Die of Shame Read Free

alcoholic,’ Heather says. ‘Simple as that. Same as most of us, probably.’ Next to her, Robin nods enthusiastically. ‘I reckon anyone who’s half decent would be ashamed of that, right? I’m ashamed that I stole and lied all the time. I’m ashamed that I shat on people who cared about me.’
    ‘That’s all really positive,’ Tony says. ‘But I’m talking about the shame that drove you towards substance abuse to begin with.’
    Heather opens her mouth and closes it again.
    ‘Look, I’m not suggesting we dive straight into this, but I’d like us all to be thinking about it over the coming week and then maybe we can talk about it a bit more at the next session.’
    ‘Who’s going to go first?’ Caroline seems anxious.
    ‘Don’t worry, it probably shouldn’t be you,’ Diana says. ‘Not unless you want to. You’ve only just joined, so…’
    ‘Well, don’t look at me,’ Chris says.
    ‘Nobody was,’ Heather says. ‘Sorry,
darling
.’
    ‘I’ll go first.’ Robin blushes slightly as all eyes turn to him. ‘Well, somebody has to kick things off, don’t they?’
    ‘Thanks, Robin.’ Tony scribbles something in the notebook he keeps on his lap. ‘Like I say, think about it and we’ll see how it goes. It’s not a regime, it’s just a suggestion.’
    ‘Can I say something about the “here and now”?’ Diana asks.
    Tony nods, suppressing a smile. Whenever possible he tries to guide his clients from the ‘there and then’ to the ‘here and now’: to talk about the way things are in the present; their current lives as former addicts. Diana is, in many ways, a model client and is always keen to prove it. She has a noticeable habit of parroting Tony’s favourite phrases and buzzwords back at him.
    ‘Well, allowing for the fact that by “here and now” I mean yesterday, there was an incident in the supermarket I’d like to talk about, if everyone’s OK with that.’
    Heather, Caroline and Robin say that they are. Chris slaps his hand to his chest and says, ‘Oh my God, had Waitrose run out of mangoes again?’
    ‘My friend called me when I was in there,’ Diana says, ignoring him. ‘She was the one who first told me what my husband was up to. She’d seen him in a restaurant with his little bit on the side, you know?’ Her mouth tightens briefly. ‘Anyway… it must just have been that association or whatever it was. Like a sense memory or something, because without choosing to, I suddenly found myself standing in the aisle with all the booze…’

… THEN
     
    Caroline, Heather and Diana walk up to Muswell Hill Broadway. Caroline had suggested the Starbucks nearby, but to her great surprise the other two told her they always went to the pub after a session, and clearly, sticking to a routine is important to them. ‘There are some groups where you’d never be allowed to go somewhere “wet”,’ Heather said. ‘The pub, I mean. Tony’s a bit more relaxed about that kind of thing, as long as there’s more than one of us.’
    ‘I could never go into a pub on my own,’ Diana had said.
    Even though she’s the only one with no history of alcohol abuse, and despite the others declaring that they have no problem if she wants a glass of wine or whatever, Caroline insists on buying a round of soft drinks.
    ‘I know how I feel sometimes, if I’m watching someone putting a massive plate of fish and chips away,’ she says.
    They sit around a small table in the corner. Heather points out a bigger one, tells Caroline that’s where they usually sit, if it’s free and the whole group have come along. ‘Robin and Chris come most of the time,’ she says. ‘Robin a bit more than Chris, probably.’ Fifteen minutes earlier, leaving Tony’s house, Robin had apologised and told them that he had an appointment, while Chris had jammed earbuds in and walked quickly away, clearly not in the mood for socialising.
    ‘Yeah, what’s his problem anyway?’ Caroline asks. ‘Chris.’
    Heather