He came back from the casino at 11am. I didn’t bother arguing about it and simply slipped on my vintage earrings and heels. I’m going shopping, I said, he replied in that angry tone he always spoke in. You just wanna spend money, he hissed. I froze with my hand on the door handle, appalled. He had just gambled half of his life savings away and still thought he was better than me. As if we were not 2 sides of the same coin each cosplaying our fix as a copying mechanism. Truly we are no different. I gamble as he does, I ignore the consequences as he does, I go all in and I hate it like he does. What about the how makes him any better than me? I wanted to ask him that, but my words got stuck in my throat and all i could make out was a string of curses. He said nothing, so I left him in his silence. Without saying more I closed the front door and went to my car. I was in debt because I got a Mercedes with a shitty motor, but it was cute enough that I didn’t care.

That is one of the powers of addiction, to make people indifferent to every stimuli that is not feeding the fire and to make sober sound like a death sentence. But is it? Like actually? I felt a sudden wave of disobedience take over me as the light turned green and I took a right turn. The mall was in the opposite direction but i was no longer thirsty. As I warped through those unknown streets I told myself that if this was going to be my life, then id rather be dead. And In the crowded streets of Brooklyn, I was chasing a different high: Fulfillment. I drove for hours until I thought I found it. A room full of people with a different fix then me and the same urge welcomed my courage and it wasn’t until 30 mins later when I was sitting with my first ever AA token, that I knew how far fullfilment was. The advice I was given by someone’s sponsor repeated in my head while I plotted my next move, hoping to get there faster.

“If you want Fulfillment,” he said, “you must first have change. And change starts how addiction stops, by finding the will to be better.”

I flipped the token once more into the air but ignored my urge to catch it and let it fall to the ground. It rolled on its edges as I repeated the mans words. Find the will to be better.