Comedy Night

At the end of each parents-of-kids-on-drugs meeting, our cheerful therapist reads the results from last week's urine tests. When he called out our son's name and said "negative" last night, my wife and I had the same reaction. We both laughed. We said that there must be some mistake. Or that he somehow figured out a way to beat it. Another mom in the group tried to encourage us by saying that her son told her that our son told him that he was really trying to cut back, and we laughed again. The therapist looked at us like we were crazy.

Of course, we are and have been for some time, but there's also a method to our madness. We're scared to let down our guard because we don't want to be disappointed again. And again. And again. And to steel ourselves from the ensuing pain, we live in continual psychic pain and therefore can't be hurt any more than we already are. This routine works like a charm, except for in reality.

For instance, my older son came downstairs to the kitchen around eleven o'clock a few nights ago and my wife just happened to still be up and her heart started to race because she was thinking that maybe he was gonna ask her to drive him over to his girlfriend's house. As it turned out, he was looking for nose spray.

So we laughed last night, but it was the shitty kind of laugh, the kind thoroughly devoid of hope. And without hope . . . there's nothing. Without hope, there's no possibility for change. Or for joy.

When we got home last night, we were starving and went straight to the kitchen where our younger son was already making himself a bagel. He asked us how it went and I told him that the parents group is mainly a whole lot of crying and my older son said that the teen group is mainly a whole of laughing. And then he told a story about some Xanax-addicted, Indian kid who knows our younger son, and they were both laughing their asses off and so were we.

"Tonight's comedy night!" said my younger son, and for the first time in a long time, it was.