Rehab

Okay so this is how rehab went:

Just when I thought I was ready for another round of vodka soda… I was gifted this overwhelming feeling that I had to be done. This chapter HAD to be over.

I ended up at this detox… unsure of what was behind the door but anything would be better than what I left behind.

I can hear these words, these quiet voices from the others suffering next to me in the trenches. They keep me sheltered in a place that I have no words to describe. There’s nothing fancy or flashy about rehab. There were no green smoothies or spa days like I have seen in so many movies.

I really want to leave.

But they’re not leaving.

And it seems like we’re all going through the same thing, in different ways but the same.

Although, I secretly know my case is worse

But all the same their voices create a pause in the loneliness and fear of death that has been lingering. Where we all become equally excited for Kraft dinner and wake each-other up at 1am to say ‘I want to get high, can you hold me’

They are more to me than life, these voices … Because I can’t relate to the ones with lanyards. Even the newest most entry level people seem much too healthy and stable to be even the least bit relatable right now.

And these strangers next to me who last week I wouldn’t have given a second glance at, have suddenly become the strongest, most motherly, most comforting thing I could imagine in a horror show experience.

I belong to them, and them to me in this mutual understanding of shared humanity and self preservations. Our foundation is built off of feelings wheels and anti-emetics. I remember packing my bags and these voices unpacked them just as fast.

For a moment in time we are nearer than family but in a simpler and harder way. Today they saved me and I saved them

In a few days we’ll pass out of each others lives and what will be left are foggy and sedated memories.

I can’t even be sure that any of it happened the way I remember

Years later and a couple of them made it, and a lot of them have died (Andy 🤍) and a few are somewhere in between.

But for them I am grateful and remain sober for

And I can still hear their voices sometimes.