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I do. Very much.

Dad speaks.

Aren’t male/female relationships against the Rules here?

They are.

Do you think you should be doing it?

There are a lot of Rules here. I try to follow most of them, but this Girl, her name is Lilly, has been good for me. She’s cool, she’s smart, she listens to me, I listen to her, we understand each other. We’re different and we come from different places, but in a lot of ways we’re the same. We’re both wrecked, we’re both trying to get better. We both need help and we’re trying to help each other.

My Mom speaks.

Would I like her?

If you could get past what she’s done and what she’s been through.

I think I could.

Then yeah, you would. You’d like her a lot.

Do you love her?

You know I don’t like talking about that stuff with you, Mom.

Maybe you can try, though?

I smile, look down at the floor. I have hidden as much as I could from my Mother and my Father for my entire life. I don’t want to do that anymore, so I look up and I look at my Mother and I speak.

I haven’t told her, but yes, I love her.

My Mother and my Father smile. They are bright, genuine smiles, the best smiles I have seen since I have been here. My Mother speaks.

I wish we could meet her.

You will someday.

My Father speaks.

Next time you see her will you tell her we said hello.

I smile.

I will.

The bell rings. The man standing next to the bell tells us to go to the same Rooms we were in yesterday. I stand and I say good-bye to my Parents and I hug them. I am not comfortable doing it, but I do it anyway.

I walk to the Room. The chairs are arranged in a circle again. I sit down, a young woman is on one side of me, a middle-aged man on the other. We nod to each other and we say hello. Sophie walks in and she takes a seat an empty seat at the head of the circle and she introduces herself. Around the room we follow. Introducing ourselves.

The introductions end. Sophie stands and she takes two steps backward. There is a large, white, laminated board on the wall behind her, a tray at its base is lined with colored erasable markers. Sophie grabs one of the markers a blue marker and she starts writing on the board. When she’s finished, she steps away. The words read: Addiction = Disease, Alcoholism = Disease.

She starts speaking. She tells us that now that we have a general idea about addictive behaviors and the impact that they have on both the Addicts and the Family Members of the Addicts, we need to start understanding the cause of those behaviors. She says that addiction is a disease. Whether it is to alcohol or drugs or food or gambling or sex or anything else, it is a disease. It is a chronic and progressive disease. It is classified as such by most Doctors and by organizations such the American Medical Association and the World Health Organization. It is a disease that can be arrested, or placed into a state of remission, but that is incurable. No matter how hard we try, no matter what action we take, addiction, she says, is incurable. Absolutely incurable.

She starts talking about the causes of the disease. As with most diseases, the belief is that the cause is genetic. She says that Alcoholics and Addicts are born with a gene or a gene structure, precisely which is not yet known, that, when activated, causes the disease to present itself in an individual. Once this has happened, and at this point there is no way to know if or when it will, the Addict is at the mercy of the disease. It cannot be controlled, it cannot be held in check by force of will, the decision to use or not use, to indulge or not indulge, to take or do or not take or not do, is not a decision that can be made because the disease makes the decision for you. The Addict always uses, always indulges, always takes, always does. The Addict always wants and always needs and that want and that need is always satisfied. The inability to control and the lack of choice is but a symptom of the disease. A dangerous and horrible symptom, but a symptom nonetheless. It is incurable. If active, there is no way to stop it.

She talks about the environmental