When The Young and the Restless’ Lauren (Tracey E. Bregman) decided Nikki (Melody Thomas Scott) needed more help on her road to recovery than she or the Newmans could provide, Lauren turned to one and only Jack Abbott (Peter Bergman). Especially in light of the fact that Nikki’s sponsor Seth (Brian Gaskill) recently relapsed.
From Lauren’s perspective, enlisting Jack as a member of Nikki’s support team makes sense for two good reasons. First, Jack and Nikki have been close friends for decades and he’s quite aware of her previous battles with alcohol addiction. Then there’s the fact that Jack has battled his own substance abuse addiction and is uniquely able to identify with Nikki’s struggle in trying to regain control of her sobriety.
Although Lauren’s reasoning is mostly sound, there are two major flaws. For starters, Jack and Nikki also have a romantic history. They’ve previously been married and Nikki was even pregnant with his child once upon a time. Jack aiding Nikki now creates the potential for the two to rekindle old romantic feelings.
Perhaps the biggest flaw, however, is The Mustache. Although the two haven’t had it out in a while, Victor (Eric Braeden) and Jack despise one another, and Victor is likely not going to be receptive to the idea of his wife receiving such intimate and personal help from Jack of all people.
To her credit, Nikki was the first person to point out that Victor would probably not want Jack filling the role of her sponsor, and she even was hesitant to listen to Lauren’s suggestion or take Jack up on his subsequent offer to aid her in her time of need. However, in The Young and the Restless episode airing on January 23, Nikki calls her longtime friend as she fights the urge to drink.
The call is made after Nikki visits Claire (Hayley Erin). Nikki was hoping Claire could help her find closure after the whole Jordan-saga, but instead, she shares some endearing scenes with Claire. The grandmother/granddaughter duo discuss Claire trying to move forward with her life and regretting the past. They also talk about the shame and guilt Claire carries. In many ways, Claire’s feelings about her recovery journey sound eerily similar to Nikki’s. Perhaps that’s why Nikki’s ready to take a drink when she leaves.
Instead of sipping from her flask, Nikki calls Jack by the end of the episode, and Jack is likely to run to be by her side.
With all of that being said, we can imagine that Jack will increasingly become a go-to person for Nikki, and she’ll do her best to keep that a secret from Victor for a while (although secrets are never good for a recovering addict). Whether the weight of the secret pushes Nikki to tell her husband about Jack’s assistance or someone else spills the beans out of spite, yes we are looking at Diane (Susan Walters), we think Victor will hear about Jack spending extra time around Nikki and hit the roof.
Should Victor find out this news and become upset, it’s not hard to picture him meeting with Jack and issuing a stern warning to stay away from his wife. Jack’s never one to back down to Victor and he promised to be there for Nikki, so this may push Jack to tell Victor to buzz off. However, will Nikki compromise her recovery by putting distance between her and Jack in an effort to keep peace in her marriage, and really all of Genoa City?
We have to say, selfishly we’re hoping for a Jack and Victor showdown. Their rivalry has led to some legendary soap moments in the past and we’d love to see more of them from these seasoned gents.
New episodes of The Young and the Restless air weekdays on CBS. Episodes become available to stream on Paramount Plus the next day.
