He Must Really Like You A Lot

In my mid-twenties I was very active in the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous with going on 3 years clean and working as an admissions coordinator at a local drug and alcohol treatment center - I was blessed with more than the average newcomer’s 90 and 90 on a monthly basis. I discovered soon after I got clean that addicts like to replace their drugs with hugs. Well, not hugs necessarily but that’s how it begins.

I had already divorced my husband into the rooms and had 2 relationships with co-workers who were also recovering addicts (granted they weren’t co-workers at the time of mutual exhibitions, okay, okay, maybe one leaked through). Sex and relationships were just how we perceived love at the time and it’s hard to convince any addict to let go of their beliefs on a dime.

It is recommended that the newcomer stay out of a relationship and/or bed (counter, public restroom, etc.) for the first year of their sobriety, that they like to call clean (cleanliness?). I was however in a relationship when I came to the rooms and decided this meant I could forfeit all sex and relationship advice even after I became single. Since sponsors (they work the NA program steps and have more clean time than the sponsee) only recommend and give advice, it is up to them whether they will work with your free will and free spirit and I was lucky to have one that accepted me with open arms. She would always say, “a day clean is a day one.” I would say, “even though I slept with 3 different men this week, a day clean is a day one.” Which is what made this date I am about to tell you about so interesting.

It is because of this sponsor and my best friend in NA that I decided to go out on a date with this fellow that said he had seven years clean and had recently moved to WV from another state due to work. Don’t get me wrong, this man was a good looking man but from the moment he stepped into the first NA meeting in my town, yes I remember that moment and his leather jacket, I knew that lies come packaged in pretty wrapping and bows. He had these most amazing gray-blue eyes that shone like icicles, I kid you not. He was 15 years my senior but didn’t look but maybe 5 years older than I, had a chiseled physique, in the best shape of a man I had yet to see.

He had been in town and in the rooms for about 5 months at this point and had went through his own fair share of soulmates in this time but hadn’t we all. All the women were at his feet and wanted to be next. In these 5 months I had probably directly had one conversation with this man because he just gave me the creeps. I, however, went through a traumatic loss, losing my little brother to a man high on morphine and Xanax in a car accident, and had to recollect myself and lost my intuition in there somehow. After I had shared and broke down in tears in one meeting, he apparently went to my sponsor and asked her and my friend’s permission to ask me on a date. Since they wanted to sleep with him and could not due to being monogamous, they offered me up like candy. Before I knew it, I was preparing for a date with this supernatural-eyed man and had forgotten how much he scared me. (Losing your brother must have that effect on some people.)

We were supposed to meet at an NA meeting and go to dinner and a movie once it wrapped up. The meeting didn’t happen because an hour before, my date calls and asks me to pick him up at a mutual friend’s house because his truck was acting up. I drove and picked him up and we had some awkward silence on the ride over. He did ask me if I was surprised that he asked me on a date and I got the impression that he was very into himself.

After the meeting, my sponsor and bff were giggling and telling us both that we weren’t allowed to have sex on our first date and I said that they didn’t have anything to worry about. Once we were alone it turned out that my date hadn’t prepared for this evening at all and wanted to Redbox a couple movies though he didn’t have a debit card. I ended up renting the movies and buying the $5 Little Caesar’s special for dinner in my own apartment living room, which I was startled to hear upon pulling into my driveway, from my date, “I knew you lived here.”

I asked him how he knew this, and he said he was good at technology and it was easy to look something like that up. I decided to let this slide and try to get on with the movie so I could take him home. I find out after the movie that there is no real home for him to go to, he is apparently staying at his boss’s home while he is away but would really enjoy staying the night with me. Even though I didn’t know this man from Adam, and was starting to think that the 7 years of clean time was also a mirage, like the one where he wasn’t homeless, since I had found out that the truck was also his boss’s, it was late and I didn’t want to drive to the town where his boss lived so I agreed.

Like I said, this man was a picture of beauty. He didn’t seem to have a whole lot of truth or honesty within, but on the outside, he was a legit model. Legit models don’t commit homicide, I mean Ted Bundy was horrific looking. Though I am a free spirit and have nothing against it, even his beauty did not get my pants off. He slept next to me in my bed, we did make out for about 40 minutes before turning in, but both our clothes stayed on and dignity as intact as it could be.

As I slept next to this man, that even I was proud of not having sexual relations with, I had this lucid dream. It was almost surreal. In this dream, my sleeping date was stalking me with a rifle. I was terrified and running away in an open field. I woke up still with the terror and take nothing as coincidence, but as a sign. This is a sign to get rid of this man! I woke him up and hit the road to drop him off. When I got to our mutual friend’s he grabbed my hand and would not let go. He made me walk him to his truck, and he was going to catch a flight that day to CA or somewhere, for “work”, that we can’t be sure really existed, and wanted me to kiss him goodbye and promise to answer his calls. Our friend tried to tease me after he pulled onto the road, but told him about my dream and how he knew where I lived. He was little dense at times and chalked it up to "he must really like you a lot."

That night I get multiple texts from him stating “You will have sex with me when I get back in town, I don't care what your sponsor says.” That’s about all it takes to turn me off, if the dream and lame experience hadn’t done it already, I blocked his number. He did call my sponsor and whine and there was a few awkward NA meetings in the next couple years, but I lived through them and without a stalker.