Crystal Clean

by Kimberly Wollenburg

  The alcoholics span the generations, and even the ones in the late stages don’t have any obvious give away, unless their liver is on its way out and then their skin and the whites of their eyes have turned yellow.

  “Okay, ladies,” a counselor says. “Let’s get started. Everyone sit on the floor, back against that wall.” We go down the line saying our names and identifying our addictions, then the facilitator begins.

  “This group is a little different. It’s called ‘desensitization.’ Many of you, at one time or another, will come into contact with your drug of choice. It can happen when you least expect it. A party, maybe. Or on a date. Certainly those of you who are alcoholics will encounter alcohol every time you go to a store. There are triggers besides the actual drug, too. Paraphernalia, like glass, baggies, syringes, medication bottles and wine glasses can all trigger cravings. You need to anticipate triggers so you can avoid them or, if that’s not possible, think about what you will do before it happens so you’re not blindsided.”

  Another counselor wheels in a metal cart with a white cloth that hides whatever is under it. “On this cart are actual drugs, alcohol and paraphernalia. Each of you will come up here to touch and hold the things related to your addiction.” She whips away the cloth, and sure as hell, there’s a smorgasbord of temptation. “What the hell is wrong with these people?” I think and I stand up and walk out of the classroom.

  Outside, I’m pacing around the gazebo that’s the designated smoking area. This is wrong, all wrong. I don’t need to see a bag of meth and a glass pipe right now. I need help with my depression. I walk in circles around the little gazebo, pissed off and confused.

  At lunch, my first meal here, I go through the cafeteria-style line. I’m surprised at how good the food is. Everything is homemade and there are always two or three choices of entrée and a big fresh salad bar. The cooks are friendly and quick to customize an order if they can. While I’m eating, Dorothy comes to my table and says she wants to see me as soon as I’m finished.

  I knock softly on the open door to her office. “Come on in, Kimberly and close the door.” I sit down in the chair next to her desk.

  “It’s Kim,” I tell her.

  “All right, Kim, let’s talk about today. You are required to attend all the groups and meetings. You can’t just leave in the middle. If you’re here just to avoid your legal problems, we don’t want you here. Maybe you should go to jail. You can sleep all you want there. The Walker Center is for people who take their recovery seriously and from I’ve seen and heard, all you want to do is sleep.” I start to cry and I’m angry at myself because I don’t want her to see she’s gotten to me. “And I think your crying all the time is because it’s your way of avoiding anything you find unpleasant. I think you use it as a way to control people.”

  Fuck you! You don’t know a Goddamn thing about me, bitch. How is my crying a way to control people? I hate crying all the time. I hate you, sitting there with your perfect hair and perfect clothes, judging me. Treating me like a child. I hate you, and I hate this place!

  “What do you think? Do you want to leave?”

  I’m crying and I feel embarrassed, ashamed and pissed off. “Dorothy, maybe this isn’t the place for me. I chose this program specifically because it teats dual-diagnosis but no one is helping me with my depression at all.” I’ve conveniently forgotten that I’ve only been awake here for half a day, so I’m feeling self-righteous. “And I’m not here to avoid my legal problems either! I’m the one who sought treatment. I don’t even have sentencing until a week after I get out of here.”

  “Do you know how much money your parents have paid for you to be here?”

  Goddamn it, how fucking old am I? Stop it. Stop treating me like a child.

  “Yes.” All I can think is that I want to leave her office and go to bed. I’m so angry and as usual, I have nowhere to put that anger. I have to sit there and take it. My head hurts and I’m doing that wringing thing with my hands - interlacing my fingers and twisting them grotesquely. I feel so hot - like my insides are boiling, creating steam that’s oozing out my pores.

  “Well, why don’t you give it some thought today and let me know what you decide by tomorrow. In the meantime, you are to attend and fully participate in all meetings and activities.” She picks up a pen and opens a file that’s not mine. She’s dismissed me.

  That bitch! That fucking June Cleaver, prim and proper, stupid, gray-haired bitch. How can she talk to me like that? Maybe I don’t belong here. What I really need is someone to help me with my depression. Maybe I belong in a mental hospital.

  I’m sullen the rest of the day, and although I participate in all the groups, I’m stoic and aloof. That evening, I write my journal entry:

  “Ok. I tried to tell you that I’m concerned that this is not the appropriate place for me. Your only response was that if I’m only doing this to avoid my legal problems then maybe I should just go to jail because I can sleep all I want there.

  I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that it’s possible I didn’t explain well enough. I am not here because I have to be. I am not here to avoid ANYTHING, and yes, I know exactly how much this is costing my parents.

  I – ME – MYSELF - ALONE (as usual) am the one who decided to seek treatment. I am the one who made the decision to expose myself by asking for help.

  Until about three or four weeks ago, no one knew about my meth use and it was easy to downplay my arrest because of the circumstances of it. If I had continued to keep everything to myself, I most likely would have received probation, which is probably what I’ll get when I’m done here.

  I want help. I have been saying all along that I’m terrified that if I don’t get help - the right kind of help - that I do not want to continue to live. That’s why I specifically searched for a program that would treat dual diagnosis. I understand that I became addicted to meth and that I need treatment for this. I was under the impression, however, that my depression would be addressed here as well.

  When I question the appropriateness of this program for me at this time, it is not that I’m trying to take the easy way out. It’s that I’m desperately crying out for help while I can still cry. I’m thirty-eight years old, and I’m so tired of feeling the way I do. I’m just wondering if this is the best use of my parents’ money. Maybe I should be in a psychiatric hospital.

  I’m not sleeping because I’m lazy. I’m not crying because I’m trying to get out of doing things. I CAN’T HELP IT AND I’M ASKING FOR HELP I CAN’T HELP IT AND I’M ASKING FOR HELP I’M ASKING FOR HELP PLEASE HELP ME PLEASE HELP ME PLEASE HELP ME PLEASE HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE please.”

  I’m crying, as usual, while I write, and I’m just so damn tired. I put my journal in Dorothy’s box outside her office and am in bed, asleep, at 8:30.

  After Sunday breakfast (bacon and eggs cooked to order, French toast, homemade biscuits, hash browns,) I return to my room to find my journal on my bed. Dorothy has written:

  “I am here to help you. But I won’t work harder than you do. I have been where you are. It would be a blessing for me to guide you through the darkness to the light.”

  I read those sentences again, then sit and stare at them for a few minutes, trying to figure out how I feel. Part of me wonders if the scene in her office yesterday was real. Did she say those things to piss me off intentionally? Did she want me to get mad at her as some kind of confrontational therapy thing? I decide that I don’t know, and I’m too tired to try to sort out head games, if that’s what’s going on.

  I reread the last line of her comment, “It would be a blessing for me to guide you through the darkness to the light.” I feel deflated. All the emotion that went into my journal entry and what I get back is rhetoric? She should have written, “We’re glad you’re here.” It would have saved her some ink.

  I remember feeling numb reading her comments. I was hoping for more. I was hoping she would
take the time to honestly respond to what I wrote, but I felt exactly the way I did when I wrote the letter to Allan and got no reaction. In both cases, I spent time figuring out exactly what I wanted to say. I felt like I took a risk letting each of them see inside me a little bit, and in both cases, I was ignored.

  Chapter 24

  Sundays are visitation days, but I haven’t been here long enough even to have phone privileges, so I’m shocked when I hear my name on the loudspeaker. For a second I hope it’s Allan, but I’m thrilled to see my parents and Andy. “Mom!” he yells, running down the hall toward me in his funny little Down syndrome way. I catch him in my arms just as he gets close, and he wraps his arms around me tight.

  “Hey, bug! How are you? I’ve missed you so much.” We hug for a minute, then he backs away, smiling at me. His beautiful blue eyes are alive with his excitement.

  “Essah Mom, ennah hospital?”

  “Yep. I’m so happy to see you, sweetheart.”

  Mom and Dad both have tears in their eyes and take turns hugging me.

  “Okay, Mom,” Andy says, taking my hand. “Ess go home.”

  “Oh honey, I can’t yet. Mom has to get better first.”

  I take them on a short tour showing them the cafeteria, lounges, auditorium and the smoking area outside. Visitors aren’t allowed in our rooms. Not even spouses. At the gazebo, we smoke and talk a little and I introduce my family to a couple of the women. Visitation is three hours long. We’re half an hour into it; we’ve done the pleasant chitchat thing and now there’s just awkwardness. We don’t know what to do. I take them into one of the empty lounges, and we sit down.

  “I don’t know if this is the right place for me,” I begin. “No one’s even addressed my depression yet and that’s one of the reasons I specifically chose this place.” I can NOT tell my mother about sleeping for four days. All hell will break loose. They don’t know about detox and I think they’ll be disgusted if they know how bad my meth problem really is.

  “Have you talked to your counselor about it?” Mom asks.

  “No. She doesn’t even have time for me. I’ve only seen her twice. Once on the first day just to go over the rules, and then yesterday for a few minutes, but she didn’t even ask about my depression. Maybe I should be in a mental hospital.”

  “Kimbo, you need to talk to her and ask to see the doctor,” my dad says. “You need to get as much out of this place as you can, right?”

  “I know, I know, but...” the door opens and Dorothy comes in all smiles and graciousness, introducing herself to my family.

  “I’m Dorothy, Kim’s counselor,” she says, extending her hand to my father. “It’s so nice to meet you all. Has Kim been telling you what’s going on?”

  “She’s been telling us she hasn’t spoken with anyone yet about her depression,” Mom says. “We were under the impression that she would get help for that.”

  Dorothy looks at me with a ‘gotcha’ look. I know what’s coming and I feel nauseated. Why did she have to show up? Go away! I think. No one asked you to come in here.

  “We haven’t had a chance to talk about her depression or do much of anything,” Dorothy tells them. “Kim’s been sleeping all week.”

  “I have not been sleeping all week.” My parents are both looking at me with shocked expressions. I’m starting to feel that hot feeling in my stomach.

  “When did you get up?” Dorothy asks me.

  “Yesterday morning.”

  “What?” my mom says sounding shocked. “What do you mean you’ve been sleeping all this time?” I don’t say anything. I cross my arms in front of me and stare at the floor. I was right. My parents don’t understand. They don’t know about detox. I decide I’m mad at them for this.

  “Kim and I had a little talk yesterday, and I’m not sure this is the right place for her. I told her that if all she wants to do is sleep, she should just go to jail.” She’s saying this in a cheery, condescending voice - the way people talk around little kids.

  “Dorothy, I think Kim has been using sleep to avoid life for a long time now,” Mom says.

  She knows I’ve been sleeping a lot lately, because that’s what I’ve told her. I spent the last few weeks lying in bed, getting high and dozing. Also, when I did sleep, it was in the daytime because I worked at night writing bonds. That’s why I was always asleep when she called. Or was it? I couldn’t remember what I’d told her when. Things are getting confusing.

  “I agree,” says Dorothy. “It seems to me that she’s used sleep as an escape - much like a drug - and that her excessive crying has been her way of manipulating people.”

  I stand up. “I told you! I’m not trying to manipulate anyone. I can’t help my crying. Do you think I want to be like this? I hate it that I cry all the time. It’s embarrassing!” I’m angry that they’re talking about me in front of me as if I were a child. This woman doesn’t even know me. How the hell does she know what I’m like? I’m angry about everything and I just want to be left alone.

  “Why don’t you take some time as a family,” Dorothy says sweetly, “and discuss whether or not Kim should stay here. Meet me in my office in half an hour.”

  I’m livid. Not wanting to be here is one thing, but someone telling me I can’t be is another. I feel like a child who isn’t allowed to make decisions for herself. What the hell have I done that’s so bad it warrants me being kicked out of rehab?

  We go the cafeteria. Everyone’s quiet for a few minutes. I feel my parent’s sorrow and disappointment, and I know I’m the source.

  “Kimbo,” my father says, “you need to be here. What the hell are you doing? Do you want to go to jail?”

  Why does everyone keep talking about jail? No one ordered me to come here. It’s not as if my sentencing is contingent upon my success or failure at rehab. The judge may look favorably on my decision, but I wasn’t thinking about that when I started this. Now, everyone’s talking like it’s either rehab or prison, and that’s not the case.

  “No! I can’t help sleeping. I’m tired all the time. If you weren’t tired could you make yourself sleep? Jesus! Dorothy just hates me and no one’s doing anything to help me.” I know I’m acting like a spoiled brat, but I don’t care. I feel cornered and desperate, like an animal in a cage. I have no control, and it’s pissing me off.

  My mom looks at my dad and then at me. “I think that if you want to stay here, it’s up to you, Kimberly. But if you’re going to stay here, you need to get with the program and start participating. Dorothy doesn’t hate you. The people here are trying to help you, but you need to try to help yourself, too. This isn’t a one way street.”

  I’m staring at the Formica table, seething because I feel ganged up on. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to have to do the work involved with getting sober. I think about how much easier it would be just to get high and stay high forever. Fuck everyone else. None of them understands how shitty I feel.

  Then I look at Andy sitting there drinking his juice. “Come here, bug.” He sits on my lap and wraps his arms around my neck. I rest my head on his chest and close my eyes. I miss him so much, and I want to be there for him. I want to be the mother he deserves. I concede.

  “Fine. I’ll try harder,” I say, my eyes still closed. All I care about is my son who doesn’t deserve any of this. He shouldn’t have to be driven two hours to a hospital to visit his mother.

  Thirty minutes later, we’re all sitting in Dorothy’s office. “Did you have some time to talk?” she asks us. I’m sitting there with my arms crossed and head down fuming with rage and embarrassment and trying not to jiggle my leg up and down.

  “We have,” says Mom. “Kim has agreed to have a better attitude and to participate in her recovery.”

  “Dorothy, we want what’s best for her,” says Dad. “We think this is the best place if she can put the past week behind her and get to work here.”

  “Well,” says Dorothy, “I think that if Kim can tell us what’s expected of her.
..Kim, can you tell us?”

  Everyone’s looking at me and there’s no way out. I have to talk. I have to answer her stupid question if I want to stay here. I take a deep breath and begin.

  “I need to attend all the classes and lectures,” I say through clenched teeth. “I have to be up showered and dressed with my bed made by 7:30 every morning, and I have to eat breakfast. I have to participate and I can’t leave any sessions.”

  Dorothy looks at my parents, smiling that high and mighty smile of hers. “Well, I think she’s clear about what’s expected and as long as she can live up to these rules, I think she’ll do just fine here.”

  They’re still talking about me in front of me; treating me like a baby, and when Dorothy is finished with us, Mom, Dad, Andy and I sit in the cafeteria again for a few minutes. Other than seeing Andy, I wish they hadn’t come. It’s been an afternoon of humiliation. I just want everyone to leave me alone.

  My parents tell me they’re not mad at me. They tell me they know how hard this is for me and they’re proud of me. They’re proud of me. Of course they are. I’ve decided to be a good girl.

  The only time I soften is when I tell Andy goodbye and sing him our song. I stand at the window and watch them drive away. I feel empty. I take a nap for the remainder of visitation. It’s okay to sleep if you don’t have visitors so I take advantage of this luxury. When I wake up just before dinner, I’m calm. I’ve resolved to do whatever it takes to excel at rehab. I’m going to shake off the past few days and give myself do-overs. I will make everyone proud of me.