You know you've fucked up royally when you wake up to an eerily quiet house and the events of the night before come screaming into your mind.
It's those scenes running through your head that shove the reality of what you've lost in your face, brings you to your knees, and has you fumbling for the phone. You manage only three words when it's answered, words that those who love you feared they'd never hear: “I need help”.
As you wait for Lance to come and take you for that help, you wish that you could say you didn't know how you'd come to this place, but you do, and somehow that makes it worse, because you believe you could have stopped it, but didn't.
Therapy shows you how wrong you were about that, and is, in some respects easy, but detox is hell. At times it feels as if there's a tiny army of fire ants living under your skin and it is in those moments when you think you'd give anything for one more line of snowy white powder. It's the vivid memory of your family cowering away from you in fear, that reminds you, no matter what it takes, you'll never go back to being the person who lived line by line again.
You hurt them, as much as you hurt yourself, with your addiction, and for the rest of your life you'll do whatever you have to, to make it up to them, but first you have to rid yourself of the monster, and for the next three months you learn more than you ever wanted to know about who you are and what makes you tick. It's liberating, and painful in equal measure, and when you walk out the door of the clinic and back into the real world you do so with the knowledge of how easy it would be for you to end up back there, if you ever allow yourself to forget what lives inside you.
You're a recovering, not cured, drug addict.
There are people who love you, people who will do anything to help you, the four men leaning against the car waiting for you when you're released, among them, but they know that as much as they might want to, this is a war you need to fight on your own.
You'll need their support and patience, and they will give you that. They'll see you through, watch you sink or swim, and if you sink, they'll be right there beside you when you come to the surface again. You won't sink though, because you know what you need to do to keep your head above water, and you will do it, for you first, and then for them.
Then there was your wife and children, the family that your addiction had destroyed, the family that you hadn't seen, and had ached for, over the last three months. You couldn't blame them really, for not wanting to see you, but oh, how it had hurt on family days when you'd walk into the common room and everyone but them had would be there. Your dad told you to give it time, your mom held you until you were able to breathe again, and the guys had tried to take your mind off of things by keeping you abreast of what was going on in the music world while you away from it. Still, you'd watched others with their wives and children and had ached for what you'd once been able to call your own.
A part of you had been certain that they'd be there waiting the day you were released, but they weren't, though your brothers were. You know that Lance had seen the disappointment on your face, and he'd hugged you tightly to him as the others looked on. They'd taken you to your favorite restaurant for dinner that night, and for a while you'd been able to push it to the back of your mind. It came back with a vengeance when you'd all parted ways after dinner, and Lance had taken you to his house, and not yours. When you'd unpacked and were sitting on the bed holding your favorite, framed picture of your family, Lance came in, sat beside you and told you what you'd known but hadn't wanted to accept…Lanie wanted a divorce.
Even while a part of you understood her reasons, it made you angry, because while you'd been making the effort to fix things, she hadn't even tried. They'd offered family therapy at the clinic, but she'd never responded to any of the letters you sent asking her to come. She hadn't let you see the kids, and you knew that if you didn't do something soon, she never would.
You'd hurt her, in everyway possible, you knew that - God, you lived with it and would for the rest of your life, and maybe you deserved to lose her, maybe that was the price you would have to pay for your sins, but you wouldn't lose your kids. They were only three and five, and they needed their father, and you would do whatever it took to see to it that they had him. So the next morning you hired an attorney, and six weeks later found yourself sitting across a large conference room table from your wife.
You wanted to scream and ask her why she was doing this, but you couldn't because you knew. You'd destroyed her dream as much as you'd destroyed yours, and in doing so had killed something inside her that had been pure. It wasn't just the other women you'd gone through at the height of your addiction, though that was probably enough, no, you'd done worse, much worse. That last night, with cocaine raging through your system, you'd thrown her into a wall, called her vile, hateful names, and you'd done it all with the two most precious things in the world standing there, crying, watching you.
It had taken you a long time to forgive you for that, and you were sure, sitting there across from her, that she never would. You let the lawyers do the talking until they came to the part where her lawyer informed you that she would be seeking sole, physical custody of your babies, and that you would be limited to supervised weekly visits with a court appointed guardian. You didn't beg, not with words, you didn't need to; your eyes did it for you. She turned away, as if she didn't see you, and that was when you knew you'd lost more than you'd bargained for.
At that point your lawyer smiled politely, told them he'd see them in court and hustled you out of the room. Lance was outside waiting for you.
He was there a month later when you sat in front of a stern looking judge, praying with everything you had in you that you wouldn't throw up, as you waited for him to decide your fate. It was with some relief that, as the proceedings wore on, you found that beneath his stern exterior, the judge was a fair man.
There was no reason, he told Lanie and her lawyer, why you shouldn't be granted equitable access to your children, though he thought it would benefit them to have someone else there the first few visits. He did not, however, see the need for that person to be a court appointed guardian, and asked if maybe there wasn't a friend or relative that the children were comfortable with who could fill the role. Someone, he'd added, that both you and Lanie were comfortable with.
Lance. It was the first name that popped into your head, and you knew as soon as you thought it that he was perfect. The two of you had been friends forever, and at one point, before Lanie had come into your life, you'd been more, so much more than that.
You'd been young then, so sure the two of you would be able to overcome the many obstacles facing you, but you hadn't counted on the opposition you'd face, and eventually the pressure had become too much and the two of you had fallen apart. Other than the last six months, that period had been the most painful of your life. You'd loved him, completely, and though over the years you'd let go of that and the two of you had built a strong friendship, you'd never quite forgotten what it had been like, to love and be loved by Lance.
Still, you'd moved on, both of you. Lance to relationships with other men, and you to your marriage with Lanie. It was funny really, when you thought about it, because Lance had always been the one who'd wanted to get married and raise a family, while you'd never been sure that was what you'd wanted. But you'd met her, and she'd filled the empty spot where Lance had once been, and when Cameron and then Lindsey had come along, the two of you had settled happily into family life, and Lance had become a beloved uncle and friend.
Exactly what the judge was looking for.
Lanie trusted him; the kids loved him, and you…you had other things you needed to straighten out before you could allow yourself to go down that road again. So, for now, you would focus on today, on your children, and maybe, you thought as your eyes met Lance's, you'd let yourself think, just a little, about possibilities.