Would You Be Willing To Go To Rehab?
In the months since I started seeing Dr. C, we’d done a lot of great work – or so I’d thought. I believed I’d come to deep personal revelations that would help me be happier in my future.
Dr. C thought I couldn’t progress any further in my life if I didn’t give up alcohol.
Suddenly I realized: he’d had me talk about the consequences of my drinking, try to count my drinks, collect bottle caps – then can tabs – to determine how much I was drinking, and talk for hours and hours about both my dreams and my failures.
It didn’t seem fair that, after building a rapport with him for so many months – now he didn’t want to see me anymore? The alcohol is what gave me purpose, kept me sane and happy. Beer was my best friend. How could Dr. C not have realized this?
I actually cried when he said he didn’t want to see me anymore. I didn’t hear “you need to quit drinking.” I heard “you are not my friend.” I felt betrayed and abandoned and deeply hurt.
But also, I knew how to analyze my own dream, and that dream had been clear. There was no denying the bloody, slashed and brutally beaten body that my subconscious created while I slept. And I remember the recognition, looking at my battered bones, that I had done all that harm to myself.
Most notably: I couldn’t feel any pain, even after destroying myself so completely.
So after crying and begging and fighting more than was necessary I told Dr. C: “I don’t actually know how to stop drinking, so I guess I can’t see you anymore.”
“You can learn how to live without drinking,” he said. “Would you be willing to go to rehab to do that?”
“I can’t! I have to work!” I wailed. I loved, loved, loved my job. And rehab sounded a little scary.
“You might need to take a medical leave of absence.”
A leave of absence sounded nice. That meant I didn’t have to work and I could keep my job! “Will you keep seeing me if I go to rehab?”
Dr. C paused, considering this. “If you complete the program, yes,” he said finally.
I thought about my life. I would need someone to take care of Kitty. I would need to tell my job that I needed to go to a hospital. But that was it. I had exactly two responsibilities.
I thought about the rest of the things in my life – the people who would care that I was going to rehab. My entire extended family would be elated, but I wasn’t going to go to rehab to appease them. I was thrilled to be getting away from Gregg; his lies had destroyed our relationship. I thought about that scary LSD experience with Bonnie, who was finishing her college degree in Ohio. Exchanging letters with my other college friend, Debbie, wasn’t going to stop if I went to rehab.
And any other friends I still had … well, they only visited to drink with me. And even those friends had been gone for awhile.
Rehab wasn’t likely to end my loneliness, but I sure didn’t feel anything pulling me to stay at home.
Plus I could go to a place where someone would feed me and take care of me for however long it took for my “rehabilitation.” And I therefore didn’t have to worry about taking care of myself.
Maybe rehab wouldn’t be so bad.
“Okay, I’ll go,” I said.