“Okay, no problem.” I smile and nod.
“So. Your drug of choice is meth. Do you think that when you get done here you’ll be able to drink alcohol?”
This is a little out of left field, I think, but I tell her yes. I’m not an alcoholic. She smiles and scribbles on the legal pad she’s been taking notes on.
“The first couple of days you’re here, we give you a lot of latitude. You don’t have to go to classes or attend A.A. meetings unless you feel up to it. After that, though, I expect full participation. I’m strict with my people. I expect you to be showered and dressed with your bed made by seven-thirty every morning. I expect you to turn in your daily journal on your way to breakfast and I expect you to eat complete meals – especially at breakfast. You do that, follow the rules and participate in your recovery and you’ll do just fine.” She stands up to dismiss me. “I’m glad you’re here!” I’m going to puke if I hear that one more time. I try to remember reading anything about Jim Jones having a mantra. I’m almost certain the Moonies did.
The rules don’t seem too difficult. I’m not sure I like being told how to eat, but I assume that’s a rule that can probably be bent. I’ve always been a “good girl,” up until recently, that is, and have never had problems with authority figures. In my experience, those of us who complete our homework on time and don’t cause problems, so to speak, are allowed to bend the rules a little.
After the others are finished with lunch, Angie, a meth addict she tells me, takes me on a tour of the building and grounds. She doesn’t need to tell me her thing is meth. I can tell by looking at her. Her face is covered in sores and she’s twitchy in both speech and mannerisms. In other words, she’s nothing like me.
Back in my room, I start working on the papers Dorothy gave me. She expects these to be done by tomorrow afternoon and I have to write a journal entry, which is due in the morning. I want to get all of this done and out of the way so I can just relax tonight. I have no intention of going to the A.A. meeting with the other women at some church in town.
After dinner, when everyone else is gone, I get back to work. I’m in my nightgown and robe and I need to hurry and get my homework done because I’m starting to fade. I stand up and walk around the room a lot trying to keep myself awake. I want to get this done before I go to sleep. I want to be the alpha rehabber. A couple of times a counselor comes in and asks me if I’m okay. Of course, I tell them. I just want to get this done before morning. I want to do a good job. I want people to think I’m a good girl. I write my first journal entry.
“I know you explained to me that there is a specific format you want me to use for journal writing, but after filling out the other forms, I don’t recall exactly what you want, so I’m going to punt.
This has been a very long and emotional day for me. I’ve never been to any kind of treatment before and have only in the past few weeks even admitted to anyone - including myself - that I have a problem. This - coming to inpatient rehab - was solely my idea. Frankly, I never thought it could actually happen. I didn’t have the money. I am still shocked that my parents are paying for it and were even willing, apparently, to pay for other programs I looked into that were three or four times the cost of treatment here.
When they dropped me off today, they told me they are proud of me for doing this. I feel so guilty - like I am selfish to have even looked into something I can’t afford, let alone burden them with the truth about my drug use.
When I look back, though, I remember a couple of times over many years I’ve lived with this huge secret, wishing and wanting more than anything for someone to take me away and take care of me. I never thought it would actually happen.
Now I’m afraid to hope that this is that wish coming true and I’m ashamed of being weak enough to have ever wanted it in the first place. Why did I have to go and shatter the illusion? What if this doesn’t work? Right now I can think of so many better ways to spend ten thousand dollars. I feel like a bad girl. I feel weak and needy and pathetic. I wish I were strong. I wish I could just disappear.”
I can’t keep my eyes open and I barely finish the packet of work when I fall into bed. It’s Tuesday night. My first night in rehab.
I don’t wake up until Saturday morning.
Chapter 23
I have flashes of someone taking my vital signs and waking me to drink water or tea. I remember going to the bathroom a couple of times, but the images are hazy. I sit up in my bed. It’s almost nine in the morning so I’ve missed breakfast and meditation. The dorm is silent so I guess everyone must be in some group session.
I found out later that several things contributed to my hibernation. I was sleeping hard and no one could wake me, so Dorothy gave permission for me to sleep all day Wednesday with the condition that I begin participating on Thursday morning. Her days off happen to be Thursday and Friday, so she assumed that’s what happened. When she got back to work on Saturday to find me still sleeping, she wasn’t happy. I don’t know what went on between her and the staff, but what I interpreted as anger was her being tough with me. I needed to start participating and following the rules. She wanted me to know I wasn’t on vacation. Sleep time was over. It was time to work.
According to the other women who shared the room with me, the dorm staff tried to wake me several times, but I was so incoherent and lethargic there wasn’t much they could do. Betsy, my alcoholic roommate and a nurse in the real world, was the one who insisted on taking my vitals. It frightened her how deep I was sleeping. She couldn’t tell if I was breathing. She’s also the one who made sure I took liquids during my little hiatus. So the staff were trying to do the best they could with this lump of a person, and all I could do was sleep, so there was certainly no effort on my part. Regardless, Dorothy was pissed, probably because I’d missed so many classes, lectures and activities meant to help me get sober. In other words, I was wasting precious time.
I feel awful. I’m weak and it’s like there’s some kind of thin film on my eyeballs, so it’s difficult to focus. I get up to go to the bathroom and I feel like a slug dragging itself through primordial ooze. When I come out, Dorothy is standing by my bed, and she’s pissed. I’m trying to look at her, but my eyes hurt when I try to focus. The morning sun stabbing through the blinds doesn’t help.
“What are you doing, Kimberly? I’m told you’ve been sleeping for four days.”
What does she mean what am I doing? This isn’t my fault. Besides, she’s just answered her own question. I hate rhetorical questions and I hate the name Kimberly. It was my “in trouble” name when I was a little girl.
“When I left Wednesday night for my two days off, I told the day managers to make sure you were up and participating on Thursday morning. Now I come back to work to find you’ve been sleeping all this time.”
I stare at the carpet and concentrate on standing. I feel like I’m going to crumple to the floor at any second, not only because I’m so weak, but because I’m embarrassed. I’m in trouble and I’m a bad girl.
Alcoholics and addicts get stuck, emotionally, at the age they were when they started using. I heard this at rehab and I’ve heard it from my therapists. It makes sense to me, and it explains a lot of my behavior at this time in my life. I started smoking pot and drinking when I was fourteen and that’s where my emotional growth stopped. I think about the foster daughters I had who were at that age and how they drove me nuts. (No one understands me. Why me? Why can’t I? It’s not fair. You can’t make me. WHATever!) Then I think of myself during my meth addiction and early sobriety. Yep. That was me: a fourteen year old in a thirty-eight year old woman’s body. I’m glad I wasn’t my counselor.
“I want you to get showered and dressed, and I expect you to be at the 10:00 group.” Her voice is edgy. I know she’s mad at me and when she leaves, I can’t keep the tears from spilling down my face, soaking my nightgown. I feel stupid and humiliated. I am not the alpha rehabber and this embarrasses me.
I get ready, but I�
��m so disoriented and shaky that it takes me the full hour to do the bare minimum: shower and dress, hair barely blown dry and no makeup. Fuck it, I figure. I’ll just cry it all off anyway.
The next group, my first, is about forgiving ourselves. We’re sitting, twelve other women and I, in a circle of chairs with a counselor. I can barely keep my eyes open and I’m nodding toward sleep. The room is fluorescent bright, the chairs unforgiving, and in spite of that, it’s a struggle to stay awake. I’m still having trouble focusing my eyes. All I can think is, “I don’t want to be here. Run! Run away!” I look at the carpet, worn and frayed from years of absorbing the pain and sorrow of addicts, to avoid eye contact with anyone.
“Part of recovery,” the counselor begins, “is forgiving yourself. It’s a huge part, in fact, and today we’re going to work on that.” She pulls out a hand mirror. “I want you to share something with the group that you feel you can’t forgive yourself for, and when you’re done, I want you to look in the mirror and say, ‘I love and forgive myself.’”
What the hell is this? I’m panicking because there’s no way I can do this. Tell myself these things? I don’t love myself. The concept is completely foreign. As for looking in the mirror, that’s something I try to avoid. I think I’m ugly. On a good day, when I don’t think I’m quite ugly, but plain, I feel stupid allowing myself that concession. No one’s ever told me I’m pretty or even cute. The two times someone called me beautiful were during sex, so I don’t count those. In fact, if someone were to call me beautiful now, I would probably be pissed off because it’s so obviously bullshit. Even when I get my hair cut I have the stylist turn my chair around so I don’t have to see myself.
Amy starts the exercise. She’s a meth addict, too. She’s been here three weeks, she’s gained some weight, and her face is clearing up. She has shoulder length, light brown hair and doesn’t look like a tweaker. She looks bookish with her glasses on. The only thing that gives her away, really, is her healing face. She looks at the group as she speaks. “I’m Amy and I’m an addict.”
“Hi, Amy,” everyone says in unison. One of the rules is that anytime we talk, we have to say our name and identify our addiction.
“The thing that I’m most ashamed of is that I haven’t been there, haven’t been present I mean, for my daughter. She’s three years old and so beautiful and I’ve just spent so much time using, that I’ve ignored her a lot.” She starts crying. “I wasn’t mean to her or anything, but I would spend so much time in the bathroom getting high when I should have been playing with her.” Amy is sobbing now and I feel tightness in my chest. “I remember little fingers under the door, you know that space between the bottom of the door and the floor, wiggling, and her outside saying, ‘Mommy, what are you doing?’ And I would just keep telling her to go play and I’d be out in a minute. But it was never a minute. I’d spend hours in there getting high while she was in her room playing by herself.” She’s crying so hard now her words come out in loud, choking sobs and I start sobbing loudly - snot running, tears streaming, and I know my face is red because it feels so hot. I can’t stand this. I can’t stand this because I know exactly what she’s talking about, and I get this memory of…
“Andy.” He was sitting on his bed flapping his book as usual. “Do you want to go to PoJo’s?” He loves the video games at the arcade. Especially the Star Wars game.
“Yeah!” He scooted off his bed and turned off his television.
“Then run in and go to the bathroom, brush your teeth and get your shoes on. Mom will be ready in a minute.” He rarely wanted to do anything unless it was with Allan, who he adored, so I was delighted he said yes.
As always I couldn’t leave the house without getting high, so while Andy was getting ready, I did the same. I sat on my bed smoking as fast as I could - so fast I wasn’t really breathing other than when inhaling and exhaling the smoke. After a few minutes, he was standing in the doorway so I hid the pipe behind my back. “Awight. Et’s go! Yeah! Yeah!” He was smiling and jabbing the air with his fists.
“Okay, honey, just a minute. Go wash your glasses and I’ll be right there.”
A few minutes later, “Okay, Mom. I weady!”
“Okay, bug. I’ll be right there.” I could never get high enough, but I promised him, and I wanted to go play with him. Just one more bowl. That should do it.
Twenty minutes passed. “MOM! Are doing?”
“Honey, I’ll be right there! Just a minute!” I was yelling, pissed off, but not at him, at me. Jesus. What was wrong with me? Just one more bowl. He’s such a good boy. He waited for me.
Forty-five minutes and two bowls later, I wasn’t any higher so I bit the bullet, put everything away, and went out to the living room. There he was, sound asleep curled up in the rocking chair sucking his thumb.
I felt sick. What was wrong with me? I told myself I was a shitty mother, and I felt so ashamed, which made me sad, which, of course, made me need to get high. Instead of waking my son and taking him to play video games, I retreated to my room and continued smoking meth. “I should just go wake him up,” I thought. “Do this! Do this and don’t be a bad mom.” I was so filled with guilt and shame I couldn’t stand myself and I was actually glad that he had Down syndrome because I never had to deal with the questions of a typical, angry, hurt child. Having those thoughts made me feel even guiltier and I knew the only thing that would numb what I was feeling in my soul was to get high. An hour passed as I smoked two more bowls and then woke Andy. He was still excited and wanted to go and I was so angry with myself. I felt like scum. He forgave me. He always forgave me because I was his mom. I loved him so much, and I didn’t deserve him. I thought of other mothers who abandoned or abused or used in front of their children and I knew I wasn’t them. Deep down, though, very deep down, I knew I had abandoned my son. I didn’t spend enough time with him. He was so independent, and I knew I’d made him that way by not being with him as much as I should have been. Guilt and shame consumed me and I knew I could never tell anyone about how I felt or what I was doing because people would be appalled at what a shitty person I was. I was alone with the horror of being me.
Two more women take their turn with the “I love myself, mirror” thing, and I’m next. I’m still crying, my body heaving with sobs. I’m a mess and all this crying is making my eyes puffy. There’s dried snot on both sleeves and the front of my shirt. I’m so embarrassed to be doing this in front of these strangers, but I can’t help it. I want to slide down the chair and into the floor. I want to disappear.
“Kim, can you tell us why you’re crying?” a counselor asks. I’m starting to hyperventilate and now this touchy-feely woman wants me to talk? I shake my head. “Maybe this is too much for her on her first day,” she tells the others. “We’ll move on.”
I spend the rest of the group doubled over in embarrassment, exhausted as my tears quit coming. I fade out a couple of times, nodding in and out of sleep, and then the group is finally over. I head for the door but a counselor stops me. “We need to close group,” she says. Everyone stands in a tight circle with their arms around each other’s shoulders or waists and puts their right foot in front of them. I have no idea what they’re doing so I just follow along. My skin is crawling. I don’t want to be touched, and here I am in this tight circle of camaraderie that I want nothing to do with.
“The right foot represents,” they begin chanting, “the alcoholic and addict that still suffers and will die today. The circle represents what I cannot do alone, we can do together. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
I head for my room and flop on my bed, asleep instantly. Someone is ringing a bell outside in the hallway and yelling, “Five minutes ‘till group!” I drag myself off my bed and follow the others to another room. Betsy, the alcoholic nurse, walks with me. She’s artificially cheery.
“It will get better. You’ve missed a lot
, but we’re glad you’re here.” I want to claw her eyes out. I hate this place. I hate the other women who are obviously so fake, walking around, smiling, being glad I’m here. Shut the fuck up! You don’t even know me. If you knew what I’m thinking right now, you might not be so happy I’m here. Idiots.
In the classroom, one of the patients, Cheryl, is jumpy and talking a mile a minute. She’s pretty in a plain sort of way and has the thickest, longest brown hair I’ve ever seen. It hangs halfway down her back. I think she must be a meth addict the way she’s acting but I later learn she’s a late stage alcoholic. She’s forty, but looks like she’s barely thirty, which is the opposite of what I’ve seen in most addicts and alcoholics. They usually age prematurely. Cheryl gave up custody of her daughter and lives with her parents. She does nothing but sit in her childhood bedroom and drink all day. She’s been in the hospital numerous times for alcohol-induced seizures. If I met her on a street somewhere, I would never guess she’s an alcoholic.
Rene, tall and skinny with short, naturally curly hair is talking to a couple of other women. She’s almost as amped as Cheryl. She’s also an alcoholic and came here just a couple of days before me. This is her second time at the Walker Center. She’s back now just two weeks after her release because she immediately relapsed and nearly killed herself drinking. The day before she came back, a friend found her passed out in her living room. She smashed her head on a coffee table while she was having an alcohol-induced seizure. If no one had found her, she would be dead.
I look at all these women and it’s difficult imagining them wasted. The all seem normal to me aside from their nervous and neurotic tics. The tweakers are easiest to spot. Meth addicts find it hard to sit still. They’re always shaking their leg up and down, rocking back and forth, or chewing on their fingers or nails. The pill poppers and opiate addicts, users of heroin, Oxycontin, Vicadin, and all their candy colored sisters and cousins, are more difficult to identify. Unless they are initially detoxing, they seem normal. A little sad, maybe, but we all look sad. The party kids whose tastes run toward designer drugs like Ecstasy, GHB and MDMA are easy to spot. They’re young, usually in their twenties, and carry remnants of their “clubbing” with them: dyed hair cut at odd angles, colorful tattoos, tongue rings. They all look like they’ve just exited the thumping bass and psychedelic lights of last night’s rave, and the early morning sky has reached down and smacked them right in their multi-pierced faces.
Crystal Clean Page 21