"dating in rehab"
Just found texts I had sent my badass babe (and future publisher) about all the stories from my first evening IOP session - I had just finished a month of full day sessions and clearly had a lot of thoughts to share, and like the amazing friend she is Nicole managed to perfectly encourage my flow of thoughts to prep for... MY FUTURE BESTSELLER! Fast forward 4 months, and these texts are the funniest thing I have read in a LONG time now that the people I'm talking about are my 2 best friends (and roommate in Joey's case!). Here they are...
this 20 year old is inspiring
Safe to say I was spot on there, because from that night on Mollie has been my biggest inspiration to live life better. She's a badass woman who posses more maturity than I ever will, and she took life into her own hands at an age where the majority of people (myself included) chalk up all bad behavior to just partying and being young/in school. My first real interaction with Mollie involved me reaching out to her to offer up a place to live... in CT with my mother. Absurd? Absolutely, particularly considering I still haven't told my own parents about my addiction, but luckily Mollie saw through my insanity to what really mattered: genuine empathy and a desire to help. We celebrated her 21st birthday not long after I had this conversation with Nicole, and I've only grown to love her more with every passing day. I am proud to call her not only a true friend, but my inspiration always.
omg my boyfriend
THIS is just so absurd to me now that I'm still laughing. JOEY, the light of my life, the apple of my eye, the adopted brother I never realized was missing until he entered our lives - absolutely NOT my boyfriend but hey, clearly I was on to something! Joey and I catapulted into each other's lives in a way that only would make sense for the two of us. After I made my CLEVER play of messaging him and getting into convo during the session, we ended up spending another entire session messaging in Zoom where Joey did not realize the camera stayed on while messaging (unlike if you moved your phone to another app to text and the video turned off).. meaning that everyone just saw his face close up laughing at his phone. Eventually someone called him out and it's safe to say that was by far one of my favorite sessions. After a failed attempt at going hiking because I was a chicken and didn't want to leave my house (which he oddly understood, and in that moment I knew he was someone meant to be in my life) our next attempt to hangout was far more successful: a trip to CT for Mother's Day! Yes, I had someone I had never met in person drive me to CT to see my mother because Mikey was in Florida and I wanted to make sure my mom was entertained enough not to ask too many questions about where he was or be too sad that he wasn't there (he's the favorite - can't even blame her, he's everyone's favorite for good reason!). Now this could have gone completely horribly, especially considering again the fact that my mom has no idea I was in treatment and therefore I had to stop Joey from being his normal 100% always honest self in order to avoid ruining mother's day by telling her I was addicted to opiates. Guess what? It was an AMAZING day. I promised I would be honest here, so I'll channel my inner Joey now and admit that we were not well behaved after leaving CT. Putting two recovering addicts together is basically the number 1 thing NOT to do according to the program we were in (and common sense), and we certainly proved that by somehow convincing ourselves that we deserved just one night of getting high. So... we sniffed up some narcotic powder and had ourselves a night by hanging up my yoga swing from the cathedral ceiling, talking, and just all around being idiots but having fun. FOR THE RECORD (my own personal record, because I'm only writing this for my own viewing - something I need to keep reminding myself to make sure I keep writing): My day count is accurate, I started over after our slip up, which is why I celebrated 100 days the 3rd week of August despite starting rehab in April.
FAMJAM
I woke up the next morning in bed with Denver next to me, and Joey on the other side of him - yes, that's right, we slept in the same bed together WITHOUT 'sleeping together' - there was 0 physical contact. To everyone that's ever told me that it is "physically impossible" for males and females to be just friends: you're stupid. We realized immediately that while we may be soulmates, it wasn't meant to be the romantic type - I tell everyone he's my adopted brother now, because it's what feels closest to the truth. Once he and Mikey met they became so inseparable that it quickly felt like we had all been together forever. He even built a bedroom out of our dining room and moved in! Denver loves him so much that I get excited to watch how excited Denver is when Joey walks in the door after work - dogs really are the best judges of character. I have been happier the past few months than I have ever been before, and while there are certainly a lot of factors that play into that, I know for sure Joey is a huge one. Living with my two brothers and our best boy ever (Denver) is so perfect that I would truly be happy to live out the rest of my days as a little family unit, because no matter where we are we'd make it a good time.
Room by Joey, Butts by Mollie:
The conversation with Nicole went on to discuss potential chapter names (i.e. Dating in Rehab and PHP won't stop me! which thankfully was rejected by my publisher immediately) and ended with an excellent closing line for this post:
