Alexis Lockhart and Jax Jackson formed a friendship through recovery. However, a video call around Halloween changed the tenor of their relationship.
Alexis Erin Lockhart and Amanda Leanne Jackson, who goes by Jax, first laid eyes on one another in July of 2021. It was in tiny boxes on a screen during a Zoom A.A. meeting that Ms. Lockhart was leading. “I remember the first time I saw Jax,” Ms. Lockhart said, “They were goofing off with their friends.”
Mx. Jackson, who uses they/them pronouns, recalls Ms. Lockhart saying, “Do we need to stop the meeting? Is there something funny?”
Ms. Lockhart said, “I knew they were trouble then.” However, the less-than-auspicious beginning left a lasting impression on them both.
A month later, they met for the first time at an in-person A.A. meeting in Houston, Texas. “As the saying goes, meeting makers make it,” Ms. Lockhart said, referencing the recovery belief that meetings are critical to maintaining sobriety.
“I liked her,” Mx. Jackson said. “She was kind and smart. She was sober, which was going to be something I had to have in any future relationships. I knew at that point that I wanted her in my life. I didn’t know it would work out the way it did.”
The two then exchanged numbers and connected between meetings, “purely as peer support for recovery,” Ms. Lockhart said.
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