Therapy

(Cheyenne, 1988)

There we were. In therapy. Ugh. Nikki's rehab was in victorville, so I had to drive down there for sessions with him.

"Why are you here?" the therapist asked us in the first session. His name was Josh, and since he didn't ask us to call him Dr. Josh, i assumed he never quite made it to med school.

"Cheyenne? Why are you here?"

"It's a family outing," she said sarcastically, Gizmo resting on her lap. The woman she spoke to at the front desk said it was okay to bring her dog into the building. Cheyenne just about insisted anyway since it was about a hundred degrees outside.

"Nikki?"

"The court made me."

Josh nodded his head. "Is anyone here because they need help?"

We sat in stiff and silent, like two trees in the Madrigal petrified forest.

"Okay," Josh said, adjusting his frameless glasses with his slender, girly fingers. "Over the next few weeks, you may feel different about why you're here. In this group, we'll cry, yell, laugh, feel awful, feel great, feel awful again. You name it, we're going there. The point is to fully explore what it means to be in an alcoholic and drug ruled relationship, what it means to be an addict,  and what happens to the spouse of an addict."

"I'm not an addict," Nikki mumbled.

Josh and I side-glanced at each other.

"That's the perfect place to begin," Josh said. "Definitions. Everybody ready to dive in?"

Nobody said a word. So our skinny therapist, with his bushy brown hair and wrinkly white shirt, who looked like he was still in high school, dove in by himself.

"Addiction is a chronic disease that often gets worse over time and can kill you if not treated."

Nikki sighed. I nodded.

The only window in the therapy room was covered in vertical Levolor blinds. Not that they were anything to look at. But staring at a dreary parking lot was better than sitting in a circle and "Sharing my feelings" with Josh and Nikki. What was I thinking when i volunteered myself for these sessions? That's right. I was thinking that Nikki needed my support and that these sessions could benefit not only him, but our relationship as a whole.

"Basically, if using alcohol is causing any continuous disruptions in an individuals personal, social, spiritual, or economic life-and the individual doesn't stop using alcohol or drugs-that would be harmful dependence. Often, denial and rationalization become a way of life. Does any of this sound familiar?"

I looked at my hands. Nikki said, "I'm not in denial. I'm not an addict."