A third man came up behind me and snapped, “Are you going in or not?”

I released the door handle. “No. Let’s go, Simon.”

He smiled. “Perhaps you’re not such an idiot after all.”

When I got home, I dialed Larry’s number. He picked it up on the first ring with, “Henry?”

“How did you know?”

“The only calls I get after ten are from people I sponsor, and I’ve already talked to the other two. What’s going on?”

“I’ve been keeping something from you.”

He laughed. “Of course, you have! I’m your sponsor. Everyone in AA keeps secrets from their sponsors until they get so miserable it’s either confess or drink. You didn’t drink, did you?”

“No,” I protested. “But I came close tonight.”

“Why don’t you tell me about it.”

I carried the phone to the couch, lay down and told him about Adam. He listened, making only noncommittal noises now and then to reassure me he was still on the line. When I was done, he said, simply, “You know what you have to do, don’t you?”

“Would I have called you if I did?”

He chuckled. “You didn’t call me for advice. You called me so you could think aloud.”

“Let’s pretend,” I said a little annoyed, “that I did call you for advice. What would you advise?”

“Stop seeing him.”

“I’d have to tell him why.”

“And that’s a problem because?”

“Because I feel like a fool,” I said. “Falling for a straight guy. It’s a fucking cliché.”

“Really, Henry? All you feel is foolish? Is that why you were about to throw away your sobriety?”

“No,” I admitted. “This situation with Adam took me down a black hole where every negative feeling I ever had about being gay was waiting for me. I needed that drink to shut those voices up.”

“Yeah, been there,” Larry replied. “There’s good news and bad news. What do you want first?”

“Give me the bad news.”

“The bad news is those feelings, those voices, they never go away. We all got the poison early on and we got a steady diet of it. You know what I mean. The world we grew up in told us queers are sick or sinful or criminal. Those were our choices. We metabolized that message. That self-hatred is part of us and like you said, it’s waiting for us, waiting to exploit those moments of weakness or doubt when it tells us the world was right after all. Tells us we’re defective, abnormal, broken. That voice is what drives our compulsions—for booze or drugs or sex—anything to drown it out, to distract ourselves or it takes us to that place where self-destruction seems like the only option.”

“Yes,” I said. “That’s what was happening.” I sighed. “So, what’s the good news.”