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THE TRUTH
7 There are ten chairs pushed against the side and back walls of the room, each filled with a broken man, including my roommate Adam. Charles, who led the twelve-step meeting the previous night, is here. So is Santa Claus, slumped in his chair, his forehead creased with stress, his eyes cinched tight. He’s in the room in body only. His mind is elsewhere, suffering. Against the front wall is a rolling chair, a desk, and a file cabinet filled with the sins of countless sex addicts. On the wall is a large chart titled “The Addiction Cycle,” with four terms— preoccupation, ritualization, acting out, and shame & despair— arranged in a circle. Arrows point from one word to the next in an endless loop.
As I’m studying it, the door swings open and a tall woman with a pearshaped body walks in. She has brown hair, unwashed and pulled back in a tight bun. She’s wearing a loose-fitting flowered top over brown slacks and flat shoes. The corners of her lips are pulled slightly downward in a permanent frown. She looks the group over, careful not to make eye contact with anyone or acknowledge his individuality. Whatever the opposite of sex is, she embodies it. She lands with a thud in the rolling chair. Sifting through a stack of manila folders, she shows no tenderness, no humanity, no humor. She is our doctor and judge, the stern mother we’ve been fucking women to try to escape from and the bitter wife who’s caught us.
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