Hazbin Hotel: Sins and Second Chances

Chapter 11

The lounge of the Hazbin Hotel was quiet, the reddish hue of the Hellish sky outside flowed through the stain glass windows. Zack sat quietly, lost in thought. The hum of the old building around him provided an oddly comforting backdrop as his mind drifted back to the winding path that had led him here. Becoming a therapist had once seemed like a natural choice. Growing up, Zack had always been curious about people, what made them tick, what shaped their choices, and how those choices in turn made them into the people they were today. Psychology fascinated him. The mysteries of the human mind, the way experiences carved one's identity, both good and bad.

But like everyone, Zack had his own cracks.

As a teenager, he had tested every boundary he could find, pushing the limits of his teachers, friends, and family. He wasn't bad, just reckless, eager to see how far he could push things before everything crumbled. As he got older and went to college, that new found freedom lead to pushing the limits even more. He was quite the extrovert, attending parties with friends and strangers alike. The late-night drinking session became a way of life. Balancing his coursework with his partying was reckless, but he was young, dumb and wanting to live the moment before he figured he would become like his father. Boring, Still, it was those choices that took him down a slippery slope that caused clashes with his family and friends. But he didn't have a problem. He knew himself better than anyone else.

Zack still remembered one particular morning after an all-nighter, he managed to sit through a final exam with a raging hangover, barely able to focus but somehow scraping by with a B+. 'Not bad for being completely shitfaced.' He would boast to his friends that day.

That was just the beginning of his downfall. Alcohol had started as a release, a way to unwind. It was a way to loosen up, to relax his mind and push aside those insecurities for a while. He felt free. But slowly, it became something more. It filled the empty spaces in his life, and although he managed to quit when he met his ex-wife and started working toward his master's degree, the drinking came back stronger. It was there, those bottles and glasses began to build up, eroding the foundation of his life and the fragile foundation he built it on. The lies started small, but like everything else, they snowballed. Late nights, missed promises, broken trust.

In the end, she left and Zack lost himself completely after that. A weeklong bender left him a wreck as he stumbled into work, unkept, slurring his speech and aggressive. The fact that he drove to work that day and not get into an accident was a miracle. But in the end, he was fired from his job. The look on a client's face, seeing the one who was supposed to be their therapist stumbling about, cussing out his coworkers and eventually being led out by security wouldn't hit him long until he had that moment of clarity sometime later.

He was angry. The alcohol would flame that anger even more. Zack would find any excuse to lash out a those who cared for him. His parents, his friends, even his ex-wife who tried to make him see what he was doing to himself eventually left for good. He hated those looks of pity, those patronizing words of concern. Why should he be pitied? There was nothing wrong with him. It was everyone else's fault.

Not his. He didn't have a problem.

Day after day, the walls closed in just a little more, the darkness surrounding him until he felt like he was suffocating. The alcohol that once provided relief only made things worst. He wasn't getting any better. His moments of clarity would fill him with excruciating guilt, and then that guilt would turn into rage. And when there was nothing else to put that rage on, he would begin to place it on himself. In the darkest corner of his life, he thought he might never escape.

Then came the knock at the door. That knock saved him. Opening that door set off a long, painful process of rebuilding, of confronting the truths he had tried to hide for so many years. He was an addict. He needed help. It was a hard truth to swallow, but as a therapist, he knew there was no running from it.