his sister, and draw everything he could when things got too much for him. He’d never taken a lot of formal lessons outside of Hammel. But he was patient and he’d had a lot of time on his hands to practice and get better. So he went out and he sketched. Everything. Trees, birds, grass, lakes, parks, people. Oh, God, a lot of people. And that was what he was doing now, sitting outside a café and sketching. Today it wasn’t working so well. He’d done five sketches so far, each gaining a somewhat frantic, van-Gogh style in his speed and frustration. His foot tapped impatiently, and he felt twitchy. Every sound made him flinch, and after a moment, he shook his head and pushed the folder shut, putting bills on the table and getting to his feet. He shouldn’t be doing this. He clearly couldn’t handle this. Maybe he should--
He turned about and slammed into someone. He swore, and was about to apologize when he saw his sketches flying everywhere. Some with incriminating evidence of people watching. He used another word that didn’t really sound English, but also didn’t sound pleasant, and dove for them instead, only realizing what he was doing when he found himself trying to pull one out from under someone’s shoe. The same someone he'd run into in the first place. He paused, then looked up with a weak smile.
“Ahem. Uh. May I?”
Gamblers got a hotline. And meetings, sure, just like AA—which Malcom had attended as well, because he’d heard that quitting one could lead to another nasty habit, and he knew he was traveling down that path already. But Pilot Ridge was a small town, and GA wasn’t really nearby. Most of the work he’d done was with the stupid hotline, where they gave him all kinds of advice and told him to seek out help.
Yeah. Help. From where, exactly? There was his sister and his family, and there was Sloane. There was even his old army regiment if he wanted someone who knew him and who he knew had his back. But he’d backed away from everything. Possibly because he was scared to admit the fault that he knew everyone was aware of. Possibly because he’d gotten himself into this piece of crap in the first place and now thought he had to get himself out of it alone. The truth was, Malcom’s reasoning wasn’t rational. He was just going to have to deal.
For some stupid reason, Malcom had thought this particular process was going to be easy. No one offered him chemicals, no one offered him a padded cell and no one offered him a lot of tangible support. He’d kept working to distract himself. He cleared the history from his computer and blocked the sites he knew he visited, and the numbers from people who could supply him with the information he no longer could use. He kept count on a calendar—ninety days, they said. He informed the bartenders he knew and slowly cut back his drinking intake until it was something more moderate. And two weeks in, things seemed to be going fairly well.
This third week proved that nothing about this situation was easy. Malcom was not an even-tempered person. Once, maybe. For a very brief period between his teen years and the war. He viewed himself as kind of a warped individual who was a neurosis wrapped in addictions.
Whatever that meant. But in the past seven days, he’d gone from frantic to depressed to angry to weeping, while frustration bubbled and boiled under the skin like a nasty rash that he couldn’t itch. He took the week off, claiming illness because his telekinesis went haywire, and closeted himself in his apartment, which had long since stopped containing anything breakable. Then he went out for distraction. And, in a last minute desperate attempt to regain some control over his life before he relapsed, he decided that he would find a new addiction.
Sketching. He’d always liked doing it. Back in his army days he’d scrounge what paper he could get, beg some more from his sister, and draw everything he could when things got too much for him. He’d never taken a lot of formal lessons outside of Hammel. But he was patient and he’d had a lot of time on his hands to practice and get better. So he went out and he sketched. Everything. Trees, birds, grass, lakes, parks, people. Oh, God, a lot of people. And that was what he was doing now, sitting outside a café and sketching. Today it wasn’t working so well. He’d done five sketches so far, each gaining a somewhat frantic, van-Gogh style in his speed and frustration. His foot tapped impatiently, and he felt twitchy. Every sound made him flinch, and after a moment, he shook his head and pushed the folder shut, putting bills on the table and getting to his feet. He shouldn’t be doing this. He clearly couldn’t handle this. Maybe he should--
He turned about and slammed into someone. He swore, and was about to apologize when he saw his sketches flying everywhere. Some with incriminating evidence of people watching. He used another word that didn’t really sound English, but also didn’t sound pleasant, and dove for them instead, only realizing what he was doing when he found himself trying to pull one out from under someone’s shoe. The same someone he'd run into in the first place. He paused, then looked up with a weak smile.
“Ahem. Uh. May I?”
