Did You Leave Against Medical Advice?
The next day, I started fervently calling rehabs. I figured it was a sign from God when someone from NA appeared from nowhere to save me, a sign that I should continue down the path of sobriety I’d started.
But none of the rehabs would take me.
First I called Gateway, and told them my detox story. I said I was already on the waiting list, but that I’d probably be dead in three weeks.
Their response? “We’ll have to take you off the waiting list for at least six months.”
“WHY!” I screamed.
“Because it sounds like you walked out of detox against medical advice. We don’t take anyone who’s been AMA in the past six months.”
I crumbled a bit but didn’t give up.
I started calling other rehabs, none of whom wanted me.
The conversations went something like this:
“Have you sought help in the past for your addiction?”
“I was in rehab in 1989,” I said. “I stayed sober for almost three years.”
“Anything more recent?”
“Yes, I went to detox a couple of weeks ago but they shot me with some kind of horse tranquilizer so I left.”
“Horse tranquilizer?”
“I don’t know what it was, but I didn’t want any more shots. They told me I had to get shots or I should leave.”
“Did you leave against medical advice?”
“Yes,” I said. “They made me sign some papers.”
“We can’t take you if you’ve left a detox against medical advice.”
“Why not? I wouldn’t leave rehab!”
“We only take patients who are serious about recovery.”
I called dozens of rehabs and we had this same conversation every time. It never occurred to me to lie to them about leaving AMA. I figured hospitals were all linked together.
Plus I was all about honesty.
I couldn’t find anyone within a 60-mile radius who was willing to have me as a patient. So I kept drinking and looking for a rehab with no foreseeable end to the pattern.
Eventually I branched out beyond the Pittsburgh radius. Someone at a hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania said, “Sure, we can take you. When can you get here?”
I gulped. “Really?” Erie was two hours away. “I just have to find someone to drive me and I’ll be there!”
“Well, you might want to be here in the next few days,” said the nice woman on the phone. “Right now we have beds but there’s no telling how long that’ll last.”
“Okay!” I said. I hung up. Thrilled and terrified, I considered asking Louise for a ride, but one trip to detox was her limit. I considered calling my parents, but they were in Maryland.
So I went to a bar to find a ride to rehab. I decided I would go to rehab in style, on a motorcycle. And I definitely wanted to drink one more time before I went, because this would be the last time ever that I drank.
So I drank all night and, when the bar closed, I asked a really cute – but rather a jerk – guy if he could take me to rehab on his motorcycle. He was a pig, really.
“Fuck no,” he said. “Maybe Marvin will take you.”
I turned to his biker friend who had a wooden leg and a sidecar on his motorcycle. I didn’t want to ride in a sidecar and I sure didn’t want to ride with a guy with a wooden leg.
But it was 2 a.m. and I was out of options.
“Will you take me to rehab in Erie?” I asked.
“Sure,” Marvin said.