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A stranger walks in to an Alcoholics Anonymous class. He says his name is Michael and that he's twenty-six years old. He looks more like eighteen because of the freckles and an Opie Taylor smile that never leaves his face.
The usual talkers begin the discussion, Florence updates everyone on the battle with her spouse's addiction, Frank tries to help her with advice and Jauron argues with Frank. They can consume a meeting if I don't interrupt.
Aaron is twenty hours clean, he hasn't been able to shake the drugs and probably never will. Teresa sits quietly as usual, still holding back, still afraid to open up. She's only here because of the court order.
"We have a new guest with us today, everyone say hello to Michael."
"Hello Michael!" they say.
"Hello everyone. Uhh, I've been clean for six years." We applaud. "I was smoking cigarettes by 14 and tried every drug there is: pot, crack, ice, uppers, downers, acid, heroin, alcohol... Jack Daniels was my favorite. Some people say that heroin is the toughest to quit but they were all equally tough. I guess it just depends on the person."
"How'd you do it? Just went cold turkey?" Frank asks.
"Yeah," he says but I doubt it.
"It wasn't the drugs or the alcohol that I was addicted to, it was the escape," he says. "My parents were both alcoholics. We had a shitty mobile home. It didn't even have skirts around the outside, hehe. They never cared much about anything except chain smoking and staying drunk. I would ask this friend at school if I could have his old tennis shoes when he got new ones. I'd take a colored marker and draw designs on the outside so the other kids wouldn't recognize them. But just being poor was the easy part. The put downs were the toughest thing. Both mom and dad digging in to you in their drunken tirades. Why does it make you feel better to put someone down? Especially your own son?"
No one can speak.
"Most days I wouldn't come home until very late, when they'd passed out. Other kids parents wouldn't let them play with me because my clothes were old and dirty. I'd steal a bar of soap from school and wash them in the river."
"I didn't get hit a lot, my dad would hit me sometimes. I guess even they got tired of yelling at each other all the time and I was the next closest thing. Mom didn't hit me but she was much worse. She'd tell me that she never really wanted me. She says I took away her youth. She wanted to be an actress."
"How come you're always smiling?" Jauron asks. "All that shit you been through and you never stop smiling?"
"I smile because... I'm alive. I don't have to be here. I shouldn't be here but for some reason... I still am. Nothing owns me," his smile turns serious for a moment. "And never again will I give up my freedom to an altered state. It doesn't really change you anyway. It doesn't take away what you went through. I hated that my parents chose alcohol over their own life, over their own son but who lives the perfect life anyway? You know, we have the freedom to fully experience life, to truly live and choose what we want and how we wish to live. I don't think anyone intends for us to go through bad things but when they happen we are supposed to learn from them. Don't waste a chance to grow and evolve into something better."
"At age twenty, after six years of hiding from my life I finally decided that it was time to grow up and stop acting like my parents. They taught me that without even trying. I went out and got a job. I took a few college courses and got a better job. Then I met a girl. And you know, I'm doing alright," he says with a widening smile.
"Do you still see your parents?" I ask.
"Yeah, not often but I drop by now and then, just for a few minutes. They haven't changed a bit. There was a nice double wide mobile home for sale near theirs that I bought for them. It was on the market for a while so I got a good deal."
"You bought them a double wide?" Jauron asks in disbelief.
"Yeah..." he says. "Nothing controls me. Not even anger."
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