Group

Good evening everyone.

Welcome to the Ashore Group of Users, Inc.

First of all,

let's all thank Dan for generously agreeing

to host tonight's meeting.

Thank you, Dan.

Thanks, Dan.

Thank you. - Thank you.

I am an addict and my name is Tommy.

Hi, Tommy.

Thank you all.

Now remember these unfortunate truths.

First, our pain doesn't always have an obvious source.

Second, sadly,

the conflicts that we face in our lives

rarely have the resolutions we want.

As always,

I want to thank each and everyone in this room

for being here, for taking this very crucial step

towards your ultimate goal of recovery.

Now tonight, we are doing a round robin format,

not a tag format.

So we are going one at a time, in order,

clockwise, one person to the next.

No calling on anyone,

just one at a time in a nice, orderly manner.

There's one must that applies to everyone attending

that no drugs or paraphernalia

be on your person in these meetings.

Now if you do have anything

like that anywhere but in your system,

need you to take it outside, leave it,

and then you'll be welcome back in.

Finally, and most importantly,

no one is to disrespect anyone else here.

We do not judge each other in this place

because you are taking the first step

toward helping the most important addict in your life,

yourself.

Now I want to remind everyone

that we should refrain from any crosstalk.

We want to be constructive, helpful.

Any questions before we begin?

I'm Matt and I'm an addict.

Hi, Matt.

It's been four days since I last used

and if I wasn't in trial and closing tomorrow,

I probably would've used most of those days.

I definitely would've used today.

I don't

wanna be a guy who uses,

and more importantly,

I really don't want my kids to have a father that uses.

I mean, yeah, professionally,

it hasn't been too detrimental,

but personally it has been.

And my wife,

she just really wants me to stop using entirely.

But I have to work. I have to support my family,

but I don't think I could do my job effectively

without the help.

How do you know that?

Excuse me?

I said, how do you know?

Mm-mm.

Because I've never done it without them

and I'm fucking good at what I do, okay?

I mean,

first semester of law school and I couldn't sleep at all.

Stressed, constant study,

worried I was gonna flunk out.

I was

fooling around with this girl, classmate.

So she hands me this little white pill, tells me to take it.

So I take it,

chase it with like 10th Red Bull of the night

and I never even ask what it is.

Turns out it was Adderall and,

man, my focus became sharp as hell.

I calmed down, I, no more wandering thoughts,

no more fatigue, no more loss of interest.

Like everything's great. I make it through law school.

And like, I mean I'm still good at what I do,

but now I am this world class procrastinator

with weird body aches.

I mean, my first major case goes to trial

and it's this guy who's accused

of assaulting several people behind a bar,

then brutally beating this inmate into a coma.

I mean, knocked his fucking eye out,

roughed up a couple of guards.

In trial, I am great,

but the weeks leading up to it and whenever

court is adjourned for the day, I'm fucking horrible.

I'm a mean son of a bitch.

I can't turn my mind off for anything

like stupid shit, random shit.

I gotta acquittal on everything but the inmate assault.

This guy was looking at close to 30 years.

I got him 27 months. I fucking killed it.

I mean, two weeks later, I had another case,

financial fraud shit and full acquittal.

I, this guy was a really important client.

And I took him out for drinks afterwards

and he asked me why I was so high strung

and tense all the time.

And I told him about the Adderall shit

and the problems being off it.

Couple drinks in and.

I tell him that I'm burned out completely.

And he says he's got the hookup

for the normal high dose, quick release shit.

And I call the supplement a small bump.

It fixed the problem for a bit,

kept getting results, personal life was great.

Then the effect were off faster

and faster and faster,

and I just kept feeling more and more like complete shit.

My wife and I got into this

massive fight.

She told me to give up the drugs

and I did not take it well.

Then

she tells me I should give up the job too,

the job that pays for her fucking life

and our daughter's private nanny that she just has

to fucking have this uptight, judgmental, miserable,

shrill woman who openly judges everything we do

and treats me like shit,

even though my wife is the asshole to her

and I'm the one who fucking pays her.

Matt, let's try to keep it on track, man.

Sorry, yeah.

So,

I bumped on the way home

because it'd been a really fucking long day

and I had to get this brief filed

in federal court when I got home and the shit had worn off

by that point and my head was throbbing

and I just,

I just felt like I was going to explode.

So when she made the job comment,

I said the most

vile shit to her.

So she attacked me, rightly,

and I just reacted.

I, I, I,

I shoved her off me reflexively and she hit the wall.

But I was so enraged that I just,

I punched the wall right beside her hard

and my daughter saw it all.

Anger therapy has helped.

I don't feel

guilty any longer about

not being there for my clients.

Your fucking clients?

Sullie.

You, you treat your wife like shit

and you traumatize your daughter all

because she wants you to cut back on the coke and,

and take a vacation from getting kid touchers out of jail

and you feel guilty to the fucking scumbags

that you... No.

No crosstalk, Sullie.

That's enough, both of you.

This is not constructive or helpful.

We are all here because we are addicts and we suffer.

We have all made mistakes.

We are not here to judge each other for our past mistakes.

We are here to help each other control our futures.

Fuck it. Yeah, sorry.

Okay, folks. Moving on now.

Would you please introduce yourself?

My name is Jackie and I'm an addict.

Hi, Jackie.

It's been almost six and a half years since I last

used,

but every single day of those six years.

I have wanted to use.

I, I wanna use right now

and I should be thrown in a fucking pit for that

because the last time I used

my son barely survived.

I was an expert mixer.

Anything you gave me,

I could mix it with gallons of vodka or gin or tequila

or whatever shit beer my husband had on hand.

Basically, I mixed booze with life.

I've always hated Christmas.

When I became a mom,

it became this pressure-packed obligation

on top of something I hated.

I work as a line producer

for a couple shows at any given time,

but Thanksgiving hits and the industry

fucking shuts down for like six weeks.

So you don't have that distraction of work,

and the holiday is like a weighted vest.

But you know those first couple weeks

after Christmas stuff too,