Crystal Clean

by Kimberly Wollenburg

  I write in my journal:

  “I’m so grateful for my parents. I’m the luckiest mommy in the world to have my son. Today’s visit was exactly what I needed even though I didn’t know it. My mother told me that she told my grandmother and my aunt that I’m here. This is the first that anyone outside of my immediate family has been told anything about my drug use. It was a good feeling. That may sound strange, but it made me feel less ashamed, or rather, that my parents were less ashamed of me. I don’t know...maybe they just didn’t have a choice as to how to explain my absence.

  I want to address something here. I know I was pretty much a wreck today, and I know that I’ve been sleeping a lot etc., but I felt very uncomfortable around you (Dorothy) today. I feel like you were condescending in the way you spoke to me today, especially when my parents and I came to your office at the end of visitation and you had me repeat what was expected of me if I wanted to stay here. I know that you wanted everyone to know that I am clear about what’s expected of me, but I felt like you were treating me and speaking to me like a child. That made me feel angry and resentful. I hope this doesn’t make you mad at me, but I remembered you said on the first day we spoke that I should let you know things like this.”

  And the next morning:

  “Otherwise, I feel really good today. I’m still hesitant and a little uncertain, but I’m here...so here I go.

  Last night we read a chapter in the Big Book about figuring out our higher power. It was good because it sort of answered questions I had been having. Basically it was saying that I need to turn my life over to God or Buddha or whatever I can accept turning my life over to because I obviously can’t do this sobriety thing on my own. Not that I necessarily need to even name whatever it is right now. Not having to name it made it a little easier. Right now my higher power is the universe. At least it’s a start.”

  I spend time writing the entry. I want it to reflect my new outlook and show Dorothy that I’m “thinking recovery.” I addressed how I felt, only stating facts and leaving emotion out of it. I think this shows I’m working on my boundaries. I mentioned A.A. and the Big Book, the A.A. handbook, and let her know I’m working on finding my higher power. I am onboard. I’m part of the team. I’m playing ball. I’m in it to win it. I’m going to make Dorothy and my parents proud.

  And I’m not trying to be flippant. I really did feel charged up and ready to tackle and conquer. I felt like I was part of a team, along with my parents and Dorothy. I was going to give rehab my best effort and get all I could out of it. The problem was, I was no longer there for myself. I did all the activities, worked all the steps, became involved with the other women and truly felt as though I were immersed in the experience.

  Looking back, the signs were there. When my parents came to visit, I couldn’t wait to show them the drawings I’d done in art therapy. When my group won first place in the skit contest based on my idea, I almost knocked them over at the front door to show them my little paper “ribbon.” When the other women voted me to lead morning meditation for a week, I called them almost every night to talk about the songs I chose or the passages I read from a daily meditation book. I did the same with Dorothy.

  “Look at me. Look at what a good girl I am. I’m not causing problems; I’m getting so much out of this experience. I AM the alpha rehabber.”

  Chapter 25

  “I don’t get it.” Rene’s sucking on a hard candy, as usual. She used to weigh over three hundred pounds but her gastric bypass surgery and chronic alcoholism, has turned her into a rail. She’s exactly my height. Five ten. I envy her slim frame, but she’s always getting dizzy because of her low blood pressure or blood sugar, so she’s constantly sucking on hard candy. “You’re so smart, Kim. Why would you let that happen to you?”

  We’re sitting in the “co-dependency” group with the other women, and the topic is Allan and me.

  “What do you mean?” I ask. Inside, I’m cringing the way I always do when someone talks about me being smart. I hate it. I don’t know why, but it always makes me uncomfortable - as if I’m a fraud and everyone’s going to find out that I’m not smart, but stupid.

  It’s not just about being smart or not. I feel the same way about all compliments. My gut reaction is to think, “Bullshit,” and become suspicious of the motives of the person involved. I think they’re secretly making fun of me. It’s a knee jerk reaction that stems from what happened to me in grade school. It’s sad how much of my life was determined by the events of one year, and it pisses me off to think that I’ve wasted four decades vehemently rejecting and mistrusting people. I wish I absorbed people’s kindness instead of deflecting it.

  “I don’t understand why you’re still with this guy, and supporting him. You’re smart, pretty and funny as hell!” You’re so full of shit, Rene, I think. I’m not pretty, I’m ugly. I start wringing my hands. “You’ve got a great personality,” she continued. “I would think you could have any man you want, but you’re with this jackass who doesn’t love you, treats you like shit and owes you - how much did you say? Twenty grand?”

  The room is quiet and everyone is looking at me. This is the first time I’ve really talked about Allan and me. Now that it’s come out, everyone is horrified at my situation.

  “Yes,” I say, “a little over twenty thousand dollars.” I feel stupid and pathetic admitting this out loud to anyone, let alone twelve other alcoholics and addicts. It’s bad enough when I let myself think about it, but saying it out loud is embarrassing. More than that, it feels crippling and I don’t want to feel this way. Now I’m jiggling my leg up and down. Between that and my hand-wringing, I probably look autistic, but at least I’m not rocking. Yet. “It’s hard to understand, I know,” I say, “but it’s not like Allan’s a bad person. He’s not mean or malicious, he just...”

  “He just decided to sleep with a dog instead of you after everything you’ve done for him, huh?” I wish Rene would shut up. I hate it when people put me on the spot like this. “My God, woman, look at everything you’ve done for him: you’ve paid his back child support, paid off traffic tickets in other states and then paid for him to keep his license so he could continue to drive long haul. You supported him for almost a year when he lost his job and you’re still paying most of the bills, right?” I’m frowning and looking at my jiggling knee, wishing I hadn’t said a thing about any of this.

  “Okay,” I say. “But it’s not like I’m a saint. This summer I got his checking account number. I don’t remember how, exactly. I think maybe he played poker on my computer one night and I got it then. I don’t know. Anyway, I used it to gamble. Just fifty dollars at first. I don’t even know why. Maybe it was because I was mad at him. When I started playing, I was in kind of a daze and when I lost the money, I snapped out of it. I couldn’t believe I had done that. I felt really shitty, you know? I don’t steal, but I did from him, and I panicked. I didn’t want him to know what I’d done so I figured I would win and then deposit the winnings into his account and he wouldn’t be mad. I don’t know what was wrong with me.”

  “You were high,” the counselor reminded me.

  “Well, yeah, but my God! That’s no excuse. Anyway, I kept going. Fifty more, a hundred more, and I just panicked because it wasn’t working. I wasn’t winning. I ended up taking him for eighteen hundred dollars. I felt sick. I mean, what kind of person does that to someone? Especially a friend?”

  “What happened when he found out?” asked Betsy.

  “He came home from work one day with a three-page printout from the bank and just handed it to me without saying a word.” My hands are starting to hurt from wringing them so hard and I’m staring at my lap. I’m so ashamed. I still can’t believe I did that to him. I want to cry. “I owned up to it. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I mean, he could have had me arrested! I tried to explain what happened, but it sounded just as stupid as it does now, telling you guys.”

  “So what happened?” Betsy asked.

/>   “I paid him back.”

  “What?”

  “I paid him back. I was grateful I was able to. I was completely humiliated.”

  “Shit, you’re still paying most of the mortgage on his house and all the bills and you paid him what you owed him when he owes you all that money?” Betsy says.

  “What else was I supposed to do? He couldn’t afford to...I mean, he needed that money. I stole it from him and I paid it back. It’s different from what he owes me. Anyway, I told you, we refinanced in March so my name’s on the house now.”

  “Why the hell did you do that?” I don’t want to answer this because the answer makes me feel sick. Also because I don’t want these women to think badly of Allan. I guess I don’t want them to know that I’m so desperate not to lose this relationship that I’ll do anything, and have done anything, to keep it going. I am sick and twisted. I am an addict and my addiction is to more than just meth.

  “Well, remember when I said that last December I got tired of everything and decided I wasn’t paying the bills anymore?” They all nod. “So I told Allan that starting in January of this year, he was going to start paying the mortgage and utilities because that’s the only way I can see that he’ll ever even begin to pay me back. So he had the money for that month’s house payment, but he had an idea. There was an auto dealership that had gone out of business and was selling all these accessories. I don’t know what they were, like fins for the backs of cars, weather shield strips...I don’t know. Anyway, he bought them with the money that was for the house payment. He said he thought he could go around to other dealerships and sell the accessories at a profit. It didn’t work. He sold a few things, but most of it’s still in our garage. When our second foreclosure notice...”

  “His second foreclosure notice, you mean,” says Rene.

  “Okay, fine. His second foreclosure notice. When it came, he didn’t know what to do. There was no way to come up with the money we...he owed. Even I couldn’t put that much out at one time. It was like six grand. So he started to talk about selling the house and I...I don’t know, I couldn’t imagine being without him. I didn’t want us to go our separate ways. So it was my idea to refinance with me as the co-owner. He was all for it. He said it was the only way he was ever going to be able to get me any of what he owed me. So we refi’d. It was a pain in the ass, too. I had to come up with all these records to prove that I’d been working at least the past two years. They wanted W-2’s, paystubs...I had to look legit, on paper anyway. I had to have a valid way to explain where the money was coming from. The finance lady knew I was self-employed. I told her I wrote bail bonds and had a gift basket business, but I still had to have a way to show where the money was coming from.

  “Bail bond records were easy. Jill had me fill out this sheet every night that I worked showing which bonds I’d written, how much money I’d collected and my commission. Thank God I had the gift basket business registered legitimately. I had to show my books for the company, which I didn’t have. So I created a ledger and backdated entries so they showed I made enough money to qualify to buy a house. Which I did. Make enough money, I mean, but it had to be clean.”

  “So did Allan know where the money was coming from?” asks Cheryl.

  “Of course he did. He knew everything. He used to use meth, too, but he quit after our first year living together. Just quit one day. He said it was easy for him because he knew I always had it and he could have it anytime, so he didn’t have to jones,” I shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t get it, but that’s what he said, and I know he’s never touched it again.

  “So anyway, we refinanced but our payments went up instead of down. Allan had gotten some kind of special financing where the payments were fairly low the first year or two but then went up. So even though we refi’d, the payment was thirteen hundred dollars a month. Now that my name’s on the house...”

  “You’re trapped,” Rene said. I’m starting to cry a little and I know my face is flushed because it feels so hot.

  “Well, I don’t know if that’s the right word. Let’s just say that I have too much invested to just walk away. Even if that’s what I wanted to do.”

  “Let’s just say you’re trapped, okay?” says Betsy. She’s irritated. “Call it what it is. You’re stuck.” Now I’m really crying and I’ve gone from wringing my hands to wiping my tears.

  “Let’s hear from someone else now,” the counselor says. I’m relieved to be out of the spotlight. I don’t really hear anything for the rest of the session. I’m thinking about Allan...and the house...and that stupid fucking dog.

  It was unnerving, having a group of women nail my situation the way they did. I never talked about my relationship with Allan to anyone, and in my head it was easy to rationalize or find ways to excuse his behavior, or mine for that matter. Speaking it out loud, though, made it real. To hear Rene and the others pissed off about what was going on validated my feelings. I should be mad. I had a right to be mad. I had a right to be furious.

  Chapter 26

  The part of rehab that creates the most tension for all of us is family week. It’s actually only three days but I guess they call it “week” because that’s what it feels like. Our families attend lectures and receive education about addiction. Then there are sessions guided by our counselors where we’re supposed to talk to each other about how addiction has affected the whole family. It means that when one member is an addict, there are problems with the whole. The intention is not to imply that our families are just as sick as we are, or that they’ve somehow caused our addiction, but to have us look at the roles each of us assumes and how they have affected us all.

  The day before family week starts, the counselors tell us there will be no medication allowed other than our prescriptions: no aspirin, no Tums or Rolaids, nothing extra for anxiety. We are to experience everything we feel with no chemical relief whatsoever. “Yikes,” I think. “What the hell do they have in store for us?”

  I start to get nervous about my parents coming. I’ll be thrilled to see Andy for three days in a row, but I’m scared of what will happen to Mom, Dad, and me. I’m afraid they’ll hate me and think I’m disgusting. My addiction is definitely disgusting. I’m hoping they can separate the two.

  The first speaker is Mike. He’s been a counselor at the Walker Center for years. The contrast between the man who’s speaking and the person the story is about is almost incomprehensible. Mike started using heroin when he was nine years old. His cousins thought it was funny to see him shoot up and that was the beginning of decades of drug use. He’s been in and out of jail and done prison time. Hearing him tell his story tears at the mother part of me. I want to take the child he’s speaking of and protect him from what’s to come. Strange how my maternal instincts kick in when I come across someone hurt or wounded, but they never kick in for me.

  The next speaker is Dorothy. Prim and proper, she takes the stage in the small auditorium - the same place we exercise and sometimes have lectures. She’s prepared, complete with an easel and a large pad of paper with major points bulleted and neatly printed on consecutive pages. She even has a pointer. I always figured she was either a tee totaling, book educated do-gooder, or a garden variety alcoholic whose biggest transgression was being too hung over to host a Tupperware party. I was wrong.

  Dorothy spends the next hour sharing her story about the pill-popping, booze-drinking, NyQuil-swilling housewife she’d once been. She speaks like a master storyteller with a sense of humor that reminds me of Erma Bombeck. She talks about her children, who are themselves addicts and alcoholics, and recalls scenes of staggering up from the basement, where she’d been chugging NyQuil, and stumbling over the unconscious bodies of her grown children and their friends. “You know that little plastic cup on top of a bottle of NyQuil?” she asks. “I didn’t know what the hell that was for. It was too small to be a shot glass.”

  She has the audience in the palm of her hand and my mother in tears, doubled over
with laughter along with the rest of the room. She talks about her grown children struggling with their addictions and bad decisions, moving back home, and how she finally came to terms with her co-dependency. She warns our families not to pay our bills or give us money, telling them they’d only be enabling us. “If you absolutely must give your addicted children something,” she says, flipping the last page over the back of the easel, revealing the words as she speaks them, “buy ‘em underwear.”

  It’s her big finish and the crowd loves her. It’s like a George Carlin concert when he uses satire to get a point across while the audience laugh their asses off. I gain a new respect for Dorothy that afternoon. She reminds me of myself: an ordinary, average looking woman whose packaging was the perfect disguise for a life of debauchery.

  The next two days are the family sessions. Most people have their significant others with them but some, like me, have their family of origin, or some part of it, attending. We’re in the group with Dorothy along with the others in her caseload. As we sit in uncomfortable chairs in a large circle of strangers, she explains the ground rules.

  On the first day, the family members will talk and ask questions while we, the drug addled and afflicted, face them. We cannot respond in any way, but must listen to what each person has to say. When that person is finished, they have to tell what they are most proud of about us and why. On the second day, we will again sit in front of each loved one, answer any questions from the day before and explain what our addiction has been like for us. Then we must say one thing we are most proud of in the other. If anyone needs a tissue, he or she must get it themselves. No co-dependent behavior is tolerated during family sessions.