My Spanish teacher wants us to color coordinate our notes.

Like he straight up wants us to use different color pens for different sections. He tells us, “Oh good, but not good enough, more color!”

He needs to die.

Last night, I had so much fun at the meeting, I feel like these people are becoming a part of my family. Jeff and I were talking a lot. Jeff started smoking crack when he was thirty-four and I started when I was fourteen. We used for the same amount of time, until we both arrived at that feeling of complete desperation and emptiness. We make an effort to remember that feeling to keep us clean, the feeling that we told ourselves we never wanted to feel again. I got clean at seventeen and he got clean at thirty-seven. Jeff is super dorky, he wears high white socks and, you won’t believe this, SKECHERS SHAPE-UPS! He’s always sweaty from the gym. He’s actually buff but when he talks he just sounds nerdy, as nerdy as a Boston accent can get. We were hanging outside and he looked over at me was like:

“Man, how the hell did you find crack at 14! I mean a lot of people do drugs young but 14... 14?! Man, that’s crazy!” I guess it is crazy when you think about it.

I told him, “I don’t know, I was selling coke and when you sell enough coke eventually you run into someone who wants to cook it and smoke it. The first time I saw crack I thought it was funny, I thought I’d never do that shit but you know what they say about the barber shop,” I laughed.

Jeff crossed his arms, “yep, yep... I hadn't even had a full beer until I was 37, I never drank or did any drugs until I smoked crack at 34.”

I looked at him eyes wide… “WHAT?! You never did a single drug until crack?? how… what the fuck?”

Then he told me and it made perfect sense.

He shrugged his shoulders and said “picking up hookers man.”

That’s how a dork, straight edge man like Jeff got into crack… pussy, the one drug that we can’t escape.

I told him about how I would smoke crack under my bed sheets… “yeah, I would be smoking crack and I didn’t want the smoke detector to go off. It would be so hard, I’d smoke crack under my bed sheets, covered in sweat and I didn’t want my parents to notice so I'd take a hit and spray cologne, take a hit spray cologne.. well after a while the blanket had so much cologne on it when i went to to light the pipe a fucking spark lit the blanket and the alarm started going off!”

Me and Jeff laughed so hard.

Jeff started going off…

“Man, when I’d smoke crack everyone at my job would know, and I worked a corporate job, and I had already got caught using and was on the verge of losing my job so everyone knew I had a drug problem, but every time I get high and go into work everyone would know,” he said.

I looked at him, “yeah, I guess, when you use, people can just tell the next day.”

He stopped me, “no, you don’t get it, when I would use, everyone, EVERYONE at the company would know I got high.”

I was confused and he explained, “so when I’d use I’d go to the same hotel, and every time, I’d say okay Jeff, this time, don’t look out the peep hole, nobody is there… and sure enough I’d look out the peep hole all fucking night! Then I’d go to work the next day and all my coworkers would look at me and be like, “God dammit Jeff, you fucking got high” and I’d swear up and down I didn’t but they’d all look at me and see I had a fucking RING AROUND MY EYE.”

WOW! We busted out laughing, I was grabbing my stomach… I used to not like Jeff, I used to think he was weird, he used to share burning desires all the time. He used to always raise his hand and share that he wanted to get high and that he almost did. 1. He was way older than me. 2. He spoke super dorky and wasn’t cool. But sharing that you wanna get high all the time, it was crazy embarrassing… but then I relapsed and he was still clean.

When I got back, this guy pulled me aside and said, “you share the burning desire so you don’t gotta share that you’re coming back.” Man, that hit me… I share burning desires almost every night now, I can’t stop sharing. I cry a lot in meetings too, I don’t know if I told you that. Sometimes I raise my hand, I don't want to cry or think I’m gonna cry, but it just comes out like vomit… I know some people don’t like it, people look at me and I can tell they think I should just shut up but I can’t help it sometimes. I get so anxious now, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, when I share I do feel better but people say I’m “taking the meeting hostage,” and “sharing with no solution.” This one guy even grabbed me once and told me to save that shit for my sponsor. I know he was trying to be nice, the guy is really cool, maybe I should just shut the fuck up sometimes.