Women Were Like Knives in a Sack of Spoons.
Rehab consisted of two parts: detox and rehabilitation.
For me, detox lasted three days. I had my own room and I slept a lot. Food was provided on a regular schedule, and I ate some of it. I left my room and wandered around a bit, wondering how this place could possibly keep me sober. There was nothing to do. I watched TV in the common area.
Zane, a very tall patient with a dark beard, wandered into the common area a few times. He seemed quiet and reserved, as all of us did, as we stared at the television. Once he got up to leave, took ten steps or so, then fell abruptly to the floor. He started to seize violently, foaming at the mouth, eyes completely rolled back in his head.
Staff appeared from nowhere, jostling him about and saving his life.
Later I asked a nurse what had happened to Zane. “Seizure,” she said. “It’s why you’re in detox. We need to make sure you are physically able to go into rehab.”
“I thought I was in rehab,” I said.
“This is just detox,” she said. “Rehab is in another building.” This was news to me. I thought sleeping, eating and watching TV were all we would do.
“Well at least I won’t have a seizure,” I told her. “I mostly just drank beer.”
“Zane’s an alcoholic,” she said. “Never did a drug in his life. Anyone can have a seizure.”
This terrified me. Mere hours later, I was moved into the rehab side of the facility, where I never saw Zane or anyone else from detox. This also terrified me.
But somehow rehab didn’t scare me at all.
We had therapy groups, which I loved, even though I didn’t like getting out of bed at 8 a.m. We had three meals a day, and I scarfed them down. I discovered quite quickly that food tasted better when I wasn’t drinking, and I easily gained ten pounds in my 31 days in the hospital.
There were lots of people in rehab, many around my age. I even had a roommate: Chyna, a small, thin, dark-skinned woman who identified herself as a heroin junkie. She spoke quietly when we were in the room together, and she seemed very nice. But out in the common areas she was loud, very loud, and I didn’t do well with loud. She seemed to have been born with a volume button that automatically went up in large groups. Outside of our room, she seemed feisty and mean. So I didn’t get to know Chyna well.
I felt like I was back in middle school, trying to find my people. In an instant, even with my love for my younger self fresh in my mind, I felt completely ostracized.
So I gravitated toward the people who, I knew, would appreciate me without reserve: the men. The women were like knives in a sack of spoons; they could hurt me if I tried to get close. Rejection by women would have been more painful than my raw, sober self could possibly handle.
I sought the people who would like me simply because of my gender, and I had no trouble getting the attention of the guys in the rehab. I shied away from women of all ages with the exception of Sheila the pot-smoking taxi driver, who was my age, gay, and tough. I really enjoyed talking to Sheila.
Unfortunately for me, Sheila left rehab and relapsed immediately. She did not come back.
I learned quickly. Next, I latched onto a guy named Don.