STARTER FOR: @eethanprice LOCATION: Avalon, outside an AA meeting. DATE AND TIME: January 16th, 2021. 3:45PM.
These things were always tiring. Looking into the face of your transgressions was never easy, really, no matter what the circumstance. In truth, Jack still hasn’t found a comfortable position when it comes to speaking on his issues with addiction. Right now, he finds that he’s either extremely to the point of nowhere near it at all. There wasn’t a happy medium in sight, not just yet. He’s never sure where to begin. Does he start with the way his hands shake? Or maybe he should start at the root of the desire, the craving to be intoxicated rather than face whatever it is that lies beneath a great depth.
During this new meeting, clad with a few new faces, Jack spoke only once. He’s required to go, yes, but he wants to. To be there with people who understood. But then the option to speak is dangled in front of his face and he’s left with nothing. No words. For a songwriter, this was a jarring state.
“Sucks, huh?” He says to the man to his right as he steps outside, leaning up against the brick of the building they were just in. Jack knows him only vaguely, mostly from various other meetings. Ethan, he recalls silently. They both seem to be colored the same shade of exhausted. “After meetings, sometimes I feel like people can...see it on me. If that makes any sense.” He shrugs, “Like it’s smeared on my skin. Addict across my forehead.” A bittersweet laugh weaves through his words, a lackluster attempt at lightening the mood.
