TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

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CLIENT: After I made it here.

THERAPIST: (Laughs) Yeah.

CLIENT: Waded in the snow out front.

THERAPIST: Hey! That's dedication.

CLIENT: Well.

THERAPIST: Good! Glad you made it.

CLIENT: That's like when you had called I was out in the hallway leading out front and there was like six other old ladies waiting for the shuttle bus to take them food shopping. Well, the bus never came but your phone call came and I forget what I said to you, like, ‘if you run out there I'll meet you –

THERAPIST: You were going to beat the shit out of me.

CLIENT: They said, ‘who you talking to? Deborah?' I said, ‘no, my doctor.' ‘You talk to him like that?'

THERAPIST: Laughs.

CLIENT: I said, ‘You're lucky I didn't ask him to bring coffee and a doughnut.' They said, ‘okay, Louise.' ‘You got this thing running?'

THERAPIST: Louise shoots from the hip.

CLIENT: Actually I kept calling to make sure they were running. I saw the guy come down the street and drop someone.

THERAPIST: Everything's open–

CLIENT: Some places don't have school.

THERAPIST: They doesn't.

CLIENT: No, they called at 6 o'clock this morning, you know? Which I was surprised at this. Almost everybody else had school.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah, so.

THERAPIST: But I do think they did the snow emergency?

CLIENT: I don't think so. I didn't hear that. It's supposed to stop by noontime.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: Ya know, and the sun's supposed to be coming out. Temperatures are supposed to be getting warmer.

THERAPIST: We're supposed to be getting sunny weather today?

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah.

THERAPIST: Oh, is that right? Oh good.

CLIENT: Someone said they heard it might reach 50 today. I thought – I don't think so, not today. I said I know all next week it's going to be in the 50's.

THERAPIST: That's good! I thought another snow was coming.

CLIENT: No, I just – maybe light snow, but yeah. I was up until 3 o'clock watching the news.

THERAPIST: Okay. You've been up since three?

CLIENT: Since 3. I went to bed at 10:30, slept for five hours and then got up at three.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: Thanks to my cat.

THERAPIST: You can't get back to sleep after that.

CLIENT: I says do I take another Trazadone to put me back to sleep? Or maybe an Ambien?

THERAPIST: But then you're gone. You're up for like eight hours after that – at least the Ambien –

CLIENT: No, not even with the Ambien. I took one last night and I took two Trazadones.

THERAPIST: Oh God.

CLIENT: Because by six I had like three cups of coffee in me the size of that cup.

So I'll be wired today.

THERAPIST: You're wired. Yeah, you were ready to go when I called you at nine.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I figured that – I mean I called because I figured that the ride would be – you don't do the ride, right?

CLIENT: No. Now I'm doing Health Transportation and they send a chair (unclear) for me. The other day was the first time I tried them. My appointment was at 1 o'clock and it was say from here not even into the center of the square there and it came at quarter of 12 and my appointment's at 1 o'clock. So I sat in the waiting room for an hour reading a book and using my whatever that thing is, Kindle.

THERAPIST: Uh huh [yes].

CLIENT: So that was okay. I said, ‘I'll only be for a half hour, please come and pick me up at exactly 2 o'clock – no, not 2 o'clock, 1:30. I didn't get picked up until 2:30.

THERAPIST: Oh, okay.

CLIENT: (Unclear) and then this morning I was kind of nervous but I figured that they were running late with these roads and everything so he came at 9:30 and I was here by 10 of 10. No cars were parked on the streets though.

THERAPIST: That's what seems a snow emergency.

CLIENT: Yeah, ya know. I don't know. Wasn't around our area.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: A lot of places look like they're closed.

THERAPIST: Oh, really, okay.

CLIENT: You know, so.

THERAPIST: Yeah, one of the first things they do is they, all the stuff that I'll ride, all the stuff gets cancelled. They didn't cancel out – that means nothing's going to cancel out.

CLIENT: And like I said, the schools are all open.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: ‘Cause the driver said his daughter had to go to school today. I said, no not the kids here.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Well, Deborah's back home. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: Oh yeah? Why? Dolores and her –

CLIENT: They had a fight yesterday. They went shopping, they did some errands and all this stuff and then they came back and Dolores said she had to do a little shopping because she had nothing in the house so I asked Deborah if she would pick up potatoes and a couple of peppers and if she would run up to the clinic and pick up my prescriptions. So they went to [Shore's] (ph) or something and Dolores's riding around on those little wagons, handicap wagons, and she was like kind of bitching about the prices and all this stuff so Deborah goes, ‘well, you know, it's not your store.' And then a big fight there in the store and Deborah left the two items I wanted in the store and walked out and took a bus home. Oh no, she walked home.

THERAPIST: She walked home.

CLIENT: Walked home. Which was quite a distance. In the meantime Dolores's already home because she's got the car. So she had come to my apartment. She says, ‘is your daughter here? That little fucking bitch.' I said, ‘no, not my Deborah. What happened, Dolores?' And she wouldn't tell me. I says, ‘really, that's just how she is with me, Dolores.' I said, ‘Isn't she cute?' I says, ‘I used to take her shopping when she was small and she would hide in between the close racks and you couldn't find her. And you'd call her and call her and she wouldn't answer.' I said, ‘and so you're going around crazy looking for your kid ‘cause you think somebody kidnapped her, yeah. That's (unclear) my Deborah.' [00:07:52]

THERAPIST: Hmm. Yeah.

CLIENT: So Deborah came in. Dolores got up and left. All right. So now in the meantime I still don't have my prescriptions. I didn't care about the potatoes and the peppers that much, I just wanted my medicine. Well, Deborah goes, ‘what did she have to say?' I says, ‘Nothing. She was just telling me' – and of course Deborah's got another altogether different story. I says, ‘okay, I don't want to listen to it.' So I put my coat, my jacket and everything on, my boots, went up to Dolores's and said, ‘give me the fucking car keys, I got to go get my medicine.' I took the car and went up to the clinic and got my prescriptions, even he forgot to fill one so I had to wait another 20 minutes and I get to the drug store with Dolores's car, I go in and it's like a 15 minute wait and then the pharmacist tells me, ‘oh they (unclear) some of your Methadone, the 10 mg ones.' I said, ‘Why?' She says, ‘It's too early.' I said, but the doctor changed the amount. I said, ‘last month he told me to double up twice a day, take 15 mg,' so I says, ‘so since I didn't have any 5 mg ones I had to break up what I had.' She tries to put it through the insurance again and they said that they would have it today. I says, ‘I don't know if I can come back here tomorrow.' I says, ‘I borrowed somebody's car.' ‘Oh we'll deliver it for you, Louise.' I said, ‘Okay.' So, hopefully, ‘Deborah is up out of bed by now and will answer the door because she said the guy would be there between 10:30 in the morning and 11.' So.

THERAPIST: Yeah and then you've got another problem.

CLIENT: Yeah. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: And they're delivering it, too.

CLIENT: Oh God, why me? I broke up with my – oh it's been –

THERAPIST: What?

CLIENT: – wonderful week.

THERAPIST: What happened? That's called burying the lead.

CLIENT: Well, Mark has a couple of major, major problems which one is the drinking, the other one is he likes to – well, I wouldn't, it's an addiction. He loves scratch tickets.

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: So.

THERAPIST: How much does he spend on scratch tickets do you think?

CLIENT: As much as he can get.

THERAPIST: Really?

CLIENT: If you gave him $50 to go in the store and tell him to come back with $45 you can kiss that whole 50 goodbye.

THERAPIST: He'd spend it all.

CLIENT: Yep.

THERAPIST: Every extra.

CLIENT: Yeah. And then if he might have one just three or four dollars he's back in there getting four more, two more depending on which ones he wants – the $2 ones or the $1 ones. So –

THERAPIST: Yeah. Impulsive. He's impulsive.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Scratch offs.

CLIENT: Yeah, so Monday he's still not working. Monday he had the car and I asked him if he would take me to the store just to buy milk, bread and cream because I had been asking Deborah since Friday and no, but yet at 8 o'clock at night she can run out to the Carnival store for Dolores and get her papers to make, roll a joint. But you know, hey.

So he did that for me. Tuesday I had asked Deborah, I had been asking her since Saturday would she go up to the delicatessen up the street and get a pound of ham and a pound of cheese. No. So I got dressed Tuesday morning, put my coat on, everything, walked up with my walker – it took me 45 minutes but I got there, you know.

THERAPIST: Jesus.

CLIENT: So I got there and of course the guy at the deli, ‘why didn't you call me? You just could have told me what you want and I would have cut it and brought it to the house, Louise.' I said, ‘oh, thank you.' Nice to know now, you know? So I got the cold cuts and stuff and I went next door to the liquor store and I bought Mark three bottles of Smirnoff vodka, rather than the nips. Cousin says, ‘There's 20 nips in the refrigerator,' well I should have known better. He'll drink all 20 in one day, you know.

THERAPIST: It's more expensive to buy the nips isn't it?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: The nips are like what – the little ones?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: So but you buy them in the bottle when he finishes that in one day, too. Is that any time he's over, he'll hit it that hard?

CLIENT: So Tuesday I no – so I'm walking back with the bag and everything. It's freezing, I said maybe I'll call up Kelly and have her come meet me and help me ‘cause Deborah don't answer the phone, I don't know where the hell she is or whatever. So I called up him – Mark and I said, ‘would you come and meet me? Are you out walking?' He said, ‘No.' I says, ‘I was going to ask you if you'd come and meet me.' He said, ‘No, I can't do it.' I said, ‘Okay, fine.' Of course, I'm pissed by now. He calls right back. He says, ‘Where?' I said, ‘The one with the train tracks.' ‘All right, wait right there I'll be there.' So he came and picked me up in the car. So –

THERAPIST: He must have sensed you were mad, right?

CLIENT: Probably.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: It was the least he could do for all the things that I do for him.

THERAPIST: You're out shopping for vodka for him.

CLIENT: So we get to the house and he said, ‘Did you pick me up cigarettes?' I said, ‘No I didn't know I was supposed to pick you up cigarettes.' So he says, ‘well, go back to the store.' So we go back up to the store. I give him a $20 bill. No he came back with 10. So – it gets better. So he brings the car home, walks back down with the dog. The back of his neck had been bothering him. He says, ‘Can I have two Perc's please?' I says, ‘Sure.' So now he's already put the beer in the glass like that with half of the bottle of vodka. So he drinks it, takes the two Perc's and everything –

THERAPIST: And away he goes.

CLIENT: He was at the house for like an hour and a half and then he had to go back because he had to go pick up Keisha at school. So when he left he said to me before he was leaving, ‘Could you give me four more pills?' I said, ‘okay.' So he took them. (Unclear).

THERAPIST: He took all four.

CLIENT: Oh yeah. So now this is six.

THERAPIST: Holy shit. How long after the two?

CLIENT: An hour and a half.

THERAPIST: And how strong were the doses?

CLIENT: 5/325? Now he's got six Perc's, maybe three beers and a half a bottle of vodka. And he says to me, ‘can I have $10?' I said to him, ‘No, that's all I got is $10.' He says, ‘well, I'll bring you back $5.' ‘Okay.' So I gave him the $10. Well, he leaves and I know he's half way walking up the street. I call him on his phone. I said, ‘now don't forget to bring me back the change.' He says, ‘Yeah, okay. I'll be back.' I said, ‘All right.' So 3 o'clock comes and he's not back at the house yet. He says, ‘Oh, I've got to take Keisha over to my mothers and everything.' I says, ‘Okay.'

THERAPIST: Oh my God. And he's got all that –

CLIENT: So he evidently called about 5 o'clock. Deborah answered the phone and he said that he was coming back and she said, ‘Sure.' Well I didn't know he was coming over. So he comes back and I says, ‘Do you have any change for me?' He says, ‘You didn't give me any money.' I said, ‘What?' I says, ‘I gave you a $10 bill.' He says, ‘No you didn't.' I said, ‘Oh.' He says, ‘Think I can get one more?'

THERAPIST: Get one more?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Percocet.

CLIENT: I says, ‘I already gave you six.' ‘No you didn't. You only gave me two.' So now he's calling me a liar. He goes, ‘What are you doing, calling me a liar?' I said, ‘No, I gave them to you, Mark. Maybe they fell out of your pocket. I don't know but I gave you the money and I gave you the four other Perc's and you took all six of them.' ‘No I didn't.' ‘Okay, I'm not going to argue with you over it.' I says, ‘You're nothing but a fucking alcoholic and a goddamn fucking, you're addicted to the fucking scratch tickets.' I said, ‘I'm sick and fucking tired of it.' I says, ‘Why don't you just call it fucking quits or whatever you want to do.' So he says, ‘Well, I can see someone's got a hair across her ass.' And I says, ‘Yeah, I guess so.' As he drank the rest of the bottle of fucking vodka. I says, ‘There's two more bottles in the freezer.' I took them out of the freezer and I threw them in the fucking [unclear] (laughs). I was pissed. [00:18:26]

THERAPIST: Oh yeah.

CLIENT: So he left.

THERAPIST: You broke up with him.

CLIENT: Aye. So he left. He calls the next day.

THERAPIST: This is – what day is this now?

CLIENT: Now he's calling Thursday. And he says, ‘Did you find your $10 bill?' I said, ‘No. You coming by?' He says, ‘Yeah, you got a (unclear) for me?' I says, ‘No.' So I had gone out for a doctor's appointment. Well, evidently while I was out for the doctor appointment he called and of course Deborah wasn't going to answer the phone so when I got home she said, ‘Mark called.' So I called him. He wouldn't answer the phone. So I called and left him a message saying that I just got back from the doctors, give me a call. He wouldn't answer the phone. So I texted him, you know, and said, you know, I was home, was everything okay? He wrote back – don't call me anymore. So that was that. So of course yesterday I was waiting for him, you know, all the usual and – so no – it could have been Tuesday and Wednesday then Thursday because you know I was waiting for him to come by. Nope. No phone call, no nothing. And of course I don't hear from him on Friday, Saturday and Sundays anyway. And he's been out looking for a – he went for an interview here and he's pretty sure he's got that job.

THERAPIST: What's he going to do?

CLIENT: Maintenance from 6 in the morning until 1 o'clock in the afternoon, I think five days a week and he was off Mondays and Tuesdays or something like that. So, of course, then you know, I'll never get to see him. So.

THERAPIST: Oh, yeah. When did he apply for the job?

CLIENT: A friend of his knew about it and Mark went already for one interview and they want him. They said to prepare for another interview and he'll start April 4 I think. And then there was another place that wants him. It's a school. Yes. They want him as a school bus driver.

THERAPIST: God.

CLIENT: He can drink and he can take Perc's because they're prescribed medication.

THERAPIST: Not with that booze.

CLIENT: Aye, but he can't you know, smoke weed.

THERAPIST: I don't think he can take Perc's either.

CLIENT: Oh no?

THERAPIST: But I'm not – I think if he's driving a school bus no way.

CLIENT: Oh, I know.

THERAPIST: They'll drug test him.

CLIENT: They will?

THERAPIST: I don't know. I would hope they would.

CLIENT: Well they did do the drug testing on him so he can't do the weed anymore. Can't smoke marijuana. So I said I'll be damned if I'll (unclear). [00:21:53]

THERAPIST: Yeah. Well? Yeah. Let me ask you this – how heavy is this? Is this a typical week for Mark in terms of alcohol use?

CLIENT: Alcohol, yeah.

THERAPIST: How about the Perc's?

CLIENT: No. I generally won't give them to him. I'd known he'd hurt his back.

THERAPIST: Okay. He'll ask for them though?

CLIENT: Yeah. And I'll say no – 99 percent of the time it's no.

THERAPIST: Okay. He had a hurt back?

CLIENT: Yeah. So I said okay this is wonderful, you know. Just what I need over a lousy little $10 and six Perc's he's got to, you know, don't call me anymore.

THERAPIST: Wow! Yeah. Yeah. He – well I think, you know, sometimes when you get on his case about it, more understandable that you would is that you know he feels like he's going to – he doesn't want his alcohol threatened or his scratch tickets, or the Perc's threatened. Jesus.

CLIENT: Nope. We're not going through that, you know? He'll call.

THERAPIST: He'll call.

CLIENT: Before the end of next week.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah! Yeah. I think it's so complicated because it's often that you're the one having to buy him the booze.

CLIENT: Oh yeah.

THERAPIST: What do you think of that?

CLIENT: I hate it. I really do.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Tell me about it.

CLIENT: Well. He'll come over and I can have no beer or no nips in the house at all. He'll call up and he'll say, ‘you got a beer and a nip for me?' I'll say, ‘no.' ‘Why?' I'll say, ‘now what do you think I'm going to do? Walk down to the store with my walker, ya know?' I said, ‘no, don't have it.' So he'll come to the house and he'll say, ‘Well you got two bucks so I can go get a beer and a nip?' So now if I only have a $5 or $10 bill on me, knowing that I shouldn't give it to him.'

THERAPIST: Yeah. I guess, Louise, it speaks to how much you need that kind of contact. You know? How much you really want to have, you know, because yeah, I don't know if he consciously does it or not but he kind of equates being at your place with drinking, too, and I'm sure he still wants to be there but I also know that he must know in some way that if he plays his cards right he'll get you to – if he holds it over your head, hey I'm not going to come by unless there's –

CLIENT: Oh yeah. There's been plenty of times when he'll say, ‘do you have any beer?' and I'll say no and he won't show up.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah. Does he act pissed when you don't have beer around or is it more like I'm just not going to come by?

CLIENT: Oh no, he'll – generally he'll come by and he'll be there with the puppy-eyes and he'll say, ‘oh, you're not going to buy me a beer and a nip?'

THERAPIST: Ah huh.

CLIENT: I'd get that, you know. What is this? A black thing? You know, not doing anything for me, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I always say to him, ‘Do me a favor, find a young broad that has money and [won't] (ph) spend it on you. You know?' I said, ‘Because I can't afford you.' And he thinks it's –

THERAPIST: It is kind of like the opposite of like the man keeping the woman in jewelry and all this stuff.

CLIENT: Like the Peter thing.

THERAPIST: Yes. Yeah. Exactly.

CLIENT: He called me the other day.

THERAPIST: He did.

CLIENT: He called me Friday out of the clear blue sky, heard I had been sick, wanting to know what happened. And I told him and everything, so he said he'd be over this Tuesday to take me out to eat.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah, it's the opposite.

CLIENT: The complete opposite. So I don't know.

THERAPIST: Yeah, what's interesting with you and Peter is, well it's so much more clear that like with Mark at least as a sexual partner he's much more focused on you –

CLIENT: Oh yeah.

THERAPIST: And giving and I even get the sense that you guys talk differently than you and Peter did. I don't know about that as much but is it true?

CLIENT: Oh yeah. It's altogether different.

THERAPIST: It's altogether different.

CLIENT: Mark's got so many things screwed up in his life right now. I told you about how he's supposed to get a settlement. Well, his younger brother, decided to steal his identity and got a license in his name, credit cards in his name, wrote checks out in his name. He cannot go to all these places now.

THERAPIST: Because he's passed so many bad checks or something like that? Does he have a warrant out for him?

CLIENT: So he's got to clear those up before he gets the settlement. So. In the meantime the brother is at jail okay. I have straightened out one that he did last year, straightened out one but he still has got the other three. Plus Mark hasn't paid taxes. I says, ‘well, you know, you look on the TV set right now and who's on there but the guy from Survivor, Richard Hatch, that says, ‘Make sure you pay your IRS taxes because they will come for you and put you in jail.' He'll be up there with your brother. Hey!' I says, ‘Tell you what. I'll send you both up a harmonica.'

THERAPIST: Cake with a file in it.

CLIENT: Oh, no he'd stay there even with the (unclear) (cross talk). So I mean, I tell him that, you should get this, that (makes sound like air escaping balloon) so I'm yeah, I know he lies to me a lot so – I says, ‘so how you going to get back and forth to work and pick up Keisha?' He says, ‘oh, we have another car.' I says, ‘you have another car?' He says, ‘the only car you have is Deborah's.' I says, ‘if you have another car, why is it you were using my car for the last three years? If Keisha was sick in school you'd go and use my car to go get her, whatever.' ‘Oh, I do have one but it's at my parent's house.' I said, ‘Oh, okay.' Because you know that's a lie because he doesn't. Because the other day he was saying he was looking for a used car. You know, was saving up for a used car because Deborah just bought a whole new living room set. I says, ‘Okay. Fine.' And then he, one time he told me he owned the house that he's living in which I knew better anyways to begin with, you know. But yet that was another bullshit story. But, you know, yeah. [00:29:49]

THERAPIST: Well, you know, you'll put up with all that stuff for those moments that you have.

CLIENT: Even though I can't have moments and like Monday he was like, ‘you know what the worst thing is?' He says, ‘I'm afraid when I call here that Deborah's going to say that you're gone.' He says, ‘And I don't mean like gone to the store but that you died.' He says, ‘You know that really put a scare in me.' I said, ‘Put a scare in you?' I said, ‘What the fuck do you think it did to me, you know?' He says, ‘that's what I worry about, though, is you dying.' I says, ‘Well, everybody's going to die one day or another, Mark. Ya know, let's face it.' He says, ‘But your health isn't that good.' And then the next thing he says (laughs) – and then the next day he picks a fight with me. That really does my heart good. Did you know you can feel less – at nighttime you can feel it.

THERAPIST: You can.

CLIENT: Yeah. What's it feel like?

THERAPIST: It feels like a ticking noise. Sometimes I can feel like an electrical shock. I can really hear my heart sometimes faster than usual and then if it slows down I can just feel that little [feesh] (ph).

CLIENT: Yep.

THERAPIST: To what, to correct the heartbeat.

CLIENT: Yeah, because I have the COPD anyway and the sleep apnea and that's when I tend to stop breathing. This thing kind of helps.

THERAPIST: Oh, okay. Okay.

CLIENT: He says, ‘Oo, what was that shock?' (Laughs) And of course the incision site still kills me. I tried to get another (unclear) with the visiting nurse and of course she wouldn't take no for an answer.

THERAPIST: What does she do now?

CLIENT: They don't do anything. Yeah, I mean, Mark's in the house, the dog's in the house and even if you knock all's she does is take my pulse, listens to my blood pressure and then she's gone. I mean she's getting paid over 35 bucks to be in my house for five minutes? She doesn't even take her coat off. And it's the same with the physical therapist. She told me how to – as I said, ‘do this, do this,' and then I got to do it standing up with the leg out this way, put the leg out this way and then march. I mean that's it. She shows me and then she leaves. You know, not even any hand written things with pictures on them. Because I already have all that stuff from when I had my knee surgery. I didn't tell her that crap though.

THERAPIST: Oh yeah, about the service they deliver is a lot less.

CLIENT: They're supposed to be with you – say your back is bothering you. You'd really like a back rub. They're supposed to do that crap. And were on the diabetic – she's supposed to check my feet to make sure there's no open wounds on the feet.

THERAPIST: And they don't do that.

CLIENT: They don't do shit for Shinola.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I mean if I sat there and offered her a cup of tea and some cookies, she'd sit there with me and drink the cup of tea and cookies, yeah. It's like altogether where Naomi's mother, my Naomi – she's a visiting nurse and she's of the older school. She's my age. She'd be here for the whole afternoon and then she'd – the insurance was paying for it, you know. She thought nothing of going through all your medications with you and anything. You want your back rubbed? What about your legs – are they bothering you? No, no – not these ones. Like my pillboxes the other night – the seven days and then it has like the morning, noon, evening and bedtime. ‘Does your daughter put your medications out for you?' I said, ‘No, I do. And I've been doing it for years.' I says, ‘In fact, my four year old granddaughter used to do it.' Darla loved to do that. So, I mean it's like they do nothing. ‘Are you eating regularly?' ‘Well, no.' ‘Well, why not?' I said, ‘Because I'm not hungry.' Why eat if I'm not hungry?' I said, ‘I could go all day without eating any food.' ‘Well, are you drinking enough fluids?' I said, ‘Probably not.' ‘Well, you know you're going to get dehydrated. Look at your lips – they're all cracked and everything.' I says, ‘Well all right, I'll have a glass of water.' There could be days where I might drink four or five big bottles of water, the 16 oz., whatever they are. Or there could be days where I go without drinking anything. Just enough to take my meds and that's that.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: Or if I eat something like Deborah brought me home a chicken sandwich from MacDonald's. I don't eat the bread. The only thing I eat is the chicken and I eat half of it. It's the same with when I cook food. I don't eat it. But of course, then again, it's going up to Dolores's house.

THERAPIST: Old Dolores.

CLIENT: I made a roast pork the other day, Deborah took up two slices of roast pork, some rice and some corn. I had a whole package of double stuff Oreo cookies – Dolores ate the whole package.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know just thinking about how much, how often, well with Deborah, certainly with Mark.

CLIENT: She hates me with a passion.

THERAPIST: She does.

CLIENT: Hates.

THERAPIST: I was just thinking about how you've been talking about how they take and take and take kind of thing and it's so, you know it's just so parallel with what – how your dad treated you. You know and what you really came to feel like you had to do, you know, what you really had to do as a way to just be in the world. You know, like how – what were you thinking?

CLIENT: Like with my father. Yeah. I always – he always gave me a car, always. But like when I first had the kids and I started going out once I had divorced and everything, if I came home late, honestly the car would be up on cinder blocks the next morning because my brother thought he'd come by on his way to work at 5 o'clock in the morning and take the tires off the fucking car. So you had to either – if you didn't kiss, live by his rules and regulations you know – that was it. So I'd just think, that's it the kids are going to just stay home from school. Because I don't have a way to drive them and your grandson is a spoiled little bastard, he wants a ride. So I says, ‘well I should plan on being here to remind him, driving him and then picking him up and his friends. So that didn't last too long but I mean every time he gave me something you had to pay the price.

THERAPIST: It was yours. Sorry, you were his.

CLIENT: Yeah. Well, yeah and me, I'm the complete opposite. I just dole it out.

THERAPIST: You dole it out?

CLIENT: I did one bad thing yesterday though. When I was waiting for my prescriptions I was roaming around the store and they had a nice 32" TV set knocked down to $199.99 and it was the last one left. I said to the kid at the counter – put it behind the counter. When I'm all ready with my shopping I'll come up and pay for it and I got myself a nice 32" TV set for my bedroom. So that's that. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: Got something for yourself, huh?

CLIENT: I says, whoa! I just went and spent two hundred and something dollars all on myself. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: Instead of it going on somebody else.

CLIENT: I'm like oh Deborah, you can stay in the parlor and watch the fucking TV because I've got my own.

THERAPIST: Something for you.

CLIENT: Yep. So then today, because (unclear) was supposed to stop by at noon today, Mary's going to come over – only going to charge me $20. To go to mass you got to get a haircut and then from mass I got to go to Porter Square so I can go to Radio Shack so I can buy a router so I can have WiFi in my apartment and then she said she'd take me food shopping so then I want to go food shopping at Stop and Shop so that's a $20 deal.

THERAPIST: All for the low, low cost of $20.

CLIENT: Yeah. And oh! News flash – her and Dolores are going out to the business together.

THERAPIST: Oh yeah? What business is that? Monkey business?

CLIENT: Selling drugs.

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: I says, Dolores you can't trust her. You cannot trust her. So Dolores found out the hard way because Mary was you know – I get them on the first and then she didn't get them on the first, she got them on the third and then she had to call the guy to see how many he had. I said, ha – now you know.

THERAPIST: To get what? Get her supply?

CLIENT: Yeah, of Klonopins. Mary gets Klonopins and she was gonna sell them to Dolores and then Dolores was going to either give her something – if she didn't give her money she was going to give her some other drug – Suboxones. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: Why? The Suboxones are – end up – you can abuse the Suboxones in some way?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Because they're supposed to be one of the opiate blockers, right? So what the heck?

CLIENT: So then if not she gets the 100 mg Fentyl patches from Dolores. And what you can do with those instead of wearing them, you can squeeze them and get the gel out of it, the medication.

THERAPIST: What do you do with the gel?

CLIENT: You lick that.

THERAPIST: You lick it.

CLIENT: Yep. Or if you're smart enough like Mary, being – you know you can take a hypodermic needle and –

THERAPIST: Inject it? Inject the gel?

CLIENT: Yep. You suck that, you get that gel out –

THERAPIST: Oh you suck it down.

CLIENT: Yep. You can inject it wherever you wanna. (Laughs) I said, Dolores, you can't trust her in your house, no matter what it is, whether it's a narcotic or not, I says, she likes my Neurontins because you know she has to pay for hers. That's for her arthritis pain.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: So she likes, because when she has no insurance she can only fill a half of a bottle of them.

THERAPIST: But the Neurontins get you high doesn't it?

CLIENT: No, not me. I've been on them for so many years.

THERAPIST: It's not an opiate is it?

CLIENT: Yeah, it's for epilepsy or for arthritis pain. And she likes the Trazodones and then she likes my imeprazole for her heartburn you know and it's like Jesus. So I says so you'd better just not lock away your narcotics, you have to lock away everything. This is because other than that (unclear). [00:45:03] Well, she had a half a bottle of Neurontin in her pocketbook. I get like 180, 200 and something because I take six a day.

THERAPIST: Well, again I think you're very used to living life for what's yours is mine and what's mine is yours. I own you. If I give you something I own you.

CLIENT: Like me?

THERAPIST: Yeah. With say Mark, what he gives you is a connection. Is a real connection and yet I think you end up feeling like I'm owned, though. I'm owned. I'll give him whatever he needs.

CLIENT: Right. As I said, what he says like sometimes when we first started going out he'd do this not talk to me for like a month. But I knew he was leaving work over from Workout World and there was a liquor store on the way. So if he had, if Deborah had given him $5 for the day he'd go in there and buy you know a nip and a beer and three scratch tickets. He'd be drinking before he even hit my house.

THERAPIST: Right, right.

CLIENT: His friend lives right around the corner. He'd go over and say hi and have a few drinks. You know, go up to the square and you know, oh yeah. He's a loony unless he's like –

THERAPIST: Well he's a social guy.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: He's really social.

CLIENT: He knows a lot of them from the gym.

THERAPIST: People give him a beer.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: He's good company.

CLIENT: He told me about one of his friends that he's got, the friend has like what you'd call a "sugar mama" and she's a little bit younger. He's a gigolo, they guy. I says, I know, why don't you start hanging around with him? I says, because you're always saying they're always after you, these young girls. I said, just go with him Mark, you know? No, because he'll cause trouble. I says, what do you mean you'll cause trouble? Well, they'd probably call up Deborah and she'd tell you –

THERAPIST: No, no.

CLIENT: I said no, would they do things like that? Oh, what a shame. So, meanwhile he's getting brave. I know his sister-in-law very well. And I know is brother-in-law well. Which is Deborah's brother, and his wife,. I've known them for oh God, years. They're good friends of Naomi's and when we had all this with Naomi and everything, I mean we were together 24/7 over there with Naomi. So we're friends on Facebook so now I have a lot of pictures on my screen of Jack and of I so he says why don't you just put them on Facebook, this way we have – I could just say yeah, if she sees it I can just say, oh yeah, she's a friend like we used to work together. She just lives down the street. Occasionally I might go down there to see her. I'm like, wait a minute, now he wants – so if Deborah ever sees us together she won't suspect anything?

THERAPIST: Well, great.

CLIENT: He's met my visiting nurse. He's met my physical therapist. Oh yeah. He was on his way out the door last week when the visiting nurse was going out and he said, ‘oh, I've got to give my honey a kiss goodbye.' He said, but I'll be back. And she said, oh, isn't he so pleasant? (Scream). Uh huh.

THERAPIST: Just another week in the life.

CLIENT: If you only knew. Oo, it's after 11.

THERAPIST: Just another week in the life.

CLIENT: All right.

THERAPIST: So listen. We'll meet here –

CLIENT: No.

THERAPIST: Next week but not the week after.

CLIENT: Right. Okay, next week I already booked the ride.

THERAPIST: You've booked the ride for me.

CLIENT: All right. I have three appointments next week. I've only got yours. So now I have to try another company.

THERAPIST: Oh. How far in advance do you have to let them (unclear) though?

CLIENT: A day at a time.

THERAPIST: Oh, good. Good. So it's not like the whole – if you don't call two weeks ahead you're in trouble.

CLIENT: No.

THERAPIST: All right Louise.

CLIENT: All right. I'm going to go put on my ruby red slippers and go back to Kansas where I belong.

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