Sessions

Wednesday night Gil Grissom stood once again in front of the Professional Building. He was waiting to muster up the courage to go inside. The Sex-Aholics Anonymous meeting was tonight. He had only been to one other, but it helped him see he wasn’t in a minority with this illness, instead he was more in a majority along with many other prominent people in Las Vegas.

He took a deep breath. Baby Steps! Baby Steps! He mentally repeated on his way in the door. He found the conference room and took his seat. The group was full of people, many from different walks of life. It was very diverse. Dr Duluth walked in and was seated at the head of the group. The room fell silent.

“Welcome all, do we have any new members?” No hands rose.

“I know some of you have heard my story before, but for the benefit of the new people, I’m going to tell it again.” The room was still quiet. “Nearly ten years ago, I sat in a room much like this. I was an addict with nowhere else to turn. I hit rock bottom and I was having trouble getting back up.”

She cleared her throat. “I once was a very happy woman. I had a successful law practice. I was married and I had the life everyone wanted. I had children who were beautiful. My two daughters were proud of me, and a house in the best part of town. It was wonderful in the beginning, we loved each other but one day I came home to find my husband in bed with another man. I was mortified. I blamed myself. I assumed that I wasn’t good enough for him if he had to turn to men. It was that event that led my life into a downward spiral. I lost my kids; they only started talking to me a few years ago, they sided with their father and blamed me.”

She was beginning to choke up; you could hear it in her voice. “I figured since I had no one who cared about me anymore, why should I care. I blocked myself off to love, to everything. I only had one friend in this world, Marvin. He was an old friend from my childhood. He saw what I was doing to myself and helped me to stop. It wasn’t easy; it took me many years to learn to love again and to learn to love myself. Three years ago I married Marvin and we have never been happier.” Sighs filled the room. He the story was heart-warming and it gave some of them some new hope. “Is there anyone else who wants to share their story?” She asked.

A small man stood up from the back of the room. “My name is Steve. I want to share with you my story.” Steve was around thirty-five or six but the worry lines on his face aged him nearly ten years. He was short, rather round and had thinning blonde hair that he tried to comb over. He wasn’t an overly attractive man, not like some. He spoke with proper English and Grissom pegged him to be a professor of some sort, probably English or Literature. The rest of the group nodded for him to continue after his introduction. “I have been suffering with this illness for the last five years. I didn’t even know it was an illness until recently. I just figured I was some dirty old man.” He took a deep breath. “I was abused as a child. I repressed all those memories until I hit thirty. Once I was there they all came flooding back to me. It happened one night when I was bathing my daughter. All the horrible things that happened to me came back all at once, but I couldn’t handle it. I ran from everyone including myself. I was frequenting the local whorehouses more than once a day; I was whacking myself off every spare minute. I lost my wife, my kids, my house and my job.” He was sobbing. Some woman from the group put her arm around him. Grissom wondered if that was his girlfriend or just some random woman with a checkered past too. She was a petite woman with brown hair and coke bottle glasses. Most of the people in this room if you met them on the street you would never guess they were sea-addicts and recovering sex-addicts. He gained his composure and continued with his story. “My life was awful. I didn’t care. One day my daughter called me, she was nine and she said, ‘daddy, I miss you, will you please come home’. I was in tears and I checked myself into a clinic. I realized I was sick and I got help. I can finally look at my daughters and my wife. After all of this, she forgave me. We are so happy now.” Guess the woman isn’t the wife he thought to himself.

The crowd sighed and gave him a round of applause. Dr Duluth stood up. “Were going to take a coffee break for ten minutes, when we come back we’ll hear from a few others.” The room vacated. Grissom remained in his seat. All theses people had the same problem as him, but some lost their families, their kids, everything. He was one of the fortunate ones. He only lost Sara not his existence. Somewhere between his thoughts the room refilled with people. “All right, is there anyone else who wants to share their story?” Grissom stood up.

“Me, please.” He asked.

“Please begin.” She urged. She had a smile on her face for the progress he was making.

“I’m Gri” He corrected himself. “Gil. My story is similar to all of yours. I was in love with a beautiful girl. She was amazing. She was fifteen years younger than me but I loved her so much. She liked me for who I was, a socially inept professional not what I did. We had a summer fling while she was in College. I felt bad about it, with her being a student and all, but I soon got over it she was worth it to me. After I left we still kept in touch, I would go visit her and our relationship was great, a bit long distant but great no less. I had a beautiful woman in love with me, who wouldn’t find that great.” He began to smile as he remembered. “When she finished college she got transferred to the same place I worked, she went into that profession mainly because of me. It intrigued her because I introduced her to it. The problem was I was being transferred here to Vegas. I got scared and ran not even telling her I was leaving. She still spoke to me, but it was never what we had.”

He cleared his throat; this is where it started to get bad. “One day here in Vegas I needed someone I trusted to help me out, I called her and she came. She stayed. She was always trying to flirt with me and be my friend. I was all right in the beginning; I flirted back and paid attention to her. Eventually I became cold and distant. I avoided her and hurt her. I didn’t want to do it, but I couldn’t stop myself. Our relationship has never been the same.” He looked over to the doctor. “Recently I started to see someone about my problem, she encouraged me to try and initiate a friendship with this girl again. She felt I needed her to get better. I emailed her and we have been corresponding ever since. We are starting over. A wise woman once told me to start over you needed to take baby steps and that is what I’m doing. ” Grissom sat down.

Applause came from the room and he smiled at how good it made him feel. The class ended and Grissom stayed behind to talk to the doctor.

“I’m proud of you, Grissom.”

“Thank you. I figured if others could share, why couldn’t I. Some of these people had horror stories worse than mine and they told us so what did I have to lose.”

She smiled as he walked away. “Do you want to meet my Marvin?”

“I would love to.”

She walked out in the hall and returned with a man. He was probably in his sixties but time had been good to him. He had a full head of snow-white hair. He wore glasses and his eyes were blue. Not Grissom’s blue more like tropical water blue. He was a fit man who wore stylish clothes. “Grissom, this is my Marvin.” He held out his hand for Grissom.

“Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.” The man said with a hint of a Southern Accent, by the way she rolled his R’s Grissom figured he was probably from Alabama.

The Doctor hooked her arm in Marvin’s and started to walk away. “I’ll see you next week.”

He walked to his truck and headed to work. For the first time in nearly five years he resisted the urge to go to the brothel or to go home and whack off. He was proud of himself.