Gullible

Luca is a young man of my acquaintance whom I met while he was -- unbeknownst to me -- on house arrest.  He had crashed his car, injuring several people, while intoxicated.  During his year of house arrest, he attended mandatory AA meetings and eventually earned permission to leave his house in order to work at the horse farm where his girlfriend was employed as assistant manager.  Jenni is a sweet and beautiful young woman whose passion is horses.  She is an accomplished equestrian but has never achieved her potential.  When she met Luca, he was already in trouble:  he was selling and using drugs, getting in fights, and generally wasting his life.  The only person he was nice to was Jenni and eventually, after his accident and house arrest, the two became a couple.

When Luca first appeared at the barn, I didn't know what to think.  With tattoos from the neck down, he looked like a drugged-out thug, but was as sweet and polite as well brought up child.  He absolutely loved my horse and seemed like a peaceful and happy young man and soon I stopped noticing the "body art".  Fast forward three months to when the ankle bracelets came off.  The first thing he did was reconnect with his homies who were also newly off house arrest.  They went to AA meetings together not because they had to, he said, but because they wanted to.  Luca seemed sincere in his desire to live a good life, free of substances.  It made me happy to hear him speak of the happy place he found himself in. Around Christmas, Luca moved in with Jenni and the two made quick work of the stalls and other horsekeeping chores and seemed head over heals in love.

Last week, after the owner of the farm commented to Jenni that her work ethic had recently deteriorated, Jenni announced that she and Luca were moving out of the farm residence and into a place of their own and the two walked off the job to go house hunting.  In anticipation of a vacancy, the owner let herself inside the little house in order to measure for new kitchen cabinets and appliances.  The inside of the house, which had been mostly renovated just five months before, was a horror.  There were holes punched in the walls and garbage and dog feces covering the floors. It looked like a crack house.

One of Jenni's friends told the owner that Luca was back to selling and using drugs and was also becoming violent towards Jenni.  Later when the owner confronted Luca with her suspicions, he threatened to beat her too, but the owner reminded him that she had his parole officer's number on speed dial.  He backed off but Jenni stood paralyzed in a corner, sobbing.  The owner offered sanctuary to Jenni, but she declined without a word.

The two left the next day, but not before Luca greeted me in his usual sweet and innocent way and fussed over my horse.  I wanted to say something, to ask him why, to offer to take him to a meeting, but pretended that I knew nothing about his fall from grace.  It should not have surprised me, but it did because I wanted so badly to believe in the miracle that was his recovery.  How did I not see this coming? 

The owner of the farm, herself, is engaged to a man who is finishing his sentence for felony DUI.  The two started dating while he was on house arrest and she stuck with him during those long and lonely months because she believes in him, despite his being less than completely honest about what actually happened before the accident that nearly killed a nine-year-old child.  He seems like a sweet and good person who wants to live a good life.  He appears to have learned to live in a state of gratitude and to surrender completely in the face of addiction.  My heart will break for both of them if he throws away the God-given love of a good woman, the forgiving heart of his precious son, and the support of a whole community with a stake in his recovery.

Addiction is so powerful it blinds and numbs us to the divine light of eternal love that surrounds each and every one of us.  Living in a state of grace is a constant decision to move toward this light and to ignore the seduction of addiction's false promises.  Some days I feel like a child's soap bubble riding a gentle breeze, and on others,  like a leaf floating gently down a stream.  Fragile and beautiful and temporary.