“I haven’t been there personally, but I know Dr. Franklin. It seems like a good fit for somebody like Tug.”
“Good.” I sat up, knowing that napping wasn’t really in the cards for me. “That’s good.”
“Look, I don’t want to pry, but I think it’s important that you know if you want to talk about the things that happened, I’m here.”
“It’s fine.”
“We talked about this briefly, but what you’ve been through can be traumatizing. It’s not unusual for someone in your position to feel emotionally fragile after taking on the responsibility you shouldered. I’d suggest you go to a meeting, but—”
“I might, actually.”
“Really?” she asked.
“It’s abundantly clear to me that I was totally out of my depth.” At that, I shared how Tug had conned me into buying him drugs.
“Oh, gosh. I’m so sorry. That probably made you feel really bad, huh?”
My throat stung. “Little bit.”
“Yeah. Meeting other people who’ve had the same experience might be a good thing.”
“I don’t know. I never even thought about things like this before.”
“Yeah, well. We’re fighting a war against opioids. You got drafted. I’m sorry.”
“I guess it’s because this is the first time it was someone from home.”
“I understand.”
“I don’t want to be one of those people—going to meetings, talking in jargon, holding hands, and singing ‘Kumbaya.’”
She giggled. “That’s almost word-for-word what Tug said.”
“I feel like… it’s not my problem, right? I didn’t ask for any of this. I don’t have to let it into my life, do I?”
“No.”
“Then why do I feel like I just dropped my kid off for his first day of kindergarten? Why do I feel this anxiety?”
“Because you care about Tug, cuz.” Echo’s voice was sad. “You knew him when he was a kid. He looked up to you, and you took him under your wing back then, and now everything’s changed. You haven’t lost your desire to protect him, only you can’t protect him from what he’s doing to himself.”
“Why in God’s name would he though?” It was a rhetorical question. “Why would anyone live like that?”
“Ask him sometime. I’d love to see him open up about that.”
“Is he… Will he be okay?”
“He can save himself. It’s up to him now. All you can do is learn to protect yourself from the pitfalls of caring about people like him.”
“What if I don’t want to learn? What if I want to walk away?”
“Then you wouldn’t be so anxious right now, would you?”
I lifted my gaze to the ceiling. “Which is why I need to research this. I know. I understand, I do.”
“It’s hard.”
“It is. Maybe too hard. I want so badly for him to succeed.”
“If Tug is going to be in your life, even peripherally, then you need to learn how to set limits, establish boundaries, and protect yourself. Caring about an addict isn’t for the faint of heart.”
“If I were to care about him—”
“You already do care, honey. And I hate to see you like this, but it’s really, really familiar stuff. Maybe you should admit that you’re out of your depth here.”
“Yeah.” I sagged back onto my bed. “Maybe.”
“Look for a support group. Go to more than one and pick the one that fits you best. One size does not fit all.”
“I’ve been wondering what, if anything, I should tell Mom and Dad.”
“Don’t forget Tug’s privacy,” Echo said. “Unless you get his permission, I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Tug was ‘their Thuong’ back in the day,” I said. “This is going to be shocking and painful for them. They’ll want to do anything they can to help. You know they will.”
“If your parents get involved, they’ll feel as anxious and helpless as you do right now. Is that what you want for them?”
“Not at all.”
“Do your research. Make decisions based on facts, not emotions. You’re good at that. You have a great head on your shoulders.”
“I—”
“Oops. I have another call coming in. Stay in touch, will you? I’ll worry about you.”
“All right. Be well.”
“You too.” She disconnected the call.
I normally found the noisy birds outside my bedroom window comforting and cheerful, but today, the sound scraped my nerves raw.
This was stupid. It was so stupid.
As if I’d stumbled into a nest of hornets, I couldn’t sit still.
I called Katie, but she’d already taken lunch and wouldn’t be free until after work. I didn’t call Mom because she had a sixth sense where her kids were concerned, and she’d know I had a problem. My mother could pry information out of a dead man.
I got out my laptop and opened it, ostensibly to check my emails. Instead, I googled addiction and recovery and fell into a rabbit hole of definitions, diagnostic tests, ads for national chain rehab centers, and YouTube videos about interventions.
After an hour or so, I found what Echo had me looking for—a local group for family members and friends of people with substance abuse issues.
God. What a quagmire. Would they make me read the AA book and study the precepts of twelve steps? Would I have to listen to the sob stories of people who were a lot closer to this than I was? Did I even have the right to be there, considering I was barely involved?
I wasn’t a casual observer, but I wasn’t on the front lines with a child or a spouse or a family member in danger. I’d just had a brush with the addiction experience, and it shook me badly.
The fact that I couldn’t let these thoughts go—that they haunted me—that Tug haunted me—proved I needed to explore them further.
The San Joaquin Valley Alano Club had apparently opened its doors sixty years before. The listing showed different types of meetings all day, every day.
Absurdly, they advertised some sort of happy hour.
I printed off the calendar and stuck it to the side of my refrigerator with a magnetic bottle opener.
I didn’t want to go, but maybe that meant I needed to.
I kept picturing Tug as he’d looked standing on the porch of the rehabilitation house—frail and diminished. I thought about the three separate times I’d had to use Narcan on someone in respiratory arrest. I thought about the war on opioids, and how Echo told me I’d been drafted.
Tug had grown on me. I cared. I’d seen him at his very worst, and I still held hope in my heart that I would someday see him at his best.
Hadn’t I been looking for a way out of my safe, boring existence?
People should really be careful what they ask for.
I didn’t want to go to that first meeting, but fate pushed me forward. For my sanity and the safety of others, I had to take a stand. I had to find out what I could do to help people like Tug and still keep myself safe from caring too much.
Hope was the most destructive thing of all.