by Claire Adams
“Mr. Levy, you’re here to get help and so is everyone else. We can’t have these substances in the facility,” Mr. March explained.
“What about my damn shoelaces? How the hell am I supposed to go for a run?”
“Mr. Levy, for the safety of yourself and all the others on the unit, we can’t have any items that are dangerous and potentially lethal to a suicidal patient.”
I understood the reasoning; it’s not like I was a total idiot or anything, I just hated the feeling of being told what to do. I had never really done well under authority, but I had promised Spencer I didn’t have a problem. If I threw a fit and left after only an hour, I surely couldn’t convince anyone that I had control over my behavior.
It took everything I had inside of me to keep from turning into a giant asshole though. They didn’t know me well enough to be stealing all my things. They didn’t know that I would never harm myself, at least not on purpose. As I took a few deep breaths, I knew that I couldn’t stay if I didn’t calm down. People who acted like out of control maniacs weren’t looked at all that kindly. So, I finally breathed out a long sigh as I gave in to them.
“Fine.”
“Mr. Levy, I’ll have one of the staff get you some elastics for your shoes. They are quite ingenious, actually. Hold your shoes together and you don’t have to tie them at all.”
“Whatever. Can I have some time to myself now?”
“Sure, Officer Pinter and I will head out for now. Please let the nurses or your unit technician know if you need anything. We will do our best to make you as comfortable as possible.”
“Sure you will.”
There was nothing about this situation that seemed like it was going to be comfortable. Although I didn’t have a problem with drugs or alcohol, I had become pretty accustomed to using both on a daily basis. I had only brought a small supply so I could wean myself off of the stuff and wouldn’t have to go through difficult withdrawals.
They didn’t understand how hard it would be to just stop cold turkey, or they didn’t care. I wasn’t trying to keep using forever; I simply wanted a tapering off period. After my hospital stay, I knew I couldn’t go more than a couple days without a little something. But if I just used a tiny bit over the first few weeks, I knew the withdrawals would be so much more tolerable.
“Wait, where the hell is the door to my room?” I hollered after the two men.
Everyone in the main area looked at me. I looked around and noticed only a few of the rooms actually had doors on them. They couldn’t even offer patients the privacy of having doors on their rooms. Why the hell was I paying such an enormous amount of money for a treatment program that couldn’t even afford doors?
“You can earn a room with a door once you’ve finished detoxing and attended groups as scheduled. Your therapist and doctor will recommend the room change when they feel you can be safe.”
“What the hell!”
I turned and went back into my room and threw my suitcase off the bed and onto the floor. That action felt so good that I continued to grab anything I could and throw it around the room. I threw the blankets. I threw the pillows. Then, I grabbed the weird, orb-shaped lamp that didn’t have a cord and threw that. I had expected it to break, but instead, it bounced off the ground and made a loud thud.
“Everything all right in here?” the nurse came and asked as she stood in the doorway.
“What the hell is that made of?”
“It’s just a plastic, battery-powered lamp. It’s not breakable.”
“Well, that’s shitty.”
She laughed and came in to help me pick up the mess I had made. It was nice of her, so I didn’t yell at her or continue my little tirade. In fact, I started to feel pretty shitty for throwing a tantrum at all. This was exactly the person I didn’t want to be.
“What’s your name?” I asked as we started to make the bed.
“Kaitlin.”
“You are friends with the redheaded nurse?”
“She’s not a nurse. Cassidy is a technician on the unit.”
“What’s that mean?”
“She helps the nurses, she helps the patients, and she’s a nice person. Don’t be an ass to her or I’ll kick your ass.”
“Ha, all right then.”
This Kaitlin girl was a woman I could get along with. I appreciated anyone who didn’t give me bullshit. My whole life was filled with people telling me what I wanted to hear and pretty much sucking up to me all the time. There were very few people that I could trust to tell me the truth.
As we finished putting my room back together, Kaitlin left me alone to contemplate what I had done. The stark walls and calmness in the building weren’t at all what I was used to being around. It didn’t make me feel calm at all – in fact, I felt anything but calm. My life had been mine for way too long to feel comfortable giving up everything to strangers.
My anxiety was reeling, and I felt like I could hardly catch my breath. Why the hell I had decided to check into a damn treatment center was beyond what I could figure out. I didn’t care that much about what other people thought of me. I had just sold a $200-million-dollar tech company; I deserved to party and have some fun.
It wasn’t like Spencer hadn’t been partying, too. He had come to a couple of the same events I had, and although he left earlier than I did, he had been drinking more than me by far. It was the drugs that had him worried about me. But it wasn’t like I was snorting my life away. A couple of lines here or there, a couple joints to calm my nerves and help me sleep, a couple drinks to wash it all down. I wasn’t a druggie…I was just a young guy celebrating the amazing life I had.
Two days prior had been the end of the fun, though. After a full night of partying, I had decided to go for a swim in my new pool. Well, it wasn’t just a new pool; I had purchased another mansion in the hills of San Francisco. Spencer was angry that I had spent so much money and said I wasn’t thinking and was being irresponsible. We fought. He left. I went swimming.
It was my money, and if I didn’t like my first home, I had every right to buy a new one. It was my money. We split the sale 50/50, and Spencer had done nothing but boring things with his money, and I was sure that he was just jealous that I had been having fun with mine. Parties, drinking, women, and drugs had been the bulk of my money, so really, the idea that I had bought some more real estate should have been a relief. But Spencer was pissed off, I had been pissed off, and the whole night got totally out of control.
The next thing I knew, I woke up in the hospital with a tube down my throat. Spencer was by my side. He was a good friend; I couldn’t deny that. He was angry as hell with me, but he still stayed there with me.
There weren’t many people in my life that I could call friends. Even fewer who cared about where I had ended that night.
“You’re going to kill yourself,” he had said to me.
It wasn’t his words as much as it was the single tear that fell from his cheek. My family didn’t even care about me as much as that man did. We had been friends since college and more like brothers than I was with my own flesh and blood. So, I agreed to the damn treatment center. Not for me, but for him. So that I could show him I had control over myself and what I was doing.
I promised him sixty days in that damn facility though. That didn’t at all seem possible to me. Sure, it was a comfortable place to be. There was a spa, swimming, a workout gym, and it was in the Colorado mountains. But I already felt like I was going crazy from the silence and the rules. I really wasn’t sure I was going to be able to make it very much longer than the first week.
For the rest of the evening, I lay in my bed and stared up at the ceiling. I was tired, but I couldn’t sleep. I was restless, but I didn’t want to leave my room. This place didn’t feel like home. Not that I really knew what a home felt like.
“Are you hungry?” Cassidy asked as she looked in the doorway.
“Nope.”
“I’m getting ready to go home for the eve
ning. I’ll see you tomorrow. Try to get up and eat something in the morning. It will help you feel better. And drink lots of water to combat the withdrawals.”
“I’ll be all right. I don’t use that much. Shouldn’t have too bad of withdrawals. Have a good night.”
Even as I said the words, I didn’t believe them. The truth was that I had brought the alcohol and drugs with me because I knew the withdrawals could be bad. After two days in the hospital from nearly drowning, I had started into full-blown withdrawals. I convinced them that I was feeling well enough to leave, but the first thing I did while I was packing to come to rehab was drink and snort a line. Even on the damn plane to Aspen, I used; I had to make sure I got one last hit in before I arrived.
By morning, I would be nauseous, sweating, and agitated. But I had a plan. I would stick to my room. Sleep as much as possible. Drink water and just hunker down and make it through the next two to three days. Everything would be better once I made it through the initial days.
Or at least that was what I expected. I really didn’t have that much experience because I always went back to using before I could manage to get off of everything.
Sure, I had gotten off of the drugs before – well, the cocaine at least. While my company was in its prime, I was just smoking marijuana at night to sleep and partying on the weekends. I had a full week of working and not much time for partying at all. But after the company sold, I found myself with as much time as I wanted on my hands. I had so much money, there wasn’t a need to work ever again if I didn’t want to. But I had nothing to do with myself.
Spencer seemed to handle the freedom of our company sale a little better than I did. Right away, he was out looking for the next thing we could get into. He still came out to party on the weekends, but all week, he stayed busy with business meetings and his family. At least he had a family who loved him; I couldn’t say as much. He had a lot more control over his life than I did, but he wasn’t having nearly as much fun as I was.
After losing my mother when I was younger, I just never felt like I belonged with my father or brother. They ran the family mortuary business and had planned on me coming in to help them. So, when I went off to college, they put up with it but didn’t like it.
Slowly, as the first year went by, my father seemed to get more and more agitated with me when I would talk to him. So, I stopped talking to him. Eventually, we had a huge argument over some unknown thing, and my father said he didn’t know who I was. After that, our conversations were minimal.
My father expected I would fail and come running home to him. But I didn’t fail. I got into California Polytechnic State University, one of the best and most innovative schools on the West Coast. I met Spencer, and together we came up with a new smart phone app that made selling tickets to concerts easier than buying online. When Ticketmaster bought us out for a cool $400 million, we split the funds and that was that.
My father hadn’t talked to me in over two years and my brother had barely managed a phone call on my birthday. I wasn’t about to tell them about all of my success. If they couldn’t be there for me when I was a simple, college student, I didn’t need them now that I was rich.
But, inevitably, the news had gotten back to them. Newspaper articles in national papers had been shared by family and friends. When my brother called me one afternoon, I was actually excited to see his number pop up, until he started yelling.
“You couldn’t even be bothered to tell us?”
“Tell you what?” I had played stupid.
“That you are rich now.”
“I’m not rich.”
“You’re a selfish asshole,” Heath had yelled into my ear. “You haven’t been home to see Dad in years and now you have tons of money and no excuses, but you still won’t come. You deserve to live a lonely and boring life.”
When we hung up, his words had lingered in my mind, and it was the first time I threw a giant party.
Spending thousands of dollars on a party seemed like the right thing to do. I invited my friends from work, told them they could invite their friends too, and before I knew it, my house party was so outrageous that it was covered by the entertainment news in the area.
Then I was famous. At least in San Francisco. The pretty women started to show up at the parties, and with pretty ladies came a whole new level of party. I bought more and more liquor. I tried my first line of cocaine.
Things got out of control really quickly and I stopped thinking about or calling my family at all. If they wanted to disown me with their behavior, I was fine with that. I didn’t need them. I hadn’t even talked to them more than a half-dozen times in the previous five years. I was over it; I could do it alone.
Chapter Three
Cassidy
“How was work?” my mom asked when I got home.
“The usual.”
“You know, we need help with the ski rental area. You could always come do that if it’s too depressing out there at the rehab place.”
“It’s not depressing, Mom. I like it there.”
“Honey, with your past, it just seems like you might want to stay away from people who are like that,” my father added.
They meant well. I knew they loved me and were only worried that I might get mixed up with a bad crowd of people again. But it wasn’t going to happen. I loved my new, sober lifestyle, and I had so many dreams for my future that certainly wouldn’t happen if I went back to drinking.
By the same token, I wasn’t about to go work at the ski resort my parents managed. I needed time away from them each day. Even a loving family could get annoying if you were around them constantly.
I liked working at Paradise Peak. It wasn’t anything like the state-run facility that I had done my treatment in, but the principles of the place were the same. Get yourself centered and make your own wellbeing a priority. I tried not to judge the people who came to Paradise Peak because they were used to having money and nice things.
Coming to Paradise Peak took a lot of guts for someone who had the money to buy anything they wanted. And in some respects, I thought it was probably harder for them to be in rehab than it was for me. I imagined that having a lot of money might actually complicate someone’s life more than being poor did.
I didn’t have newspapers reporting on my every move. I didn’t have staff that depended on me for their salary and family’s wellbeing. A celebrity, rock star, or even rich kid all had more people counting on them than I did, and many times, less people who cared if they did well.
In the last two years, I had seen some pretty skuzzy managers who even leaked the location where their celebrity client was. They wanted the publicity for them. The managers wanted to keep their celebrity clients in the news. It wasn’t a good way to live, that was for sure.
At least when I went through treatment, I had my family by my side. They were angry with me for getting myself into the situation I was in. But they loved me, and I saw that in their eyes from the moment they visited me.
Treatment would always be a place where you had to take care of yourself and not worry about others. But it was a lot easier to take care of yourself when you knew that people outside of those walls loved and cared about you. I couldn’t imagine trying to get sober and not having anyone outside of treatment that was rooting you on.
“Whatever works for Cassidy is fine, Bob,” my mother said.
“Honey, you know I just worry about you. I don’t know what I’d do if anything ever happened to you.”
“I know, Daddy. But I’m taking care of myself now. Nothing will happen to me.”
My father worried about me like crazy, but I couldn’t fault him for that. I couldn’t fault my mother for being over protective, either. I had caused them to worry so much in my adult years. Even though I had gotten my life back together in the last two years, the old wounds were still very fresh for them.
Alcohol was a difficult substance for families to deal with. It was a legal substance that both my par
ents partook in on occasional events. It wasn’t something that seemed dangerous to have around the house. But I soon showed them. An addict can flip a family upside down and only truly strong families make it to the other side of the mess.
“Are you going to your meeting tonight?” Dad asked.
“Oh, crap. Is it eight o’clock already?”
I jumped up and dashed to my car so I could make it to my AA meeting at the local church. Alcoholics Anonymous was one of the key ways I had stayed sober for the last two years. The people at my meetings were all going through the same things as I had, and we supported each other along our journeys.
Alcoholics Anonymous wasn’t something I had ever thought I would do. Even while I was going through treatment, I had refused to attend the meetings we had at our facility. But as soon as I got home, I realized I needed more help than my family was able to provide. They loved me. They unconditionally loved me, but that didn’t mean they understood what it was like to be an alcoholic. I had to find people to talk to, and eventually, that landed me at AA meetings.
“Nice of you to join us, Cassidy,” Krysta, the head of our local AA meeting, said as I burst through the door about ten minutes late.
“Better late than never,” I said with a smile.
“Very true. We are glad you made it.”
My Monday night meeting was by far my favorite. It seemed to have a lot more people in it and we all had gone through so much together. Many of the people there had been sober for years longer than I had. But there were new people there, as well. Monday was a poplar meeting for people who only came to one meeting a week. They could come, get their plan for the week, and focus on their sobriety.
I preferred to go to two or three meetings a week, but I was fairly new at the sobriety thing and really wanted to make sure I was on the right path. I couldn’t afford to fall off the wagon. I had a great job, my family was supportive, and I was applying to colleges. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew I wanted to go to college and get my degree.