by DM Sharp
I’ll be damned if I’m sitting near them. I don’t even belong here with these other freaks. I have nothing in common with anyone here. Fuck it, I’m not getting a chair. I’d rather just stand here at the door. Somehow a sliver of anger overwhelms me.
I watch as one by one, the ‘group members’ grab a chair and do what Nate has just told them.
I continue to stand,but no one says anything.
“Welcome to the Cedars Recovery Center. As you know, I’m Dr. Nathaniel Carmichael and I’ll introduce you to the other members of my team, who you will shortly come to know quite well. But first, a bit about what we do here and why you are all here.” He glances at me standing by the door.
“Young, bright adults like yourselves often struggle with a variety of life challenges and have often developed issues with substance abuse. We have clinically integrated a twelve-step addiction and substance abuse treatment program.”
“Boot camp is what it is. This is abuse,” says an underweight, jittery boy, fiddling with the bandana that keeps slipping over his eyes. He looks like he’s about fourteen.
“No, Miguel, we are most certainly not a boot camp. Boot camps have their origin in the juvenile justice system and utilize military style approaches to discipline to change the student. The philosophy of wilderness therapy, which we use at Cedars is one in which the staff develop relationships based on compassion and respect and utilize nature as a teacher.”
“Man, whatever. It’s all the same. Just different words,” says Miguel, jiggling his legs up and down in agitation.
“No, that’s not correct. Boot camps use coercion and obtain control through the use of intimidation and manipulation and take advantage of a person’s fears. We do not do that here.”
“Well, what are you doing now then, holding us here?”
The group starts laughing, clapping, wolf whistling. One girl sits staring into the center of the circle rocking back and forth, chewing on her finger as if we all did not even exist.
“Settle down, everyone.”
I quickly consider making a quiet exit out of the door, the very idea of making a bolt for it seeming more and more appealing as each second ticks by.
The angel appears to be able to read my mind and beckons me to the pile of stacked chairs in the corner, signaling for me to join in the group. I stand glued to the floor. The angel lifts a chair and holds it out infront of him. Great, like I have a choice.
“Welcome, Olivia,” says Dr. Nate, acknowledging me. “Now let’s all pick up an animal that represents us.”
“She’s a pig,” says Miguel, pointing to the rocker.
“I don’t think that’s quite what Dr. C had in mind.”
It’s the angel. “My name is Gabriel, that is Adam.” He points to hippyish-looking man. “We will be your trek leaders, shadows if you like. There’s one more leader, Shirley, who should be joining us in about ten minutes.”
Nate Carmichael is laying out pieces of white printer paper with pictures of animals on them, “Okay, who’s going to go first?”
Everyone just stares at him.
Gabriel looks at an overweight, disinterested-looking boy who is absorbed in picking out his ear wax and rolling it in balls between his fingers.
“Aaron?”
“Oh, I’ll be the Eagle,” says ear wax Aaron.
“Great choice, an eagle is the strongest bird, able to lift something four times its own body weight during flight,” says Dr. C.
Aaron looks pleased with his choice.
Miguel mutters something about body weight under his breath.
“Miguel, you next.”
“Anaconda, yep, that’s me all right.”
“Another great choice, Miguel. An anaconda snake can squeeze something the same as its own 300 pound body weight to death.”
Miguel smiles,nodding, pleased at his choice.
The girl who was rocking had actually stopped rocking when Gabriel had first spoken, just staring at him. Gabriel looks at her kindly and signals with his head for her to pick a picture.
She picks a leafcutter ant.
“Good, Gillian. Tiny leafcutter ants can lift and carry in their jaws something 50 times their own body weight of about two ounces. That’s the same as a human lifting a truck with its teeth. Nice choice.”
Amy continues to stare but isn’t rocking anymore.
There are three pictures left.
The remaining two in the group launch at the pictures on the ground.
Golden tanned boy in the tracksuit, who looks way too healthy and alive to be here, picks a tiger.
“Jason, way to go. A tiger can carry something 1,200 pounds, twice its own body weight, ten feet up a tree.”
Jason smiles flashing his dazzling white teeth at the group. Miguel pats him on the back.
The girl who looks like a boy, maybe she thinks she’s a boy, maybe that’s why she’s here, has picked a picture of a grizzly bear.
We all look at Dr. C, waiting to hear what he’s got to say about the bear.
On cue, he says, “Nice, Shauna. When it comes to pure strength the grizzly bear can lift over 1,100 pounds, point-eight times its body weight.”
There’s only one picture left on the floor. It’s a dung beetle. I can feel tears starting to form at the back of my eyes.
“Great, guess that one’s mine.”
Gabriel picks it up, handing it to me and says, “The dung beetle is not only the world’s strongest insect but also the strongest animal on the planet when comparing body weights. They can pull 1,141 times their own body weight. This is the equivalent of an average person pulling six double-decker buses full of people.” He holds my gaze.
“Now that’s strong!” says Miguel and everyone starts clapping.
Somehow, my mouth starts to turn up at the sides and I smile along with the others.
A peroxide blonde with buck teeth bursts into the room with a giant pad of paper and markers.
“Hey Everyone, I’m Shirley.”
I start to drift as she starts talking, aware that I’m shivering. My arms feel like someone is rolling over them with a thousand needles. I can hear the piano again. It’s not Clair De Lune anymore.
“Olivia, let’s get you to your room,” says hippy Adam as he reaches for me.
“Hahaha, check out that reaction, girlfriend here has obviously got man issues,” says Girl-boy-girl.
“I’ll take you back,” says Shirley, helpfully guiding me up out of my seat by my elbow.
We just make it to the door before the entire contents of my stomach lurch up out of my mouth, spattering all over the floor, leaving marks on the wall beside it.
“I reckon her poison’s coke,” says Miguel.
“Nah, it’ll be prescription meds.” I can hear them all laughing in the background and Dr. C telling them all to settle down.
We get back to my room. I squeeze my hands between my legs and flop over onto the bed. I need to close my eyes, but I’m vaguely aware that my head is starting to thump, my throat is feeling painfully scratchy and dry, a cramping sensation has begun in my stomach and waves of nausea are running through me. I try and think of what I’ve taken in the last two days: an eightball of coke, a few joints, vodka, tequilla, Red Bull, champagne, oh, and Oxycontin.
It’s worse than the worst flu ever and I’m a fucking dung beetle.
Chapter Fifteen
Gabriel Carmichael
“No, Sophie! Noooooooo.”
“Son, wake up. It’s okay. You’re just having a bad dream. It’s not happening. It’s all over.”
My heart is racing, my mouth dry as I sit up bolt upright, and face my dad eye to eye.
“Same dream, Gabriel?”
I nod, trying to get past the lump in my throat.
“Tell me.”
“It’s just the same.”
He ruffles my hair. “I’m listening.”
“I’m right back there again, Dad. Right back at the exact second that I rear ended that tr
uck when it slammed on its breaks after missing a driveway to a store.”
“Keep going.”
“We hit the truck pretty fast. Sophie wasn’t wearing a seat belt in the back seat and she hit the back of my driver’s seat and died on impact. I never wear a seatbelt, but she told me to put it on literally ten minutes before the accident. She saved my life.”
My voice starts breaking, “I can still feel the thud of her hitting the back of my seat. It makes me sick and it haunts me.”
“I know son. I wish I could make it better.”
I don’t tell him that it’s is all my fault. I was driving the car she died in.
“And you still think you’re ready to get back into surgery and theater, in that environment while you’re still having these dreams?”
“Look, what happened last time isn’t going to happen again.” I don’t want to talk about this.
“This is serious. One more incident of you wrecking a theater because you can’t accept when it’s time to let someone go will mean the end of your career, Gabriel. You have to be ready to face every car accident victim as a surgeon and be able to accept that sometimes they will die. I don’t think that you’re there yet and I worry.”
“Really, I’m fine dad.”
“You’re emotionally vulnerable, Gabriel.”
“Okay Dad, thanks for coming through, but I’d better try and get back to sleep.” I signal for him to get off my bed and pull the covers up over me. I wait until he leaves the room before allowing myself to sob into the pillow.
*
I gather my thoughts while roughly towel drying my hair, in anticipation of organizing the new group up for their expedition.
I think about how we rise at first light and kneel before each sleeping teenager. We’ve put up shelters outside at basecamp and the kids are all nestled deep in their sleeping bags. We listen to them snore softly and watch the rise and fall of their chests. If they have rolled off of their sleeping pads, we gently nudge them back on. We complete these rituals every morning and every night because we care and because we worry. I never thought I would, but I do. Guess it’ll make me a better surgeon in the long run.
Their untrusting eyes are full of anger, faces contorted in hatred every time they look at us.
They hate us not for who we are, but because of what we have done; we’ve taken them from their families, their friends, their schools, and especially, their drugs. We have taken away their piercings, their iPods, and their cell phones. In exchange, they get 60 days in the wilderness of Utah, a 40-pound backpack, and intensive drug, alcohol, and mental health counseling.
I hated them, too, when I first came here, but it wasn’t them and my anger is disappearing. This is the great wilderness therapy that my dad specializes in.
We all hated wilderness therapy, but I’ll have to admit that it’s helped me, too.
They’re all teenagers, usually sixteen, seventeen years old, depressed, angry, anxious, and grieving. Sometimes all at the same time. They all abuse alcohol, marijuana, methamphetamine, Oxycontin, Ecstasy, cocaine, and heroin. Sometimes at the same time.
These kids have made their parents desperate enough to reach breaking point, so bad it makes them desperate enough to surrender their precious cargo to a team of strangers, therapists dressed in Gore-Tex and fleece.
I know for the next few days, the new group will be terrified and angry. That they’re going to refuse to get out of their sleeping bags, refuse to speak or to eat. Things are going to get thrown around and I’ll be called a Nazi. I wonder which one is going to be the first to try and run away this time?
Then slowly they change like the summer blossom. It’s like when a toddler wails and throws himself desperately on the ground during a temper tantrum. Eventually he will exhaust himself and let you pick him up and rock him in your arms. These poor kids are the exact same. After a few days of fighting, they are drained. Homesickness sets in and overwhelms them. Some of them are still experiencing chemical withdrawal. The wilderness has stripped them of their teenage stoicism and angst, revealing their vulnerability and then they have no choice but to ask us for help and that’s when we step in.
Surviving in the wilderness is hard. But when a teenager throws down his backpack in the middle of a hike, the challenge of finding the next water source is nothing compared to navigating the terrain of his fear, anxiety, and anger. Each time a teen reaches this point, he says, “You don’t understand. I can’t do this.”
The conversation always starts like this. For the next few minutes, or few hours, or few weeks, we break down what’s going through his head and I need to ask, “What are you so scared of? What’s making you feel so overwhelmed? What do you need to feel safe?”
Compared to getting sober, learning to manage his depression without alcohol, and figuring out how to tell his father that he is afraid of him, this hike is just a walk in the woods.
Every day, we push harder and farther. My clients are more engaged in their treatment than those in any other residential programs I have seen. They sleep and eat in solitude at their campsites. They hike in silence. They keep journals filled with their insights and goals. And because they are so often alone with their thoughts and feelings, when they come together around a fire, we make our time and our words count.
They say, “I’m scared that no one will ever love me.”
They say, “I’ve been doing drugs and booze for so long, I don’t know if I’ll ever be as smart as I used to be.”
They say, “My family make me feel like I’m a broken toy that they need to ship off to get fixed.”
They say, “Everyone in my family gets high. I know I can’t stay sober if I go home.”
I say, “I really admired the way you led our hike today. You made me push myself.”
Around the fire and along the ridgelines, the kids retrace their footsteps, trying to understand how they ended up in the middle of nowhere in this unlikely family, uncovering painful childhood secrets, writing letters to abusers that they read about and then throw into the fire, and screaming their secrets from the top of a mountain. They try to understand their painful love affairs with drugs and so begin to plan the first steps of their recovery.
When the three weeks end, our family dissolves. Some of the teens move on to boarding schools, some stay in the wilderness for more treatment, and some go home.
On our last night together we sit in a circle and share our wishes. For themselves and one another, the kids wish for continued sobriety, reconciliation with parents, a chance to graduate from high school.
My wish for them is simple: I hope that they will remember this and never come back here again.
Chapter Sixteen
Olivia Carter
I can’t even remember a time when I didn’t have difficulty sleeping through the night. Each night is the same now: night sweats, cravings so powerful that I have to get out of bed and sit in a corner with my iPod turned on full blast. Oh, and the nightmares. They’re so vivid and disturbing that I constantly have this feeling of utter panic and helplessness. I know they expect me to leave my room today, but I can’t face it. I pull the sheet over my face and turn over to try to catch up on some sleep, but it’s no good. After endless tossing and turning, I give in and sit up. It’s my last day in the room. Today I move to basecamp and have to start sleeping outside. I need to figure out how to get away from here.
A knock at the door startles me. Why they bother I don’t know because they always just come in anyway. It’s the blonde trek leader from last night.
“Morning, hon. Time to rise and shine. Here’s some information for you about camp and a timetable. Just come outside for some breakfast when you’re ready. You’re at basecamp starting today.”
I don’t say anything, but my mind doesn’t know whether to start shouting at her or cry so I just flop back down into bed and try to pull the covers up again.
“Not so fast Missy. Up. Now.” She pulls the entire set of covers off the
bed and throws it all on the floor. She’s baring her buck teeth at me like some wild animal.
“You can’t just come in here and strip me of my privacy.”
“Great. It speaks. Get ready, missy, and get outside. ASAP.” She shoves the leaflets into my hand and leaves the room.
Like I have a choice, I start reading.
A Typical Day at Camp Cedars
At Basecamp
The schedule at basecamp is highly structured and designed with the needs of each student in mind. On a typical day at basecamp, teens participate in the following:
8:00 a.m.–Wake up
8:15 a.m.–Personal hygiene
8:30 a.m.–Yoga & Meditation
9:30 a.m.–Breakfast
10:00 a.m.–Camp chores and showers
11:00 a.m.–Letter writing, therapy assignments
12:30 p.m.–One-on-one time with field guide mentor
1:30 p.m.–Lunch
2:30 p.m.–Personal therapy session
4:00 p.m.–Group therapy session
5:00 p.m.–Camp chores and personal time
7:00 p.m–Dinner
9:00 p.m.–Community time
10:00 p.m.–Bedtime
In the Wilderness
In the wilderness, teens rise with the sun and sleep with the moon. A typical day begins around seven a.m. with instructor communication to basecamp via cell phones/radios, a hot breakfast cooked over a camp stove, and an activity from the daily curriculum.
Depending on the group, teens may hike before and after lunch before settling in at a pre-selected site. During hikes, students process experiences and emotions as a group and complete a variety of challenges.
During their free time, students may write letters home, play games, complete assignments, or work on their primitive skills such as trap building and bow drilling (rubbing two pieces of wood together to create fire). Camp set-up, dinner preparation, therapeutic initiatives, AA/NA readings and group sessions around the campfire end the day’s activities.
Typical Expedition Day