Chapter Text
The one facilitator, Nicole, picked up a green laminated sheet from the table.
“For those of you who are new, basically how this goes is that I’ll read from the first point on this list I’ll pass it on to the next person and so on. You’re not required to do so and can pass on it if you like, it just stops me from having to talk for a long time and bore all of you.”
As she said, the rule sheet, and afterwards another sheet detailing what the program was and its mission, was passed around. It all seemed fairly straight forward, stating things like use is a personal matter, things are confidential, you’re personally responsible for your recovery, and thankfully, that people of all races, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity were to be respected and no hate would be tolerated. At least that was one thing he wouldn’t have to worry about when talking about his personal life. When the sheet was passed to him, he decided that it wouldn’t hurt to read.
“Relapse is seen as a chance for practicing your new skills, not something to be ashamed of. Instead of downing yourself or using your relapse as an excuse to give up, use it to observe how you got yourself to relapse, what the triggers were and what thoughts led you to use against your better judgment.”
He listened absentmindedly for the rest of the time until it was clear that that was the end. Amy then spoke up.
“Okay, so now that that’s out of the way, let’s go around and just say your name, and a little bit about why you decided to quit, or are attempting to quit your addictive behaviours. I guess I’ll start with myself! My name is Amy, and I decided to seek help for my addictive behaviours when I got close to dying from them. When that happened, I kind of had to accept that if I didn’t change, that I wouldn’t live to see my 30th birthday which of course, was a scary thought for me.”
Nicole spoke up next nodding sympathetically to her co-facilitator.
“So, as I said earlier, I’m Nicole. I sought help for my behaviours after I got divorced because of my behaviours. I realized I needed to change if I was going to be a good mother to my son and stay a part of his life.”
GB was shocked to hear that both of the facilitators were in recovery themselves. He knew it was a possibility after what the material had said, but he truly didn’t think it would be an actual reality. The torch was passed on the next people, some speaking about not wanting to go back to prison, some also wanting to be parents to their children, or being afraid to lose their romantic partners. When it got to him, GB coughed nervously and spoke.
“My name is Grant and I’m here because I worried my family and boyfriend for the last time and they kind of made me come. I don’t know how much it’ll help me since I’ve had these issues for the last 20 years but, who knows. Maybe it’ll help.”
The facilitator’s eyebrows rose slightly but Nicole murmured smiling “Well, either way, we’re glad you’re here.”
When all of the people had spoken, Amy opened a handbook identical to the one he had been handed earlier.
“Okay, well the new people here are actually in luck because as it happens, we’re starting from the beginning of the book today, so if you can all go to page one, I’ll start reading!”
The beginning of the book mostly continued to go over what the program was to entail and the details of different terms that they would use. After that, they moved onto the actual work.
“Essentially, an addictive behaviour is a repeated behaviour that becomes addictive when they are either a result of a pattern that becomes a ritual or habitual, becomes stronger with each time you do them, are done in the pursuit of immediate pleasure, or incur long-term costs.”
Nicole paraphrased from the guidebook slightly, attempting to ensure that everyone in the room understood what that meant.
“One of the biggest things to be careful of is what we like to call ‘PIG’, or ‘the problem with immediate gratification’ essentially, this is a pattern of behaviour that starts with a trigger leading to a thought or craving, leading to an urge and eventually that acting out of that urge. When it’s acted out, you tend to feel instantly better, but for only a short amount of time. This issue, unfortunately, is that by giving in to it, you end up strengthening an unhealthy pattern of behaviour and end up making the next trigger and urge happen much more quickly than the previous. Can everyone kind of relate to that?”
GB looked around the room at everyone nodding agreement and unfortunately, he as well couldn’t exactly argue. He had noticed that when he let himself get into spirals of binge drinking that it was more intense of an urge the next time around.
Nicole smiled bittersweetly and continued, “I know I’ve for sure felt that pattern in my issues, the good news though, is that if we understand that pattern of thing and can learn to identify our triggers, it makes it easier and easier to stop our unhealthy patterns of thinking rather than letting those urges take over our lives. If we can do that, then we can begin to make healthier decisions in our lives.”
Amy then took over talking next, “Alright, so one thing here at Smart is that we try our best to avoid what we call ‘unhelpful labels’. I’m sure many of you can relate to being told things like ‘you’re an alcoholic’, or that ‘you’ll battle this for the rest of your life’ or perhaps even that you’re ‘weak’ or ‘different from normal people’.”
GB nodded with some other people in the room to some of those. He recalled some less than kind bartenders and passers-by muttering such unhelpful words to him.
“Labels like that just end up perpetuating that unhealthy cycle by creating a feeling of defeat rather than any sort of push for someone to get help. I know personally that whenever people would say things like that to me, it just made me want to use more rather than less. What’s the point of improving if you’re never going to help yourself?”
Nicole then jumped in to say something next. “Luckily, that is not the case. A lot of comforts can be found in changing the way you think about things. Instead of thinking that you can’t beat it, telling yourself that you used to have an addictive behaviour but no longer choose to act that way can begin to help. If you tell yourself that you can do it, then you are more likely to be able to do so. Now, you can’t change that overnight, but it does help to just take things day by day.”
From then on, they went on to cover things like abstinence versus moderation and stages of change. GB wasn’t sure what he should be feeling if he was honest. This all seemed like a lot to take in and a lot for him to need to change in his life. He ended up slightly zoning out during the talking, opting to just doodle on the front of his workbook with a pen instead. He listened as some of the more talkative people brought up some personal experience about their recovery.
It became clear pretty quickly that the majority of the people in the room had been there for quite a while, some of them saying they’ve been around for 6 months, while another stated she’d been coming on and off for a year. He wasn’t sure why it surprised him so much that people would stick with the program for so long.
GB was snapped out of his internal thoughts when Amy spoke up once more. “Alright! So next we have a bit of an activity for us to do before we close for the evening. If you could all pass these extra sheets around, that’d be great.”
When the sheets came to him, he found that they were labelled as “gratitude journal”, and GB couldn’t help but feel slightly excited. Of all the things that GB liked to do, journaling was pretty up there. While granted, he usually liked to journal poems, play and story ideas, he didn’t honestly mind the idea of starting a journal for his thoughts.
“So specifically, the sheets we’ve passed around are for tracking gratitude, but really, any kind of journaling can be beneficial for recovery. Specifically, the gratitude journal though has been proven to help reduce stress, increase happiness, and improve one’s self-esteem. If you write about good things that happen in your life, then you can always look back and show yourself that not everything everyday needs to be negative or ugly. It doesn’t even need to be what most people would find as a significant event, just enough that it brought some semblance of positivity to your day. We’ll give you about ten minutes to fill out your sheet and then we’ll go around the circle and talk about how it felt.”
GB looked down at the sheet and read the first question, ‘One good thing that happened to me today…’. GB thought for a moment before a small smile appeared on his face, remembering this morning when he managed to get Chang to smile. It had been pretty tense between them lately, and despite them sharing a bedroom, it had felt like so much distance had been put between them. So, when he had made some stupid joke about potatoes this morning as his boyfriend had been chopping them up for some fancy breakfast scramble, that had felt pretty good.
It turns out that coming up with things to be grateful for wasn’t actually as hard as he thought and when the discussion about the activity had come around to him, he said so. “I didn’t realize how many happy things happen day-to-day, I guess I always just end up getting wrapped up in the negatives.”
Several people nodded their heads in agreement, including the facilitators themselves. Once everyone had spoken, it was time to wrap things up.
“Alright, so I think what we’ll do is just quickly go around in a circle and say one thing that you’ll be taking home with you from this meeting.”
Some people stated that they’d take the PIG cycle to heart and many, like him said that they’d take up journaling to help.
With the meeting over, GB quickly gathered his new book and the things brought with him before making his way out of the building and back down the long ramp. He scanned the parked cars in the front of the building before he recognized the little car that belonged to the crew. GB gently opened the car door before climbing in, closing it, and snapping in his seatbelt.
“So…,” The careful, gentle voice of his boyfriend started. GB’s eyes snapped to the other man’s. “how did the meeting go honey?” It was clear that Chang was being cautious in bringing up the subject, clearly not wanting to set anything negative off.
GB removed his gaze from the other man’s and shrugged slightly. “Well, it wasn’t a complete bust. I think I can handle four more meetings at the least.”
In the corner of his eye, GB couldn’t help but notice a relieved smile flash on his boyfriend’s face. “Well, I’m really glad darling.” A gentle pat to his knee occurred before GB heard the car whir to a start. The ride back to the cyborg residence was more awkward than the brit would have liked it to be. All GB wanted, was for things to go back to normal before he managed to mess things up.
When he arrived home, he pretty headed straight to his room, stating that he was too tired to stay up any longer. When no one made any objections to his wishes, he gently closed the room behind him and went straight to his bookshelf. It took a few minutes, but eventually, he found an empty enough journal that they had barely started, tearing out a few used pages. He knew he had at least twenty minutes before his boyfriend would come to check in on him, so he wasted no time in grabbing his favourite pen and sitting at his desk, immediately beginning to write.