I got sober and learned accountability. California let me off the hook

San Francisco Chronicle​

17-05-2025

'Your car is still at the scene, and your son is at the station. Neither is in one piece, and neither can be released to you tonight.'
My mom muted the call.
'Smart-ass cop,' she mumbled — still taking my side, somehow, when everything was clearly my fault and everyone knew it but her.
I was 34. Strung out, still half-drunk, barefoot in a police station in Santa Rosa, shaking under the weight of it all. That night should've been a wake-up call. Instead, it was one more summons I ignored.
I grew up in San Francisco, took BART to high school every day — got off at Daly City when the School of the Arts was still on the San Francisco State campus. My dad, a public defender from the Mission District, always wore a Giants cap and a Niners jacket no matter the season. He believed in civic duty with the kind of quiet conviction that could make a dinner table feel like a courtroom.
His passion for serving his community resonated with me. But I was too lost to live it.
The worst of my addiction unfolded after my first attempt at sobriety in San Francisco. I managed six months off alcohol in the Castro, but I couldn't let go of the prescriptions — Adderall, Klonopin, anything to keep me from feeling too much. I was a loud, misbehaved kid in the '90s, quickly diagnosed with ADHD and medicated before I even knew what it meant (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder).
I came out as gay young but still kept parts of myself hidden. By high school, I was performing in professional musicals and plays while sneaking off to West Oakland for warehouse raves with my older DJ boyfriend, chasing ecstasy in every sense. After college and a few years in New York City on the Broadway fast track, I never stopped to face what it meant when I eventually lost the thing I loved most: performing. Rejection hit hard. And without that outlet, drinking took over. Party drugs were easy to find in gay nightlife, and eventually, I found meth.
Eventually, I was spiraling in a 600-square-foot cabin in Guerneville — deep in psychosis, out of people to call.
I had burned every bridge in the Bay. There was nobody left to help. My dad wouldn't even let me stay with him. That's when I knew this was bad. Really bad.
I begged the only real person still left in my orbit: my dealer, supplier, sometimes-pimp. He knew if I stayed, I'd die. And so did I.
Leaving the Bay Area wasn't part of a recovery plan — it was survival. I didn't know if I'd get sober in Los Angeles, but I knew I couldn't do it in San Francisco. Too many ghosts. Too many chances to backslide.
But L.A. just brought more of the same chaos with a new ZIP code. I ended up in the hospital for an emergency detox, then shuttled directly to Van Ness Recovery House. That was when things finally started to change. I found a foothold in early recovery, stumbled through the awkward rewiring of my brain and began learning how to sit with discomfort instead of trying to erase it.
I got a job in Hollywood. I built a life with rhythm, with purpose — something resembling a glow-up, even if it didn't always feel that way. Like a kid learning how to stand upright without a hand to hold, I was finally moving through the world without armor.
After I got sober in 2016 and finally stabilized, I started watching the mailbox. There was a quiet hope: Maybe now, I could actually be of service.
Jury duty.
Maybe it was the idea that I could finally be trusted to show up. To participate in something collective. To contribute in a way that wasn't performative. It meant I'd made it to the other side — not just surviving but becoming someone the state might count on.
But the envelopes never came. No thick white paper with the state seal. No group number to call. I figured maybe the system had moved on. Or maybe it still knew better than to count on me.
Then one finally arrived.
And on the same day, my county rolled out a redesigned digital jury portal — sleek, mobile-friendly, chatbot-enabled. No courthouse. No bailiff. No crowd of strangers with crossword puzzles and bad coffee. Just a browser tab and a nightly check-in to see if my number was up.
You do not need to report to the courthouse tomorrow. Thank you for your service.
I never even put on pants.
There are aspects of the post-COVID world I'm grateful for — remote work, telehealth and a reduced expectation of small talk. But this version of jury duty left me wondering what, exactly, I had participated in.
Because the truth is, I was a little disappointed.
Not because I wanted to sit in a courthouse all week. But because, for once, I could have. And just as I got there, the system stopped asking people like me to show up in person.
That's the paradox of digitized civic life: more efficient, more accessible — and more anonymous. No clerk at check-in. No bailiff calling names. No communal eye-roll as someone tries to get out of service by claiming psychic abilities. Just a solitary ritual: refresh and wait.
I do wonder what gets lost when civic rituals become solo acts. The collective misery was part of the point — each of us surrendering a day to be part of something larger. It wasn't glamorous, but it was shared.
My dad passed away just before the pandemic. He'd have been proud that I finally got my act together enough to be summoned — let alone follow through.
Maybe this is what progress looks like. Maybe an online jury system is what we need in a state with 39 million people and eternal parking nightmares. But I can't help thinking democracy, like recovery, works best in community. Not just in rules followed, but in presence felt.
A few weeks ago, I served. Not in the way I expected. But in a way that still meant something.
I was proud of the bare minimum because for me, showing up used to be impossible.
Nick Dothée is a writer who grew up in the Bay Area and now lives in Los Angeles. He's working on a memoir about addiction, recovery and learning how to live without escaping.