Though he smiled incessantly, the way he spoke to me—slowly, skeptically, with a touch of condescension—reminded me of being a receptionist, of being considered so irrelevant you disappear.
“Sign here,” he said. “And give Brent your purse so he can look through it.” I handed it over.
“Good, now Linda will show you to the house.”
“Oh, we don’t sleep somewhere here?” I asked, looking around. I thought the place looked pretty homey.
“No, this is where you’ll come each day for group.”
I had no idea what “group” was, but it sounded awful. Like the kind of place where one is expected to “process feelings.”
“Sounds good,” I said, and smiled, wondering if it was possible to get released on good behavior.
Linda was a woman in her forties with brown wavy hair and several pieces of turquoise and silver jewelry scattered across her ears, neck, and arms. By the time she arrived, I was already bored and impatient to get to the self-improvement portion of the adventure—the part where they fixed me. The part where they showed me how to quit abusing drugs and alcohol so I could get my life back. The part where I no longer wanted the drugs and alcohol because I was healed. The part where I got happy. Or, if they couldn’t teach me all that, perhaps they could at least tell me how to stop buying eight-balls of cocaine on a Tuesday.
Or any time, really. I guess no cocaine at all is the thing we’re shooting for now.
• • •
Linda drove me down the road a half mile or so, and slowed down in front of a house right in the middle of a remarkably standard neighborhood, among the homes of the regular people. We pulled into the garage and walked into a kitchen smelling of bleach. It had brown tile floors and immaculate counters, and I noticed on the wall by the pantry a large bulletin board with laminated rules, schedules, names, and numbers. I stopped to read them, but Linda said, “Oh, you have all that information in your packet,” and I remembered I had a folder in my hand.
My room was toward the back of the house, down a long hallway with gray carpet, and as I walked by other bedrooms, I peeked inside hoping to catch a glimpse of some shivering junkie, but they were all empty.
“Everyone is at the bonfire tonight!” she announced.
“Bonfire? That sounds fun,” I lied.
“It is. It’s really fun. There are a lot of fun things you can do in sobriety,” which was the exact moment I decided never to listen to anything she said again. But I smiled anyway and said, “Yes! Looking forward to that.”
My room was plain and comfortable, with two twin beds against one wall, a nightstand for each, and a dresser at the foot of each bed. The comforters were thin like motel bedspreads, but the pillows were big and fluffy. Mall art hung on the walls—watercolor posters with egrets and oceans and rivers, framed in blue pressboard.
The second bed was empty, but Linda let me know it would be filled soon. I said a quick prayer that she was mistaken.
Looking around the room, I missed Mac. I missed my babies. It was strange to be so fully alone, in a new place around new people who knew nothing of me, people who would judge me only for the way I presented myself. I grew exhausted just thinking about it.
I folded my red silk blanket on the foot of my bed and missed Mac even more, remembering how Brent had confiscated my phone when he inspected my purse.
“You can use the pay phone in the kitchen!” Brent had said, as if he were announcing the most thrilling of news.
“That sounds fun,” I said, thinking how I could never understand perkiness as a personality trait. It just seemed so damn unnecessary.
So I couldn’t hear Mac’s voice. I set Emily Dickinson on the nightstand and Buddha on the dresser next to my journal and pictures. I unloaded my clothes into the drawers, noticing that some of the shirts and skirts weren’t even clean. I had packed in a hurry and left in such a rush, I never said goodbye to the kids.
I hadn’t seen them for a week, since before the final coke run, and I knew they were safe with my mother, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I shouldn’t be in this place. I didn’t belong here.
How do I explain to these people that I am a mother, not a drug addict? I picked up a picture of Ava and Rocket on Mother’s Day the year before. Ava was sitting on a couch looking up at the camera, wearing a navy and white linen dress. She had pigtails in her hair and they were perfect, no lumps. Rocket sat on her lap, a baby of eight months—my favorite age, when they are fat and giggly but still can’t walk. He grinned widely in a green jumper with smocking and embroidered rabbits across the chest, his hair an ineffable strawberry blond. I felt sick to my stomach.
Rocket was now seventeen months old and still not fully weaned. Although he had been away from me for two months, and my milk was gone, every time I visited him he wanted to nurse. But he was used to rejection, used to replacements, used to his mother’s body as a site of toxicity. On many nights in our big house, I had to hide. I had to not comfort him when he woke up crying. I had to rely on Mac and my mother. A few times I went upstairs anyway, and, when I sobered up, wanted to die. Every time I sobered up, I wanted to die. Because what kind of trash…
And yet, I never wanted to give up on us entirely. On me, I suppose. On my ability to be a good, nursing mother. Good mothers breastfeed. Tomorrow I will be different.
And now, now I would be gone thirty more days.
He doesn’t even know where I went.
I knew he would stop trying to nurse by the time I returned. It’s okay. I had no business doing that anyway. Poisoned. The most beautiful act, I poisoned.
I threw the pictures in the drawer and walked out of the room to have a smoke in the backyard.
On my way back, I reviewed the house rules in the kitchen: when they would give us meds, what we could eat, where we could go, what would happen if we shot up. I wished the other addicts were there so I could have a distraction from the swirling anxiety in my brain.
From my bed that night, I heard the housemates roll in, their laughing and cheerful talking and shouts of “good night,” and when it all quieted down, I got up and locked my door.
9
Who’s the Sickest in the Room?
On my first morning in treatment, I woke early, got dressed, and put on makeup, which I hadn’t done in weeks. I was the last person to climb into the van, nodding and mumbling quick hellos to the other clients. The man next to me looked about twenty, and I could hear his music rattling out of his headphones. I liked him already. He didn’t want to talk either. Back at the main building, we filed into a large conference room and found seats around a huge oak table. We sipped coffee and stacked our journals, pens, and cigarettes alongside us.
Ned, a therapist and substance abuse counselor, rose in front of the room and handed out worksheets. He was about fifty years old, short, with a square jaw and gray hair. He obviously exercised on a regular basis—and probably outdoors too, for the added mental benefit of sunshine. To me, he looked like some sort of Herculean god of health. His body was firm, muscular, and rationally tanned. I hadn’t seen a human like him in a long time. His clothes fit perfectly, and he even wore a belt that matched his shoes. His eyes were bright and clear, his hair strategically disheveled, just enough to make him accessible—an everyday, chilled-out California bicyclist guy.
While I constructed a yuppie past for him, he told us how he had spent ten years on the streets of Los Angeles shooting cocaine and drinking. My head cocked to one side while I contemplated whether or not to believe him. His details seemed accurate. Alright, I thought, he appears to know things. He explained how he was twenty years sober and a cognitive behavioral therapist. He didn’t believe in God and wasn’t sober through anonymous meetings. I liked him more than before.
Ned stood in stark contrast to the mostly white, twenty-something misfits in front of him, fumbling, fidgeting, and analyzing each another. The new arrivals were red-faced and pale, with big black circles under their eyes. The
addicts completing their thirty days were bright-eyed, high-fiving the staff, bouncing like the teenagers I knew in high school whose confidence I wished I could steal and make my own.
Looking around the table, I noticed we were all either fat or emaciated. Drowning in clothes or barely wearing them. We had our hoods up and chins down or our chests puffed out. Our eyes darted around the room or stared unflinchingly at a scratch on the table, a spot chosen as to avoid eye contact. We are the human embodiments of excess, I thought.
I watched a quick-talking, black-haired man with a nose ring and tattoos covering his arms and neck flirt with the girl next to him. He had been in the rehab twenty-five days and clearly believed himself healed. She had arrived that morning. I watched in disgust at his opportunism—quick, get the sad new addict before she cleans up enough to realize you are dull and slimy. Ten seconds later, I felt a touch of jealousy that nobody was flirting with me. I recalled Mac’s words, “Don’t cheat on me in rehab.”
None of these assholes are going to stay sober, I thought. But I would. I wanted it more than them.
“This chart outlines the Stages of Relapse,” Ned said. “It shows what happens when an addict starts using again after a period of abstinence.” He looked down at the paper, his page highlighted with notes everywhere, and I followed his lead, scanning the page, picking up my pen and underlining words like “drug glorification,” “negative emotions,” “coping skills,” “loss of daily structure,” “social isolation,” “triggers,” and “problematic thinking.”
Oh, I thought. I don’t have that. My thinking is just fine.
I took notes, underlined important concepts. So, rehab is like school, I thought. Perfect.
After defining each term, Ned asked us to go around the room and explain our most recent relapse. A tiny dark-haired woman named Danny with librarian glasses and Sailor Jerry tattoos on her forearms spoke first: “I moved back to Portland, got a job, but one day after work, I went to a bar for happy hour. I just went for a beer. But there were old friends there, and they offered me a hit, so I took it, and nearly overdosed. I was high for two more years.”
Ned paused, smiling, and asked, “Why did you go to the bar? Why did you go back to the place you knew would trigger you?”
“I don’t know. I wanted a beer,” she said.
“But you ended up shooting heroin,” he said, framing the question as a statement.
“Yes. In the bathroom.”
“You weren’t there for a beer,” responded Ned. “You were there for something else.”
“Okay.” The woman narrowed her brow. She had no idea what the hell he was talking about and neither did I. I would go for a beer too, Ned. You go for a beer and shit happens, Ned. I wondered if Ned was lying about the whole ex-addict thing.
What kind of addict doesn’t understand stopping by for a quick drink only to find yourself two hours later doing hard drugs in a bathroom stall?
Sitting next to the junkie was Shelly. Shelly had bleached, frizzy blonde hair with black roots that fell into a deep V down her back. She was impossibly thin and wearing huge gold earrings and tight jeans. She had no visible muscle. Her bones held pockets of waggling skin, like silk draped over a stick. I noticed her forearms were dotted with scars and scratches. She began explaining: “I was doing so great. I was working and back with my family and everything was going so great, but then my mom died, and I found out my husband was fucking around with his ex—the mother of his kids, who I’ve raised since day one—because that woman is a useless bitch, never given us a damn penny, and her kids? You know what? They call me Mama. They’ve always called me Mama. Do they call her Mama? No, cause she’s not there. Who went to their kindergarten graduation? Me. They aren’t even my kids. And when the oldest had pneumonia, who took him to the doctor? Me…”
It was then I realized we had a tweaker on our hands, and I glanced at Ned to see if he was going to shut the chattering woman up anytime soon. He merely gazed at her compassionately, which felt to me like an underhanded insult, as if he were trying to say I was an asshole.
She continued, “So I find out my old man is fucking around with her and you know how I found out? She told me. She just showed up at my work one day and told me she and him had been screwing around for months. And she’s pregnant again, but I don’t believe it’s his baby. And then I find out I’m pregnant too. But I know it’s his baby. So here I am, pregnant, and I was so sad and angry, so one night I scored some dope—”
At the word “dope,” I hit my breaking point and rolled my eyes, because she wasn’t a junkie, and “dope” is heroin. She was trying to sound as hard as the junkie, and it infuriated me. Everyone knows you’re smoking rocks in a barn, lady. She probably didn’t even shoot up.
She wrapped up her inane diatribe with the words “and then I was off and running,” which hit my ears like somebody eating potato chips with her mouth open. Why the hell say things like “off and running”? I wondered how she could afford this place, and if, perhaps, they offer government subsidies for rehab. I made a mental note to avoid Shelly for the next thirty days and the rest of my life.
The next speaker looked vaguely promising. She was clean and less jumpy. Her name was Shannon, and she reminded me of the mothers in my suburban neighborhood. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt with the words “Lake Tahoe” on the front.
Her face contorted into a pained expression while she said, “When my two-year-old pretended there was wine in his sippy cup, I knew I couldn’t drink any more. I saw right then what my life had become.” She looked at her feet, as if that were the saddest image she’d ever conjured.
I suppressed another eye roll, thinking, Oh, did you lose your Mercedes-Benz too? I wished I could say it out loud, but I couldn’t (not yet at least), so I tried killing her with my eyes. Your kid pretended to drink wine out of a sippy cup and you check yourself into rehab? My God, did you even get a hangover once?
It occurred to me that I was going to spend every day for the next thirty days with this horrific conglomerate of humans, and I had no idea how I would survive it. I hated everyone in the room except the dude with the scruffy half-beard who refused to remove his headphones.
Shannon was obviously the healthiest person in the room—with her bobbed hair and polished nails and rampant sanity. What a loser. I considered letting Ned know he should probably send her home. But he nodded encouragingly at her while she explained how her husband had been sleeping in the guest room for six months, and I returned to wondering if Ned was ever a drug addict at all.
Harvey, a red-faced man in his sixties wearing a button-down plaid shirt and blue jeans, began: “I have never been able to quit drinking for long. I made it six months after my baby son died from crib death and I was out drinking when it happened, but I don’t know. I always start again. I’ve never done a drug and I still own a little company, but I can barely show up to work anymore, and my wife and kids are gone, but I think this time it’s going to be different. I think for sure—I mean this is my fourth time in rehab.” He forced a small, sad smile.
I was bored just thinking about him, and decided he must have some intellectual deficiency. He went to rehab four times just on booze? How do you get taken down by alcohol alone, man?
He kept speaking as Ned asked him questions, but I had ceased listening because I knew I was next and needed to figure out what sort of first impression I was going to make to the group. Do I go quiet and reserved? Do I go loud and funny? Do I hold my shocking story close or lay it on them right now?
“Why did you relapse?” Ned asked me with a smile.
“This is my first time in rehab, so I don’t think I’ve done that,” I said, feeling immediately embarrassed.
Ned sat down, as if settling in for the long haul. “A relapse doesn’t just follow treatment. It’s any time you start drinking again after a period of sobriety, after really trying to stay sober.”
“Well, I do that with alcohol every day.” I laughed.
> “Right,” Ned said. “But have you ever been sober for a long period, then started using again?”
I thought about the way I knew Rocket was going to turn me into a PTA mother but instead I ended up doing blow in the bathroom. “Yeah, I guess I did that with cocaine after my son’s birth. I was sure I’d never use it again, and then I did after a long time.”
Ned looked at me, waiting for me to continue, but I had nothing to add, so I resorted to honesty, saying, “But I don’t know why I did it.” I looked away from his face.
“Do you mind sharing the circumstances?” I flinched, because I hated when people said heartfelt words like “sharing.” It made me uneasy.
“I was nursing my newborn son and wanted a beer, so I had one—a really yeasty one—because it helps with milk production. That was what I told myself: ‘It helps with milk.’ And everything was fine for a few months. I even started grad school. I only drank beer and wine, but as my son got older, and I could leave him with my mom, my husband and I started going to bars again, and one night I met a guy who would bring blow to our house, so I bought an eight-ball from him, and then every time I drank I wanted cocaine.”
“So your relapse started with a beer?”
“I guess, but beer wasn’t my problem. Cocaine is what always takes me down.”
“Sounds to me like it was that first beer that took you down.” Ned didn’t smile this time, but instead leaned toward me and looked right in my eyes, and I decided for sure he was not a nice man. Once again, I had no idea what he was talking about.
• • •
After lunch, we gathered in a large room for our first “group therapy” session, or “group” for short, where we all sat in a circle and took turns speaking of “how we’re doing,” with or without a Native American talking stick. In addition to “processing” and creating “relapse prevention plans,” I learned we were defining and cementing our own special disaster hierarchy.
I'm Just Happy to Be Here Page 12