The Guidebook To Sobriety

Chapter 1

I hefted the half-empty beer bottle in my hand. It had just enough mass to remind me that I'd gulped down half of the bitter beverage at seven in the morning. I wasn't much of a morning drinker but the situation was extremely dire.

"Mateo, I'm coming in!" An all too familiar voice shouted from outside my closed door. I had forgotten to lock it.

"No Mom, I'm naked!" I shouted back, thinking fast as I scrambled to hide the packets of unprescribed pills scattered across my fluorescent green bed. I briefly considered stuffing them in my drawer but decided they were less likely to be discovered inside my pants.

"You have five seconds," my mother's impatient voice cautioned before starting to count down from five. By the count of one, I rolled the beer bottle under my bed and scrambled under the bedsheets just as my door swung open and my mother stalked inside.

My mother was the Evelyn Torres and if you didn't recognize the name, you probably lived two houses down from the pineapple under the sea. She was the new bombshell actor that had taken Hollywood by storm in the last three years. Some had even called her the new Scarlett Johannson.

As great as she was behind the camera and at keeping up a great social image, handling her motherly duties - or being at home at all was a bit new, the type of new I could gladly do without. 

Although I had to admit it was slightly my fault—or completely my fault, depending on who you asked.

I'd gotten a bit too cross-faded about a week ago—the type of faded that makes you believe you can fly and if you squint hard enough you really might start floating into the clouds. I hadn't been able to recite what happened when I woke up in an Uber with just my boxer briefs and a splitting headache, but TMZ had been all too eager to jog my memory with a video of my handsome self running down the highway. Frankly, I'd been most impressed by my show of speed and thought everyone should be too. If being an addict didn't work out maybe being an athlete was a route I could explore.

However, social media decided to focus on the small detail of me weaving in and out of live traffic, putting not only my own life at risk, but innocent drivers as well, which was a slight exaggeration on their part. I was about a buck sixty, if a car hit me I'm pretty sure I'd be the one saying 'ow'.

"It's time to get ready," my mother said, her eyes scanning my room suspiciously. She made her way over to my drawer and started rummaging through it. "I won't be pleased if I find something unpleasant in here."

I shrugged. "I can't promise there aren't any used rubbers in there." Ignoring my mother's venomous glare I tried my best to distract her from searching the room. "Why do I have to get ready so early? I thought orientation was at midday."

"The camp is four hours away, Mateo. We're already going to be late but I don't want you to miss it completely. There might be important information that you need to hear." She didn't stop searching the drawers as she spoke to my dismay.

I frowned. "Is this a bad time to mention I'm allergic to the woods?"

"Is this a bad time to point out you're only supposed to take medicine prescribed by a doctor?" She shot back.

"So you're saying all I need is a doctor's letter and I don't have to go to this camp?"

 The camp in question was some new revolutionary rehabilitation center made for teens. If that didn't sound crazy enough, the location was smack in the middle of the woods. Since my 'addiction' had become a PR nightmare for her she'd taken an interest in the creation. Trust my mother to not pick a normal run-of-the-mill center and send me to something that sounded straight out of a horror movie. Though honestly, I would've just bribed a normal rehabilitation center.