by Bobby DeVito
Bob kept a private office off-premises from the Sobrenity facility. I think he needed it for his sanity, to get away from us and from Sharon when he needed some alone time. It was a typical “rent-a-office” in a building up on Sunrise Blvd near Galleria Mall. As I entered the office, I snickered at the paneled walls that reminded me of my parent’s basement in the early 70s. We sat down, and Bob took my “personal addiction history”, which was largely what you have read here up to this point. I told Bob my family history, focusing on my grandfather and his struggle with alcoholism, my progression into drugs and alcohol, and my recent stint in rehab and my subsequent relapse. Relapse…I hate that word, it reeks of failure and impotence. On the tacky paneled wall hung a few celebrity photos of various people Bob had known over the years.
One item caught my attention, a newspaper article that had been mounted and framed. The headline read “Trent Reznor Dead of Drug Overdose”. There was a typical headshot photo of the industrial music singer from the notoriously heroin-ridden band Nine Inch Nails. The article detailed how Reznor, while on tour in Germany, had overdosed on heroin and had died in his hotel room before the show. I immediately looked at Bob and said “What the fuck is this?”
Bob studied me for a moment, and said “I had him write that article as an exercise in showing him exactly where he was headed. He did such a good job on the assignment that I had it printed out like this to remind him”
I silently wondered how much money the autographed article would bring on eBay. Sick things like that always sell well on eBay. We spent another hour or so discussing his treatment plan with me. He made me sign an agreement stating that I would abide by the rules. There were quite a few of them, but that’s typical with rehab. I liken it to cat herding, this trying to rein in addicts and make them all conform to a set of rules. You are dealing with a group of people who have mainly been living life with no rules, no boundaries, and no tomorrow… and then you require them to suddenly start living within the numbers. It’s like going from painting Jackson Pollock canvases to then being told to paint seascapes and landscapes in a completely realist fashion.
After our meeting, we headed back to Sobrenity in what the inmates called the “druggy buggy” – a nondescript white Dodge Astro Van. I would grow to hate the van greatly over the next few months. Bob’s office was only a couple of miles away from the rehab facility, but it was a nice ride nonetheless. Situated in the Victoria Park suburb that bordered Wilton Manors, Sobrenity was in a great neighborhood that reminded me of Hyde Park in Tampa. Both of these places were the gay neighborhoods in those respective towns. I always seem to gravitate towards the gay neighborhoods, because they are usually much nicer places to live. I’m straight, but far from narrow. Behind our little rehab hotel was Holiday Park, where Jaco had spent some of his last days. I often would hang out in the park on my way to the public library to use the Internet for free, and spend a few lazy minutes hanging out under some old tree, wondering if Jaco had done the same. The Peaches record store on the corner was legendary, as the crazed bass player would often burst in there and grab copies of Weather Report records and walk out with them, screaming at the staff “these are MY records!”. There was also a set of Jaco’s handprints in the cement outside the store on the sidewalk, with his autograph etched within. Mysteriously, once the Peaches record store closed (the final death knell for one of Florida’s best and largest indie record store chains), the Jaco handprints disappeared…and have never been seen since.
Jen had obviously gone crazy since I had left, as I had not called or tried to contact her. She badgered Curtis, my sister, and my parents to find out where I was. Finally, on my fourth day as an inmate, she had managed to get Chris Brekka’s number, and he had given her the private number to Sobrenity. Sharon came to my room to let me know I had a phone call. I was filled with instant dread; no one was supposed to be able to find me right now. I also had a foreboding feeling it would be Jen, and of course it was. She was royally pissed off, and had a good right to be. I had drug her into my whole sick twisted drama at a time in my life when I would have better served everyone had I simply gone it alone. I tried to explain things to her, but we always quickly degenerated into loud arguments. Jen can go from zero to bitch in about .7 seconds, and I am right behind her. The phone call was a disaster, ending with Bob taking the receiver from my hands, shouting “goodbye Jennifer” into the phone, and hanging it up. Jen repeatedly called back a few times, but the calls were ignored.
Every morning at Sobrenity, except Sundays, started with morning group. This was held in the larger room in the back of the complex where the girls lived. It was a very large two bedroom place with an adequate-sized living room. We would gather in some sort of circle, with people on couches, chairs, sitting on the floor, whatever you ended up with. It was an early meeting, at 8 am. Bob liked to be on time, and we had to be somewhat prepared with the reading for the day and other necessary materials. Bob had a certain way of initiating someone to his treatment methods, which usually began with simple question: “how did you get here?”. New arrivals like me would usually tell a harrowing tale of all the misfortunes they had endured, and how they had been driven to a life of drug addiction and alcoholism. A lot of it was comical to me, as I was most certainly the poorest person there. At that time, there were people at the facility that were from some very prominent families, old Texas oil money, large manufacturing concerns, real wealth. I was only here by the grace of God and the charity of both MAP and Musicares, another foundation set up by the Grammy Awards. Terry had convinced Musicares to help fund my stay at Sobrenity. I had arrived penniless, and didn’t even have a car. On one of my long nights of drug using, I had driven the car silly until the timing chain broke. Later that morning, I sold the car to the junkyard, and used the paltry sum the car fetched to go buy some more drugs. I literally smoked my damn car.
I didn’t feel all that comfortable at Sobrenity the first few weeks. I got to know the various people there, as we spent most of the days and nights together. In addition to our morning meetings with Bob that would usually last four hours, we would have to attend a local Ft Lauderdale NA or AA meeting daily. It was a demanding schedule, and Bob gave us a lot of written work to help us discover why we had all actually ended up there.
CHAPTer eiGHt
reHAB iS For QuiTTerS
“Rehab is for Quitters” reads the somewhat witty t-shirts sold at those typical beach souvenir shops that litter nearly all beach communities. Rehab is also for unwanted problem kids, errant heirs to large family fortunes, disgraced sports stars, and tortured musicians like me. There was a homeless woman who used to frequently be seen walking up and down Sunrise Blvd. The legend was that she had been a patient at Sobrenity, but had not made it, and fell back into a life of crack smoking and street prostitution. She had that “chicken-head”walk that one often sees on the thin, emaciated prostitutes that work the street around crackridden areas. She stood to inherit something like six million dollars that were held in trust for her, if she would only clean up. She obviously couldn’t do it. How come someone like me, who stood not to inherit millions of dollars if I got clean and sober, but had to go face a life of debt actually make it if she could not?
I was completely penniless for my first few weeks. Musicares finally approved a $50 a week pocket money account for me. However, with a carton of cigarettes costing $30, that didn’t leave much money for food. I did everything I could to stretch each dollar, but there was only so much I could do. Bob felt pity for me, and would often bring me half of a rotisserie chicken or a plate of food. Bob often grilled, and made steaks for Capo as well. Half of the time I was at Sobrenity, Capo ate better than I did. I felt really pissed off and abandoned by MAP and Musicares. Brekka had still not even shown up to see me, and they had left me completely hanging, or so I felt at the time. Eventually, we received some new inmates, and I was moved to a room with a guy named Don. Great, just what I needed, someone in my face ALL of the time
now. I moved my stuff from the Strawberry suite a door down to Don’s room.
Don had come from Texas from the kind of wealth that writes paychecks to the merely rich. He had fallen into a life of crack abuse, and was a beautiful smaller guy with finely carved features. Everything in his room was “just so”, in that Ikea catalog sort of way. Don had no limit really, to what he could spend during his time at rehab. I cringed, knowing that he was going to hate seeing my socks on the floor, or my towel on the bed, or some other meaningful transgression in his orderly world. Luckily, he was a quite intelligent guy, and we had sort of bonded over the past few weeks, and he was the lesser of two other evils that I would have had to room with. Although at times it was kind of rough to be living on $50 a week while watching my roommate do all of his shopping at Saks and Bloomingdales. At least he would take me out for sushi every now and then, and we cohabitated as well as could reasonably be expected under the circumstances.
One of the other guys at rehab was a sweet kid named Louis. Louis had come to Sobrenity some nine months before I arrived. He had previously lived in Sarasota and had attended the Ringling School of Art and Design, which was down the street from New College, my alma mater. He was a dark little boy, liking to listen to Nick Cave and other goth sorts of music. Typical art student, but perhaps a bit slower than most. He had been a raging crack addict, and regaled us in group with stories about how he used to cook up his own crack, making different flavored and colored variations of crack rocks in some sort of sick druggie antipasto platter. As I have said before, rehab is truly the place to really learn how to do drugs. I learned more about how to do drugs, make drugs, find drugs, and use drugs in six months of rehab than I had in my previous 38 years of living.
Louis liked to hang out with me, and I would visit him in his room and listen to music. Lots of people, when they found out I was a professional, wanted to talk about music. I get tired of talking about music. As John Cage said, it’s like “dancing about architecture”. And I wanted to focus upon recovery, knowing that I really needed to change. Louis had come to the end of a severe, year-long program of recovery at Sobrenity. He was the star of the place, knew every one of Bob’s lines, and could recite the AA and NA textbooks like a pro. But to many of us, it seemed like he was biding his time. Finally, it was decided that his parents would get him a little condo down the street from Sobrenity. They got him a beautiful place and furnished it fully, with a modern entertainment center and computer. He was given a small part-time job at Borders, and came back to Sobrenity daily for the morning meetings at first. It truly seemed like he was “fixed”, that he had integrated back into normal life and was recovered. Two weeks later, Bob was called by his parents to go check on him, as he had not called in a couple of days, and would not answer the phone.
When Bob returned, the ashen look on his face told me something was seriously wrong. He immediately called all of us to an emergency group, and made a quick phone call while we all gathered in the traditional circle in the girl’s apartment. Bob came in a few minutes later, visibly shaken. He looked hardly at all of us, one at a time, before finally speaking.
“Louis is dead. I just got back from his place, and it was a fucking mess. Heroin and cocaine were evident, and he was sitting there on the couch, dead for days, with a god-damned needle in his arm. This young man, only 22 years old”….Bob hesitated as he choked back the emotions surging through him “This young man had quite possibly the best prognosis I ever give for a graduate of Sobrenity – fair. And now he’s FUCKING DEAD! DO YOU ALL HEAR ME? HE’S FUCKING DEAD! Lying in a pool of his own blood and shit, with a needle in his arm, and the smell, the smell…I can’t tell you what it smelled like to be the first person to enter that apartment. So do any of you think you can go back out and use drugs??? DO YOU? It only took this young man two weeks, and here he is FUCKING DEAD!”
Bob sobbed a bit, and added. “You don’t have to go out like that”. And he rose slowly, feeling his age for a brief moment, as well as his inherent inability to help any addict fixed on death. You either get busy living or get busy dying in recovery, and we have an express lane.
Louis’s death hung like a pallor over the facility for a few days. Of course, his grief stricken yet probably relieved upper middle class parents arrived for the ceremonies and funeral. The incident certainly gave us plenty of fuel for our morning group sessions. On average, in the last 7 years that I have been in recovery, an average of three people I know per year go back to using drugs and alcohol and die. You get to go to a lot more funerals in recovery. Still, it’s better to be seen at a funeral than viewed. Every time another one dies, I feel grateful that it’s not me. Selfish, I am sure. But at least I’m still alive.
Meetings in local Ft Lauderdale ranged from tedious to moderately interesting. We went all over the place to attend various meetings. Trying to get a dozen addicts to agree on anything is a struggle. One meeting most of us really liked to attend was nicknamed the “Gucci Meeting”. These were mostly “high bottom” alcoholics, good-looking white people who would be dressed to the nines for the Saturday night “Ft Lauderdale by the Sea” meeting. It was one of the only places we got to go to simply people-watch. The Gucci Meeting had some really good-looking people who told their stories of losing their job and their Lexus, then going to a company sponsored rehab, and getting their lives back. We mostly ridiculed the content of the meetings, but secretly all wished we were more like the pretty people. We fit in better at one of the other meetings, the 101 club in Pompano Beach, a real old school AA meeting room that hosted a rowdy Sunday night NA meeting that was attended largely by halfway house residents and treatment center inmates like us.That’s truly the meeting I started to hear the message at, and where I met my first sponsor in recovery, Rich.
I didn’t have any romantic interludes at Sobrenity like I had experienced earlier in my LA experience. I had asked Bob what it was like to date someone that was in the program. He always said that relationships in AA or NA were simple; “the odds were good” that you could find a relationship, but “the goods were odd”. Bob was in a long term relationship with Sharon, who had been sober for over ten years. I wondered how “odd” she was. Other of the clients had gotten into some trouble for sexual shenanigans on the premises. Bob did not like any of that sort of thing going on, and it is indeed a tremendous liability risk. People, when they arrive, are usually in completely fucked up manic states of consciousness, and will do crazy things they normally night not, like screw someone silly on the washing machine in the back room on their first afternoon at the facility. Then the next day claim they were raped. It has happened more than once. Rehab romance is a well-known phenomenon. Put a bunch of strangers together in a long-term extreme situation, and some of them are going to fuck each other. It’s human nature, plain and simple.
Jen had been biding her time, and finally Bob deemed that she could come for a visit. I braced for her arrival. When she arrived, we spent a few hours drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. She nicely brought me some smokes and some homemade cookies. I hated her largely vegetarian cuisine in the kitchen, but the girl could certainly make a mean chocolate chip cookie. We had a special family counseling meeting with Bob, which frequently degenerated into shouting matches between Jen and I. I already knew from the moment I had left Tampa that I did not want to ever go back. Despite her obvious physical attributes and intelligence, I could not stand to be in the same room with her for any extended period of time. And, to beat the band, she was pregnant with my child. Bob allowed me to spend the night with her at a local hotel, but we stayed on our respective sides of the bed, and she returned to Tampa the next day as I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
I spent many idle hours at Sobrenity doing little more than lounging in the pool or sitting outside smoking cigarettes. I had noticed a very large green lizard, much larger than anything I had ever captured as a child. It was obviously not an iguana or chameleon, and it fascinated me. I always looked to see if my l
izard friend was hanging out on the palm trees by the pool. Some internet research led me to the fact that this big green distraction is a Cuban Anole, a species of lizard that is not indigenous to South Florida, but had been brought here from Cuba and South America in various ways over the years. Just what Florida needs, more non-indigenous transplants. As time went by, I found a good sponsor named Rich. Lucky for me, Rich is an avid music fan and total guitar-head who loved artists like Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson, Steve Vai, etc. He escorted me around to plenty of meetings, and we hung out at a lot of coffee shops discussing music and recovery. He was a pretty stern taskmaster, and had me doing several writing assignments at once. I tried to keep up with all my written work for Bob and for Rich. As I got to the end of my three month stay, I had one last meeting with Bob. Over the past three months, I had been to over 200 various meetings and group therapy sessions, had written a voluminous amount of recovery verbiage, The concepts that were presented in AA seemed to start making sense to me, and I had stopped attending NA meetings because it seemed that most of them focused on romanticizing drug use, and just hearing someone talk about snorting coke or smoking crack would still cause an almost Pavlovian reaction in me physically. I had worked my way through the first three steps off AA, and was preparing to go back to Tampa against my better judgment.
Bob had his final meeting with me in his room at the front of Sobrenity. We had often shared the typical “guinea” lunch of fresh hard Italian bread, good salami, and provolone. Today, we ate the usual, as he prepared my exit paperwork.
“So what’s your prognosis for me, Bob?” I asked hesitantly.
“Poor” he said, without skipping a beat. “Less than 5% of you will go on to lead clean and sober lives without relapse”, he explained. “No one ever gets a ‘good’ prognosis here. ‘Fair’ is about as good as it gets. Louis got fair, and you get poor”.