Support Group

A Quick Note From The Author

This is simply a four part short story that I wrote which captures the life of a drug addict, and now I should probably let you begin.

        “Hello, my name is Carter Haynes and I am a recovering drug addict.” I zone out again as yet another person stands up to tell their sob story.  My eyes graze around the circle of metal chairs stopping at nothing in particular until they land on a girl to my left who’s about four chairs down from mine. She’s wearing an atrocious gray sweater that only looks about 12 sizes too big for her, but then again she looks like a size -3, so I guess there’s not much she can do about it anyway.

Her foot shakes uncontrollably as if there’s an invisible cat attacking her and she’s moving just about every way to get it off. In fact her whole lag seems to be vibrating now that I look at it. Kind of like she just had three monsters and a coffee and she’s on a sugar high, but seeing as how she is at this meeting sugar probably isn’t the only thing that gets her high.

My eyes lazily scan the rest of the characters in the group. There are both men and women here of different races and ages. Many look like they do not want to be her, some I can tell are trying really hard to keep their eyes open, others simply just staring off into space (myself included).

Then, there is of course, appearance. Much of us look like my friend in the gray sweater, in cloths either too big or too small, some clothing with patches some wearing cloths that need to be patched. All in all we look like a pretty depressing group. Rather stereo-typical if you ask me, considering what were all meeting for.

The people around me start to clap and I join in to be polite. I now realize that what I said before may not have been true. There are actually some people who pay attention, i.e. - the clap starter.

I have also come to realize that these entire meetings are just one big lie, but I guess they could also be taken as a competition; we share our life and then silently find out who the saddest sucker in the group. However, for that to happen we would have to actually be paying attention to one another, which we are most certainly not.

“Support group is where you go and express yourself and your struggles,” biggest load of b.s. I’ve heard in a while. No one here cares about each other, they only like being here because they want other people to feel sorry for them, because they will be asleep until it’s their turn to speak, then stand up and tell you all of the pain and struggle they’ve been through and everyone will feel sorry, then they sit back down and go back to their nap, well at least that’s how I perceive it.

I realize that I’ve said a lot about the cheerful bunch of people that I have semi-willingly surrounded myself with. For all you know about me I could be some beach bum that smokes a pound of pot a day out of a bong that I bought for five dollars with the money that some stranger gave me because they thought I was homeless, but I’m not; which is sad because I wish my life was that easy.

Normally, I would be forced to introduce myself with a: “Hi, my name is…” but that just sounds so cliché. Plus with how many times I’ve been to these meetings, just thinking the words leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

However, if we were to follow a “meeting format” next you would want to know something about me or my life, but honestly why should I tell you? For all I know you could be the beach bum who smokes a pound of weed a day out of a bong you bought for five dollars from the money someone gave you because they thought you were homeless, but who am I kidding?! (However if you are, I would now like to take the time to formally congratulate you.) I could care less who you are! So I will tell you something about myself, all in good time though.