At 23, I found myself without a job or a car. I had no money, girlfriend or any friendships that weathered the storm of my addiction. As it turns out, it was a perfect spot to start my journey into recovery. It began with an ambulance ride in the middle of the night from one hospital to another to begin detox. When I woke up the next morning I was numb emotionally, but physically I was a wreck. Nurses came in frequently to check on me. They gave me pills to detox from the alcohol. The first 2 days I was unable to leave the bed except to go be sick in the bathroom. I couldn't hold any food down and tried to sleep as much as possible. When I started to feel a little better, I was encouraged to leave my room. When I did, I found that I was across from a nurses station at the far end of a hall that went down about 5 rooms and ended with 2 locked doors. There was a security camera by the locked doors. All in all, it was like being in jail. Despite the surroundings, I was not uncomfortable with where I was. There is a certain comfort that comes from knowing you don’t have to worry about staying drunk or finding drugs or remembering to eat. I wasn’t allowed to have shoelaces or belts. This was a fact that played on my mind. This was the culmination of my life: I couldn’t be trusted to have a belt or shoelaces. It was a little disheartening, but I shook it off and tried to make the best of my circumstances. There were about half a dozen other patients mulling around the lone hallway. There was a common area that contained a TV and this was where the meals were served 3 times a day for the remaining 5 days of my stay in detox. When it came time to start looking at what I was going to do when I left, I was quickly informed that I would be going to a rehab facility. I needed to get my insurance in order, which required that I have somebody pay my insurance premium for the next month. Being in lock down, I arranged to have my grandma make the current month’s payment for me. After that, I had to arrange to have my dad pay for the next month’s payment with the remaining money from my check I had left at the apartment. With that done, the next rehab was arranged and I left one hospital for another. On February 27th, 2003 I entered Highland Ridge Hospital. The hospital was set up in 2 sides: detox/psych and rehab. I was given a packet of information and placed into the detox half to spent another week there. After meeting with the psychiatrist, they put me on Prozac to offset the years of chemical damage I did to my brain. It was here that I met my first friend in recovery, Jen E. Jen was an alcoholic like me. She was married and she had a young child. Jen, myself, and another guy we called Vinnie played cards to pass the time when we weren’t too loaded from all the pills they had us on. We made a bet on one game of gin rummy where the low score had to bring the other two their dinner plates for a day. I lost and they started calling me Jeeves. As in ‘Jeeves, please bring me my dinner. I’d like to eat now’ Eventually Vinnie left and Jen and I were moved over into the rehab side of the hospital. Or as I lovingly call it: the brainwashing side or general population (gen pop for short). To this point, I’d spent 2 weeks detoxing off of alcohol. Realistically I was detoxed after about 3 or 4 days, but I was still nervous to go over to the other side. When I did, it was a shock. In detox I could sleep in and take naps during the day if I wanted. In rehab, we were up at 6:00 and had our days planned for us down to the half hour until 10:00 at night. The first few days I spent trying to stay awake and get used to the schedule. I’d get up at 7:00, shower if I felt up to it and then go down to the cafeteria to get something to eat. After breakfast it was to morning meditation. We’d read from a couple of recovery books and lay on gymnastic mats for 15 minutes listening to soothing music. After meditation, it was back to the common area to drink coffee and wake up. Starting at about 9:00, we’d split up into to different groups based on which counselor we were assigned to. Some groups were for presenting the steps or autobiography we prepared out of the packets we were each given when we entered Highland Ridge. Each step would have many questions we had to answer. Some of the questions seemed ridiculous. (“How has alcohol made my life unmanageable?” As if being in a hospital where they didn’t trust you with your own shoelaces was somehow managing my life well…) Other groups were for therapy to discuss different issues that came up. I remember that there was another patient who was really cold to me. One time he said to me something along the lines of ‘Are you even old enough to drink? How can YOU have a problem with alcohol? I spilled more alcohol than you ever drank”. With a little time now and in retrospect I can see that he was a sick alcoholic only sober a few days himself. At the time, though, I was furious that this guy was such a jerk to me. Deep down I think I agreed with him. I was only 23 years old. I always thought I’d be able to drink at least until I was in my forties or fifties.
After a week in the rehab side, my insurance company told the hospital that they were done paying for me to stay inpatient. They would pay for me to come during the days, but not during the nights. The hospital knew that I wasn’t ready to go home yet, so they put me up in an apartment next to the hospital. For a week, I went over there at nights. By now, it had been about 2 weeks since I started Prozac and I started to really feel the effects of it. I was really spacey and slept a lot. One time I feel asleep at the apartment and missed a group. They drug tested me when I came to the hospital and told me I failed. I was livid. I hadn’t used. They asked me to come back to the hospital. They told me they would board me there for the duration of my stay and work it out with the insurance company. I spent a day furious with the hospital. I explained to the other patients why I was staying at the hospital again. Nobody believed me. They all assumed I used. I stayed for one night and then told the hospital I was leaving. To make things worse, when I explained that I was sleeping because of the Prozac they took me off it cold turkey. So after 2 weeks in detox and 2 weeks in rehab I left the hospital, determined to stay sober.
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