

# re·cid·i·vist

rəˈsidəvəst/

noun

1.

denoting a person who repeatedly reoffends.

by

### Mick Southerland

# Special thanks to:

Meghan

Mom and Dad

Matt

Jon Long

Jyl Moder

Josi Brooks

Kristen Culotta

Anne Vaughan

# Author's Note

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This is a book of lies.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes  
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

COPYRIGHT©2016 MICK SOUTHERLAND  
 _Smashwords Edition_

080916

#

" _Give me Leonard Cohen afterworld, so I can sigh eternally."_

Kurt Cobain

# Terminal Four

My shirt is soaked tight to my back like a scab after swimming. I reach over to peel it off, crack my eyes to slits, and look to get my bearings. Ian is next to me; we are on a plane. _Okay._ _Wake-up._ Stretching to adjust the air nozzle above me and angle Ian's air my way too, my bicep cramps in shooting pain. This is not from dehydration; my body has lost its ability to absorb nutrients. I rub to loosen up the muscle and hear my stomach boiling. My insides are burning tender; ass is hurting from endless diarrhea. _I'll have to get up for the toilet soon._

Ding!

" _Ladies and gentlemen, as we start our descent, please make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full upright position. Be sure your seatbelt is securely fastened, and all carry-on luggage is stowed underneath the seat in front of you or in the overhead bins. Thank you for flying with Southwest Airlines. Y'all have a great day._

The mammoth guy across the aisle is flowing over the boundaries of his seat, drinking rum and coke. I can smell it. Ian could stomp his ass for that drink, but I couldn't—I'm impotent.

My intake advisor hinted I shouldn't stop drinking before I arrive. He couldn't come out and say it but hinted strongly for a few reasons: if I want my insurance to pay for treatment, I have to show up in need of a detox. If I don't want to flop around like a fish out of water in a seizure, I should show up drunk.

"Maybe we should get you some drinks," Ian says. "You're going to be locked up for 30 days, maybe your last chance?"

"Yeah, it's probably is a good idea to have just one, or two" I say, "to be safe." I'm bargaining like I'm buying silver in Mexico.

Ian turns to me with a slash mouth and dead eyes,

"Then do it already."

"I'm just kidding," I say that out loud—just kidding. I'm so tired of hearing those words. It's my tagline for lack of accountability.

It would be easy enough to order a drink, but I promised my family I wouldn't. After the intervention, Ian offered to fly with me to Arizona to make sure I arrived drunk. I didn't mention, Ian is my best friend. I can always count on him to be there when I'm in trouble. I've been to rehab seven times; this will be eight—I don't know if this will be my last time.

The wheels skid on asphalt, the air brakes roar, I'm deathly ill. The plane docks at Terminal 4, Gate B16. We sit in that moment of limbo when the AC stops blowing cold and everyone stands up too early in anticipation of escape from the tube of death, each little person thinking _they_ have the most extraordinary life waiting for them. They are flying sheep. Bodies line up above me, far too close, asses too close to my face—everyone smells like Suave shampoo and ass. I reach to the seatback pouch for the white bag with a cartoon of a puking guy. I wonder who the artist is, how he laughed about it with his art director like his talent was above the work, and how he talks about his _real_ art to impress girls at the bar each night.

" _Bllaaahhh_ ," I soil his creative failure with my vomitus. The woman standing above me gives a startled _yelp_ and looks embarrassed. I give her an apologetic smile as I wipe my mouth on my sleeve. It's mostly just bile, but the smell is horrendous.

"Why don't you give her a kiss?" Ian says. I elbow him secretly in the ribs.

I wait until everyone is safely off the plane before any attempt to walk. Struggling to stand, Ian reaches out for my hand to pull me up—I'm Jordan after a fade away jumper—but he yanks his hand away at the last second. I am unamused.

I leverage my weight against the arm rest to get my feet under me and plod along chair by chair, in Frankenstein walk, gripping seatbacks. My knees have no recoil. I spit the remnants of vomit into one of the passing seats while the flight attendants have their backs turned.

"Some lucky bastard is going to find that later," Ian says.

I open cabinets to look for a stray vodka bottle when we pass the drink service station; maybe something was left behind by mistake. _Nothing. Fuck me._

"Sir, please move out of the flight crew area and exit the plane."

" _Sir, please move out of the blah, blah...bitch,"_ Ian mimics her under his breath.

We are met at the gate ramp by an airline person with a wheelchair, someone must have called ahead. I arch my brows at Ian. He shrugs. Generally, this would be a pissing match, but he is right, I need help this time. I collapse into the chair and wait for someone to flop down the foot holsters. This isn't the first time I've ridden to rehab in a wheelchair. The airline person pushes me up the ramp. Ian follows, staring at her ass.

I bet Mia is selling all my stuff right now. She's probably trying to figure out how to get the most money for my guitars—searching eBay for prices.

Our driver from Catalina Recovery meets us and offers to grab my bags. Jim is a silvery senior volunteer who cherishes the opportunity to interact with young people. He must have a dead wife at home and is desperately lonely to settle for conversations with junkies in withdrawal.

"Hey there, I'm Jim, are you my guy?"

"Did the puke bag give me away?" I say, trying to be friendly.

"Well, okay, let's get'er rolling. Right out here, I got a good spot," Jim says as he takes over the wheelchair. The airline person exhales, walks away, thankful to get away from Ian.

"Bye honey! Call me! Can we hit a bar on the way there?" Ian says. I glare. Jim offers me a water bottle while he pushes me through short-term parking.

"You got any vodka in the limo, Jim?" Ian says, not joking in any way what-so-ever. Thankfully, Jim ignores him.

I abandon the wheelchair, kicking it over and climb up into the white, unmarked abduction wagon. Jim cranks the van, pulls from the garage and starts telling stories. I realize he has been working on these stories all day, for this moment. The stories continue for the 45 minutes it takes to drive out to the desert. After 20 minutes, I'm hoping he is going to shoot me and dump me in a hole out there. One story about an addict jumping out at a stoplight gets my attention.

"A young man jumped from the moving van right here and went looking for drugs," he says, looking back for a reaction in the rearview mirror.

"Did you chase after him?" I ask.

"Nope, that's not our problem. If they run before admissions, it's out of my hands." _I might run._

Eventually, it gets quiet, I wonder what is ahead of me and worry for what I left behind. It's hard not to be emotional sobering up, my mind and body are a wreck, the feelings have been dead for so long. I'm pissed, and I'm guilty. I look out the window, it's dark, there is nothing positive out there. I'm exhausted and coming back to life at the same time. Tears well in my eyes. _Stiffen up asshole._ I wish Ian were here to toughen me up.

I'm back in the same place with the same disastrous results. Insanity. I'm done this time. If Mia wants to get a divorce, I will get a divorce. I'd rather have my freedom anyway. I can move back to Austin and do whatever I want and see whomever I choose. That's going to be my motivation for sobriety _this time_. Using my family as motivation clearly didn't work. I'll clean up and finally get to live the selfish life I've always wanted to live; she'll _get stuck_ with the kids. Fuck her.

When we pull up to the rear entrance of campus, it's moonless and pouring rain.

# Loko Gold

I should probably talk about the incident, the one that landed me in rehab this time around.

On Sunday, December 6th, I was lying on the floor of the Hilton, naked, unable to walk. I'd been in the room drinking since Monday, and my emaciated body finally gave out.

I'm not sure what happened. One morning I just woke up, and I'd had enough of my life. I left my car in the driveway and requested an Uber pick-up. I didn't leave a note or tell anyone where I was going. At my request, the driver took me to Spec's Liquor where I walked through the aisles drafting my dream team of vodkas. Smirnoff, Stolichnaya, Mezzaluna, Belvedere, Grey Goose, Tito's, Deep Eddy—all of my favorite players. I loaded the trunk with my presents to me and had the driver drop me off at the Hilton—checked-in, turned my phone off and started drinking. A week later I was still there and out of vodka.

I tried to make it to the bathroom and failed, so I urinated in the nearest garbage can. Metal with unsealed seams, the urine soaking the carpet beneath. I couldn't stop shaking or vomiting, nor could I sleep. I'd get feverish and turn on the air, which made me shake uncontrollably. I hadn't eaten since Thursday afternoon and hadn't talked to my family since before that.

Holding my hand up to the light, I could see through the thin, pale skin, barely hanging on the bones, the flesh dry and cracking. It was an out-of-body experience; this wasn't my hand. I needed to get sober.

Detoxing from a long relapse is a tricky business. Stopping cold turkey risks seizures, maybe even death. I ran out of vodka and needed to taper with something to prevent me from being alcohol sick—I direly needed nutrition. Since I hadn't been eating, seizing up was highly likely. I asked Ian to go buy me three Loko Golds. Loko Gold is as bad as it sounds. A can contains 24 ounces of fruit-flavored malt liquor with an ABV of 15% (the alcoholic equivalent of a strong bottle of wine). It is diabetes in a can, but it's also Gatorade for alcoholics.

The door knocked—it must have taken me ten minutes to slither there and answer. Ian had supplies. He scanned me up and down with the look of eating a lemon, "You need some drink, bro."

I raised my head and forced a smile, wiping the vomit from my beard and smelling my armpit.

"Sorry, about the smell," I say.

Hygiene was really the last thing on my mind. My life was over, and there was nothing I could do about it. Mia and I had not had a good relationship for some time; she barely talked to me over the past year. My drinking played a significant role in our relationship falling apart. We started out drinking together years ago, and she was able to quit, but it wasn't as easy for me. Since then we've gone separate ways emotionally.

Ian is my best friend but more than that, Ian and I are the same. We have each other's back in brawls, lies, drinking, and life. He is an alcoholic/addict too. He did time in Iraq and never fully recovered. Sometimes his temper got his best, landing him in jail. I was there for him in his darkest days, he is here for me in mine.

Ian's mom left when he was 8-years-old. He grew up with an alcoholic dad who beat the shit out of him and his sister on a daily basis. As soon as Ian was old enough, he trained and fought mixed-martial arts.

"I had to keep my dad off of my little sister," he said.

Ian grew up big—he is now about 6'4" with long linebacker arms. His fists are the size of cantaloupes. Ian would have made a great heavyweight boxer back when heavyweight boxers mattered.

Women love Ian, not for his looks—he _is_ good looking—they like his ego. He doesn't give a shit; he will talk to any woman. Once a girl has him, she leaves for the same reason she liked him in the first place—his ego. He is not what I would call sensitive when it comes to women or their emotional needs. Of the two of us, I'm the sensitive side of the brain we share.

At 18, Ian became a Marine and went to Iraq. After the war, he was discharged and accepted to the Ranger Assessment Program. He is one of only a few people in American history who have been both Marine and Army Ranger. In his first year, Ian was discharged from the 75th Rangers for circumstances he can't seem to explain. Ian can't follow orders and is full of rage. He is great with challenges, but when things settle down, and regular life kicks in, he implodes.

After his Ranger Training, Ian was in demand as a Blackwater consultant, but he couldn't live with the things they asked him to do. He spent one year with Blackwater and went on to fight MMA in Vegas. Later, he came to Austin to live with me and work as a bouncer on 6th street. Ian recently did nine months in lock-up at Gatesville; he nearly beat a man to death for calling him a Nazi _._ I have personally seen him fight five guys at once, while I stood there drunk, pissing myself. His life is a story I would not believe had I not been there since we were 13, smoking our first joint together at an Ozzy concert.

Ian saw my state and offered to take me to a bar—the only place in Texas to get vodka on a Sunday. I refused; I was ready to detox. I needed to get myself together, doing my best to choke down the Loko Gold. Each sip caused me to gag and vomit, which I swallowed. It tasted of fruit-flavored stomach, but I couldn't waste the alcohol. I'd sip, swallow, vomit, and swallow again until I had finally trudged my way through the first can. Ian began mock-gagging, which made me laugh and gag more. I opened the second can, not feeling any better, withdrawals kicking in, a race to not seize up.

Halfway through the second can, I showed tiny signs of life, the sugar from the Loko helped more than anything. My left leg was cold and tingling, which was frightening. I attempted to drag myself to the bed and noticed my foot and ankle were swollen blood orange red. No part of me wanted to go home and deal with Mia. I would rather have driven straight to rehab than to face what was ahead of me at home.

Deathly sick on Sunday night, I had only eaten half a Slim Jim in three days. I chose a Slim Jim because it packs a lot of salt, fat, and protein into a small package. I tried to eat room service a few times, but the texture made me ill.

I seek refuge in hotels—my sanctuary. A good hotel, with a high thread count, and mini-bar is a protective womb. It feeds me and cares for me, but most importantly, no one can get to me if I don't want them to. I'm not real in a hotel, just a vacant face with a credit card, a passing smile at the ice machine, another day of dirty towels without expectations or judgment. I can exist like a ghost, without fear or love; I just am.

I stayed for one more night, not ready to own up to the wreckage that is was life, another sleepless night filled with cold sweats and endless shakes. I gathered myself the next morning and left for the short ride home. I felt sorry for the person who had to clean my bodily fluids off the furniture.

By the look on his face, Ian's patience was gone. I was a pussy about drinking, and he was sick of it. I turned on my phone to discover some shocking news. My family sent out a mass Facebook message asking if anyone knew my whereabouts—to over 900 of my Facebook friends. _My family broke into my Facebook account._ No one knew where I was for a week. I was a missing person.

As the Uber driver pulled onto my street, I could see parked in front of my house, four police cars and a bunch of policemen standing near the road. I slumped in my seat.

"Did you call them?" I said; my voice cracking.

The Uber driver stopped the car, turned back to raise his furry uni-brow in judgment.

"I've been with you," Ian said. He has a pretty thick rap sheet and was not looking forward to talking to cops, so he bailed.

"Just drive Amet!" I snapped.

As we pulled in front of the house, two officers stopped the car, approached from either side and asked for IDs. We were separated for questioning. They quizzed Amet even though he had done nothing more than act as a chauffeur. The cop that questioned me clarified I was not in any legal trouble.

"Do you need help?" The officer stood starched, crisp, and sober.

Barely audible, I muttered, "No, I'm fine."

"You can tell me if you need help," he insisted.

"I just need to go to treatment," head down, I noticed my gray pants were frayed from getting caught under my heels and barely sat on my waist. My belt cinched up four notches gave it a long tail that stopped my black t-shirt from falling flat in the front. I'd lost too much weight in the past few weeks.

At the time I thought the officer was nice, but later realized he was trying to find out if I was suicidal, searching for a reason to hold me for being a danger to myself. Intentionally killing myself sounded like way too much work and painful, but that didn't necessarily rule out the possibility of not trying to stay alive when drinking. For the next few days, I withdrew from my family while I detoxed.

# Detox

Day one of detox was death. I hid out in an upstairs room, in agonizing pain. Every trip to the toilet had fluids coming out of both ends. The first night was steeped in dark depression, the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, watching World War II documentaries all night. By morning I knew the entire history of the war from the German invasion of Poland to Hitler's suicide, a night filled with death, dismemberment, toilet bombings, and genocide. As the sun burned through the window, and up the walls, I rejoiced. I had survived the onslaught.

The second day was not as much fun as the first, on the couch, all day alcohol sick, wrapped in a blanket with frequent runs to the toilet for evacuation. As the kids stomped in from school, they shocked my nervous system with their voices—full of shrill life—fingernails on a chalkboard. Every sound sent a charge of electricity up my spine to hit my brain with a percussion strike. I needed to go back to the quiet of the Hilton.

I was afraid to sleep that night—hadn't slept in three days and each time I faded off, I got a brain zap. I watched documentaries until 3 am, I fell asleep—the brain zaps were a terrible sign of what was to come.

_I could just make out the urgency in a distant nurturing voice, pleading for me to wake up. I couldn't see_ her _past the streetlights whizzing by in a city of such vibrant colors._

" _Wake up honey," a thousand miles away full of caring. Was it Mia? It was not familiar._

" _I can't see you," she said. I tried to open my eyes. I tried to talk. I sobbed inconsolably at my mortality._

" _Wake up," she whispered._

" _Wake up, now." I felt her warm breath, the inviting tone of a new lover._

_My ears had no holes, my eyes seamless orbs. I dreamed about my life in crackling cellophane: the birth of my children, falling from the waterfall, running through plate glass, death on a white beach, the stories were details flowing in and out all at once. A second or a year passed, I hit the ground gasping for air. I could make out shapes in the room, but I couldn't bring them into focus. My head buzzed numb._ I'd had a seizure.

I scanned my body to see what still worked. I could not feel my head, save for a slight tingling sensation left of my brain. My left leg was lifeless. I pulled myself to the chair and ran diagnostics. My arms were working. My ability to speak intact. I could see from both eyes. I could smile on both sides of my mouth. I could not read nor type, the words I read meant nothing, those I typed came out jumbled on the screen. Nonsensical. With every subsequent attempt, I could feel immense pressure on the right side of my brain—it didn't want to be used that way and hurt me for trying.

That morning, Mia came upstairs for the first time to check on me.

"Are you okay? I heard a noise up here," she asked. I could barely speak, but I managed the words,

"I'm fine." I was far too bitter to have a conversation and not about to admit that I was scared of dying.

On day three of detox, my cognitive function slowly returned, and the feeling in my extremities was coming back too. I was still nauseous-shaky, but I could walk and talk without crapping my pants.

That morning I booked an intake interview at LaHa, a local Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP). I arrived for my appointment just before 1:00 pm. My body temperature rose steadily as I sat waiting for my interview—by the time I was called into the office, I was sweating and fading in and out of consciousness. With each passing cycle, I grew closer to going into total blackness. The woman I met with was short, she smiled too much, a know it all, she smelled like Mexican food—I hated her.

"How are you doing today?" she said. "You don't look like you're feeling so well."

"Just leave me alone for a minute. Let me breathe."

"I can tell you have a self-will problem," she said.

_I_ can tell _you have a FUCK YOU problem._

"Let's just do the intake," I said, _fading out..._

"Hello? Sir? Do you want me to call an ambulance?"

... _one night I was... loaded, loaded, took the city by 1:00 AM_ loaded, loaded _...sorry, Judas Priest—these enchantments are hard to control. It was in downtown Austin, I was with my friend Fred, who was my roommate at the time. We sneaked into the Sheraton to steal drinks from a wedding reception. Somehow, we found our way into the_ kitchen, _and Fred_ took _all of the chef's knives by sticking them down his pants. On the way out, one of us accidentally knocked over the wedding cake. I thought it was brave of Fred to stick all those knives down his pants. That night, Fred jumped the 5:00 am_ train _that passed by our house and rode south. I didn't see_ him _for two weeks..._

" _HELLO? SIR?"_

When I came to, the therapist insisted I call someone for a ride to the emergency room. I turned down the offer to call an ambulance. She looked at my behavior and asked if I was drunk or on drugs. I was in the midst of a panic attack brought on by Xanax and alcohol withdrawal. I called my wife, Mia, she didn't answer. I called my mom. She was there and worried. She said she would be at LaHa in five minutes. While I waited for her to arrive, I excused myself to the bathroom in time to explode diarrhea.

My mom arrived after twenty minutes and freaked-the-fuck-out. I strained to calm her, but my efforts didn't work.

"It's going to be okay mom," I said, laying on the floor,

"You just need to cool down. I need you to drive me to the emergency clinic."

Her overwhelming anxiety made my panic attack have a panic attack. I had her drop me off at Snot & Wipe Emergency Medical Care, a dock-in-the-box walk-in, where the staff at the clinic did zero for me—my blood pressure skyrocketed to a point where my left arm hurt. My mom had to leave me to go pick up my three kids. I found myself stuck with no way to get to the _real_ emergency room.

I called my dad and waited thirty minutes for him to get there. I was apprehensive about calling him. We hadn't been very close in a while—he was judgmental of my alcoholism. I knew he was going to give me shit, and I was in no mood for shit. I stood in the parking lot with people in scrubs passing every which way, I was frozen and dying. No one would notice me until I hit the ground, and then, the janitors would take care of it. I tried to calm myself with deep breaths. I tried walking around, jumping jacks, nothing worked.

Generally, I can think myself out of a panic attack. When I start to panic, I just think of something inconsequential, like a piece of trash on the ground. If I panic over the piece of trash, I've proven to myself that the issue is mental and not physical. Once I know it's not a heart attack, I calm down. This technique was not working, which made the panic worse.

When my father pulled up, I struggled to walk to his car, my knees were stiff and my chest pulsed with each beat of my worthless heart. I turned up the AC and pointed it directly at my face while he complained about a shot he received the day before. _It's always all about him. I'm dying, and my dad is complaining about a flu shot._

I was a corpse by the time we arrived at the hospital. My dad dropped me off at the ambulance entrance and honked his horn to get the attention of the hospital staff. _That shit happened._ The nurse on duty glared at me from behind the locked sliding glass doors, but let me in—I walked in crying chest pains,

"I'm sorry," my right arm across my chest, clutching my throbbing left bicep.

"I'm not sure why he dropped me off here," I said. I realized I was more concerned about appearances than my own welfare. _Why do I pretend to care what these people think?_

Inside a cramped examination room, with its blue paper bed, tubes, and numbered dial gadgets, it took the doctor thirty seconds to figure out I was in a panic attack brought on by detox. He gave me Ativan and my blood pressure dropped. _Ativan is a benzo, part of the reason I was there._

With just the utterance of the words "chest pains" in an emergency room, the doctor has to do every test in the book to make certain it isn't a heart attack—for liability reasons. I spent the next five hours taking X-rays, EKGs, and blood tests to prove I would not drop dead in the parking lot. I was upset my wife, Mia, never showed up or called the hospital to check on me. It was her way of getting even or showing me once and for all that she was done with me. They released me from the hospital late that night.

On day four, I was showing signs of being over the hump, but nobody believed me. Everyone was sure I was still drunk and suicidal. During the early stages of my relapse, I was drunk on the couch and had a conversation with my Mother. I was sobbing, face down, a thick stench of urine hung in the room. _A Gatorade bottle I'd been peeing in tipped over at the end of the sofa._

"This doesn't end well," I moaned, sliding to wretch over the stainless bowl on the floor.

I was talking about the deadly, progressive, nature of the disease. She took it to mean I was going to off myself.

I noticed my mom and Mia were doing all they could to keep the kids away from me. Mom refused to let me pick them up from school, and Mia kept the kids away from the house until late at night. I felt like I was losing my mind. I knew Mia had read through my e-mails during my disappearing act, searching for clues to find me. They even looked through the archive of a neighbor's security camera to see how I left the house. Other people commented on things I hadn't told them—my brother asked about business affairs he could not have known about, my gun safe was open, and all of my guns were missing—I couldn't trust anyone. An intervention was coming.

On day four, my family showed up at the house to talk about going back to rehab. It was an Intervention, but not fun like on TV. They stood in the kitchen and ate seafood gumbo while I gagged. I knew I needed to go to rehab; I wasn't going to argue, but I wasn't in a state to talk about it. My brother, Kevin, recommended a place he had rehabbed and liked. I was up for trying something new. Kevin offered to pay whatever my insurance would not cover. I said I couldn't let him do that, but explained that at his lowest, he went to Catalina Recovery because someone had gifted the treatment to him. He would now do the same for me, and one day, I would have to do it for someone else. "Fuck it, let's go." I hastily packed, said goodbye to my family, my children, and left for Catalina Recovery that night.

# The Tank

The rain is coming down, it's late, and I'm shaking from detox and cold. I follow two Resident Advisors in blood red Catalina Recovery uniforms into the adobe hospital building. Karen is a handsy thirtysomething nurse with concerned eyes and a smoky voice. She was once a patient here, she didn't tell me, but she was. Bruce is a burly tomato head with the smell of conservative insensitivity. It's 1:00 am by the time I arrive, he's not happy to be up this late, but I don't give a fuck.

"Have a seat right there," he says, pointing me into a small office. The walls are covered with recovery aphorisms: Let go and let God. One day at a time. This too shall pass. _Stupid shit._ There is a filing cabinet in the corner with a stack of folders filled with patient notes, psych tests, trash. There is a table against the near wall holding stacks of medical supplies, rubber gloves, packets, wipes. I get up, and I poke around in the medical supplies looking for anything useful. Standing next to the table is a blood pressure machine with a digital read-out and an armband on a rolling stand.

"Hello there, mister," Karen is in a good mood, but she is not engaged in the moment. _I bet her boyfriend is cheating on her. I would be._ She gives me a stack of admissions paperwork to fill out while I make friendly small talk.

"Do you always work this late?" I ask.

"No, sweetie," she says, offering no elaboration. _She is somewhere else right now, on my dime._

"Fill these out too," she slides a stack of papers at me, the uniformity breaking as it comes within my reach. I gather up the pages, tighten them up in my hands, loudly tapping the stack on the desk to look organized—to mock.

I ask Karen if she can accept and sign for a $25,000 bank check.

"I've been toting this around all day," I say. "I've never been so nervous taking a shit in an airport bathroom."

"We only hold it until someone from accounting opens the safe in the morning," She says.

I hang on to the check until morning. I'm here after only twelve hours' notice, and my insurance has not yet approved treatment. Catalina Recovery requires I pay 50% up front, in cash.

Desert Lotus Hospital has the aesthetic of an IRS office. It's a real shithole, with a large round reception desk at the entrance of a long room, that looks like it was decorated by government auction. There's a common area split by laminated HON office tables with metal legs, plastic Department of Transportation chairs, and a 60-inch TV. The large flat screen is from the wrong nightmare. It doesn't go with the wood-paneled walls or the shit-wood doors leading to sleeping rooms and offices. In the far corner is an institutional eating room with folding picnic tables, the bleacher kind with built-in benches. There is no coffee maker, no food, just tables on tile, fluorescent lights and bare walls.

"I need to take a leak," I say, pointing at my crotch.

"There is a toilet in your room," Mr. Tomato nods to the door behind me. His redness reminds me of going on tour with The Deaf Ears; I used to carry a backpack in the van with Stolichnaya, cherry tomatoes, sea salt, and a tall shot glass—a portable bar—for a bloody Mary shot I pretended was healthy.

"Hey! Come right back out!" he barks, I turn away, ignoring. He lacks trust, which I find insulting.

My room is for two, I reach down and slide my hand over the thin white sheet stretched with military precision across an impossibly firm mattress. The sheet has been bleached into submission by years of detox fluid removal. The fold at the top reveals brick of a pillow, unforgiving in its commitment to form. The suite's vibe is prison infirmary meets hospital ICU, with buzzing stark fluorescent lighting—negative ions thrive in this space.

A lump under blankets across the room isn't moving. _And_ , _it's rolled in the blanket from my bed._ I can't make out a sex from the pile of clothes on the floor.

"Wake-up!" I cough, my hand balled in front of my mouth.

"Hey, I guess we are bunking..." I tail off here, there is no movement. _I bet it would move if I took my blanket back._

Bruce growls at me to come back out and empty my pockets and to hand over my luggage. I haven't pissed, but I comply. He asks if I'm hungry, a surprising courtesy.

"Yes!" I chirp, the first sign of humanity on his part or mine. "I'm starving; fucking airport food," I say, rubbing my stomach in the international language of hunger.

"We'll see if we can't find you something," he answers without lifting his head. I notice liver spots on the top of his head connected by capillary tubes and lose my appetite.

"We are not having liver are we?" I say.

"What?"

"Nothing."

I don't want him handling my food.

Bruce takes it upon himself to go through all of my possessions with impressive detail. He confiscates Bukowski's _Women_ , a Musician's Friend catalog, a half-eaten box of Mike and Ikes, a bottle of Blue Jean cologne, two leather belts, and an Art of Shaving razor.

"How am I supposed to shave?"

"And my belts? What the fuck?" I shrug, raising my hands in a question mark.

"Can't have those here," his arm's deep in my bag now, checking for hidden compartments.

"At the last place..." I start, I'm interrupted.

"No belts or razors," he recites the rule.

"Two people killed themselves here last year," he says. The statement doesn't even register as he floats it. _It could be ten_ people _, and I would still need a shave and pants that stay up._

"And the cologne has alcohol in it." I knew that was coming. In rehab smelling good is not even a _thing_. You get used to body odor.

"We had an old military guy who preferred drinking Aqua Velva to liquor," he adds anecdotally.

"That is so awesome," I'm suddenly entertained. "At least you didn't have to smell it."

"Did you ever read that book where the drunk guy swishes cologne in his mouth before business meetings?" I try to converse. Bruce ignores the question.

I can almost tolerate Bruce's demeanor by the time he gives me my bag back, sans the good stuff. I was in a hurry to pack and sick stuffing my duffle bag. I ended up with three t-shirts that don't fit, and a pair of puke crusted black skinny jeans—no extra underwear, no socks. Everything else was already in the bag.

I'm told I will be skin searched next. This is where RAs looks at my whole body in detail, naked. No one mentioned a skin search in my phone screening, but I'm prepared. I was expecting a search of my clothes. I stashed my emergency rations in my clothes anyway, because I have the best spot.

It is the middle of the night, I'm exhausted and chewing off my fingertips, I don't have the strength to argue about a skin search. I spent five days detoxing, and I'm not out of the woods yet, but I don't want to have to stay in the tank for more than a day. I don't want to screw it up by being a hard case. The downside of what I call _pre-toxing_ —my insurance company may not pay for full inpatient treatment since I "quit on my own." Bastards.

Bruce takes me into a bathroom and asks me to remove my clothes. I am given a paper gown with an open back. It's butcher paper, and I'm the lamb when Karen walks back into the room.

"Okay mister, we can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way," she holds out a cup for me to pee in. She is being cute, joking, but I'm not feeling it.

"Let's do it the hard way," I say.

Karen laughs.

I reach and take the cup into the urinal. Bruce follows me.

"I'd rather have Karen in here," I say. Bruce growls and watches me while I micturate in the cup. Drug tests are always monitored, but tests going into rehab don't really matter. You are expected to "piss dirty" going in.

After I 238hand over my excreta, Bruce shines a flashlight across every inch of my body, while Karen makes notes of each tattoo, scar, bruise and visible flaw on my desiccated flesh. Karen points out a large bruise on my left bicep and asks me about it.

"I have no idea what it's from." My eyes widen to show pretend, genuine surprise. I had an IV the night before in the emergency room, but that's _my_ business.

"This looks like IV drug use," Bruce comments.

I let him go with that, knowing it buys me some credibility in general population.

My head is pounding. I'd lick Bruce's liver spots right now for a tepid pint of Smirnoff Red. I like it room temperature, so I know I'm drinking it. I want to feel it cut and burn all the way down to my starved 238belly, lighting nascent ulcers on fire. Many times, I've had to hide vodka out in my car, in the Texas heat. Hot vodka goes down like rocket fuel, but you get used to it like you get used to drinking after-shave. My cheeks are puckering. Saliva fills the spaces in the back of my mouth just thinking about it.

I'm asked to turn around and show the bottoms of my feet for inspection.

"What is that?" Bruce moves toward me pointing down.

"What is what?" I look at my feet; they are pathetic. I'm shocked at how pale and decrepit they are, veins and crooked toes. They are my grandfather's feet when he shuffled around the house, feeble, no longer able to dress himself.

"That on your foot, on the bottom of your foot?"

"Oh, that? That's _fuck you_."

There is a white sticker on my foot that came from the inside of one of my new Vans slip-ons. I turn and walk back in the toilet stall to dress. Bruce yells through the door,

"Okay smartass! I can keep you here as long as I want!"

"Hey, Bruce?" I say.

"What?!"

"Go make me a sandwich. Liverwurst."

I get nothing to eat until I wake the next morning; a staff member rolls in a gray hot-box containing trays of cellophane wrapped foods from a mysterious, hidden kitchen. I follow and step over a bench to sit. A plate of flaccid meats and green eggs is dropped in front of me by the orderly in doctor's scrubs. He never makes eye contact. I lift my head just enough to see each person has unique food items customized for their taste or diet. The hip-hop retard across me has phat stacks of bacon, sausage, and pancakes. The tiny Asian kid balled up next to him has cottage cheese and strawberries. No one talks through the meal, until the old guy in all black and shaved head at the end of the table stands up and throws his tray at the wall—walks out.

"That's Dark Mark," Phat Stacks says, leaning towards me.

"He has anger issues," says the Asian kid, his forehead puckered like someone is about to hit him.

I look at Phat Stacks and then the Asian kid and put my head back down into my breakfast. _I don't care._

If you've never gone through a detox from drugs or alcohol, you're missing out. People are always quick to point out how detoxing on your own can kill you. I've only had the one seizure problem recently, when I tried to detox from alcohol and Xanax at the same time. That could have been the drugs, or not eating, or my age. I'm not as resilient as I once was. First off: if you can time your detox with having the flu, it's a good way to hide symptoms–kill two birds. I've detoxed secretly, with the flu, several times.

Dope addicts insist that coming back from heroin causes the worst withdrawal symptoms. Those people are junky whiners. Heroin addicts may get a little uncomfortable, but you can't die from the detox. Benzos can kill the shit out of you. They include Xanax, Ativan, Klonopin, Valium, and Librium. All legal prescription drugs. Coming off those, you can seize, stroke out, croak, all kinds of bad stuff.

If you're planning to detox from a good severe bout of alcoholism, _I'm talking a liter of vodka a day_ , it will be about five days before you can expect to feel any better.

The first few days, you won't sleep at all, and even if you don't die, you will feel like you did. Diarrhea is frequent and powerful, an elevated temperature is characteristic, blood pressure skyrockets, vertigo may be on the menu, and auditory hallucinations are a bonus. I know I've really raised the bar when I start hearing voices that are unfamiliar. As bad as alcohol is, benzos and alcohol is the worst. Imagine enjoying all the alcohol detox symptoms while someone sticks an ice pick in your spine and you're in the neighborhood. You read what happened to me, and I was lucky. Personally, I always feel better on the fourth day. This is called, _getting over the hump_.

By my count, I've detoxed alone ten times. If I can get my doctor to take pity, he may prescribe a Librium taper, a step-down prescription that uses one chemical to ease an addict off another. Librium is used to taper off of alcohol. I start with four pills on the first day, three on the second day, and so on. The Librium will ease the pain and reduce the risk of seizures. Of course, Librium is a benzo. The cycle continues.

As far as heroin withdrawal goes, they say it hurts like hell. The whole body is in pain as it transitions from a state of feeling nothing, to hypersensitivity. Expect diarrhea, vomiting, fever, chills, sweats, joint pain, bloody stool nightmares and hourly screams of agony. I have a friend who gets the hiccups as her body comes back to life in a heroin detox. Withdrawal symptoms from heroin are the worst 3-4 days after you stop using, but post-acute symptoms will hang in there for months.

Methamphetamine withdrawal is not so bad, you sleep and eat a lot. I have more trouble quitting Diet Coke than I do quitting cocaine. For me, Diet Coke is second only to vodka.

The thing about booze—it's everywhere. It's the addictive chemical that is most promoted and glorified. And, peer pressure is a son-of-a-bitch. Diet Coke is everywhere too.

# Freedom!

I have to take a psychological evaluation to get out of the tank, but I'm blessed with the ability to ace psychological evaluations. Every time I admit to rehab, my tests show no disorders. I bullshit my way into looking like there's nothing wrong with me, which ultimately hurts me.

Around 12:00 pm I get the results back from my drug screening.

"It would be easier to tell you what you didn't test positive for," the doctor has jokes.

"You are positive for cocaine, benzos, marijuana, ketamine, phencyclidine, lisdexamfetamine and MDMA." None of this is a surprise.

"But no alcohol right?" I say, proudly.

"Nope, you are clean there," he says. I don't think he is impressed.

I aced the psych test, so I'm scheduled to move over to a real lodge. As I wait for an RA to pick up my luggage and walk me over, I chat with the Asian kid.

"I hope I'm getting out of here later today," he says.

"How long have you been in the tank?"

"Two weeks," he says. "I failed my _psych_ a few times."

"Well, good luck with that Jose..." I'm distracted. The RA shows up just in time, and we are on the way out. Bruce hands me a cheap plastic water bottle with a long bendy straw, emblazoned with the Catalina Recovery logo. I'm instructed to carry it with me at all times.

"Even in Winter we've had people collapse from dehydration here." Bruce smells like he shit himself today.

Believe it or not, I'm in a good mood. I've decided to put my old life behind me and make this my fresh start. As I step through the double doors of recovery Nirvana, I'm excited to be heading out onto campus with the _healthy_ people. I'm already feeling my brain again, feeling a little friendlier, and I'm ready to let the healing begin—and I want to get better meds.

Catalina looks like a junior college in West Texas. The courtyard that centers the campus is vast with a caliche rock path wrapping around it and offshoots cutting the corners. At the center is the Kiva, a dugout gathering place with built-in stone seating surrounding a fire pit. The Kiva is used for Native American spiritual ceremonies and making out.

Just outside the courtyard are six adobe style buildings that house dorms, offices, meeting rooms, and a dining hall. There are three lodges: Weary Wolf (the men's lodge), Dancing Lemur (the mood disorders lodge), and Desert Storm (the women's lodge).

A track and field, for sports, and a high ropes course, with three telephone poles, sit away from the main campus. There's a stable and corral, where the equine therapists are housed. The whole campus is surrounded by the Santa Catalina Mountains, which are covered in snow even though it's not cold.

During the winter, the weather in the Arizona desert is mild, similar to what I'm used to in Texas, but dry. South of the sports field is a gym, Olympic pool, beach volleyball pit, basketball court, and out where the landscaping turns to desert is a labyrinth fashioned from fist-sized desert stones.

I walk the courtyard of cacti and turquoise flecked boulders, thrilled to roam freely on the sober campus. This feels like a vacation compared to the tank. I stop in the gift shop and find a leather bound Hemingway journal for $87, which gives me the idea to write my experiences in a stack of $3 loose-leaf notebooks. In the spirit of all the great drug and alcohol addled wordsmiths throughout history, I'll use writing to pick up chicks.

# Quon

It's night in the desert. Coyotes can be heard cackling off in the blackness, feasting on some poor furry creature. Soon it's calm again as Angry Erik, Quon, Dark Mark, and I sit on the lodge porch under a big starry sky chatting about how to warm up synthetic urine for a drug screening.

"You have to microwave it at home, and then strap it to your leg to keep it warm," Erik says.

"Inmates learn how to be better criminals in prison," Dark Mark exhales wistfully and pauses, "in rehab, we learn to be better addicts." We are having a _rehab moment,_ and it's only my first night.

The next morning, a strange head peeks into my room and startles me awake,

"Six o'clock, wake-up!" the chipper RA shouts.

"I'm RA Jon!" he yells. "Get used to this; it's part of the process!" _I want to kill his fucking dog._

It is far too early. I slept with the lights on, tossed and turned, and heard strange noises all night. My lodge-mates told me my room was haunted. I believe them.

I drag my ass into the shower and wash my only pair of underwear with shampoo, not sure how to dry them before breakfast. There are a washer and dryer around here, but I'm in no mood for the conversation it requires to find out where so I let my Jockeys air dry and go commando.

It's still dark, and I'm feeling the chill up my pants on my way down the long pebble path that runs past the Kiva to the dining hall. I'm half asleep. In my drinking life, I'd be popping a Xanax and heading to bed right about now.

I sit alone at breakfast only to have my personal space invaded by the tiny Chinese kid, the one from the tank. He sits close in a white terrycloth robe and slippers, his mouth and nose hidden by a creamy cashmere scarf.

"My name is Quon," his words are fast with an accent I've never heard at a Chinese restaurant. His legs and hands are together, back perfectly straight exuding submissiveness.

"I am a concert pianist," he sits taller. His words turn down at the end of his sentences like he _expects_ them to be disappointing.

Quon has been performing since his parents propped him up on the piano bench at two years old. Over breakfast, we get to know each other, and he grows on me. We make plans to play music together later in the day on the guitar and full grand piano that live near the back of the dining hall, by the mountains.

Quon says he is a sociopath, but he seems okay to me. The pressure from his family to do great things drove him to fantasies of killing people. Quon's parents planned out his life from a toddler, his musical scholarship to Berkeley, his graduate and medical schools. His parents started him in school a year late so he would be more mature than his competition—taking every advantage.

Quon believes the world would be better off with a sociopath running things. To convince me, he draws a scenario of diverging train tracks with a single person tied to one set of tracks, and five people tied to the other.

"Which way do you send the train?" He poses the question coldly.

I don't answer.

"Only a sociopath can make the right choice," he says, wanting me to know that _he_ knows the answer.

"Empathy is the difference between good and evil intent," I say, gimlet-eyed, diffusing his intensity.

I leave for a spirituality gathering, and Quon follows. This is okay for now, while I'm making new friends, figuring where I want to fit in, or if I do.

"How much Dexter do you watch?" I ask as we walk.

"I love that show," he says. He is glowing with excitement, knowing someone is _about to relate to him._

# Dark Mark

Spirituality is a gathering led by American Indian Residential Therapist (RT) Tim. He's sharing a Native American prayer to,

"Mother Earth, star people, and winged ones _." I love this_ spiritual _shit._

"Thank you two-legged, four-legged, creepy crawlies and finned friends. Ah-ho!" Tim says as he walks around the fire pit swinging a long feathered staff, praying to the sky. Short in stature with cracked earthen skin and faded eyes, Tim is a cliché, a Native American alcoholic.

"Ah-ho means, I give you permission to step into my personal space," he gesticulates to the circle.

Dark Mark stands up in the middle of the prayer, forcing his way from the circle, and yells, "Everyone can go to hell!" He stomps up the entry slope fists clenched.

Dark Mark is a 60-year-old tough guy. He was a _screw_ on Death Row, where he saw the kind of evil that people believe is imagined in movies. He often mentions two names randomly; men he knew from death row who did unspeakable things to families—to children. These are memories that Mark can't face in his own mind without breaking down. The thoughts cause outbursts and violence. Mark has never been able to reconcile the black hole he saw in humanity—with its potential for goodness. The trauma made him an angry alcoholic and drug addict.

Last night Mark told a story about his relapse on the day he retired from the Ohio Penal System. He had to move out of the prison quarters, so he found a one-bedroom apartment he could afford in a part of Cleveland that was more than a little dangerous. The carpet in his new place was stained so brutally that the few clean spots were lost. The paint on the walls peeled, from the dense smoke that made its way between the latex and sheetrock, forcing a separation. At some point, he said, a body was dissolved in the tub with acid or other caustic substance. The finish was deteriorated, stained red in gaps between the ceramic islands. Mark went out to buy, Hungry Man frozen dinners, J.T.S Brown by the plastic gallon jug, and a 7-gram chunk of crack.

In the following weeks, Mark, when deep into the hole, thinking about the children. The way he'd heard the death row inmates talk about—rape and murder. The news stories. He drank profoundly, augmented with crack, until one day a nosy landlord found him unresponsive on the floor of his apartment. That's how he ended up in treatment his first time. This is his fifth visit.

Mark reminds me a lot of Ian, who loves J.TS. Brown. One late night we were sitting on his front step in the worst part of Southeast Austin drinking J.T.S., which we called _Brown-Brown—_ from the Nick Cage movie. I watched a litter of kittens play under a streetlight on the opposing sidewalk in some version of ghetto serenity, while Ian mocked me. An early eighties Buick Regal, lowered, with spoked rims, rolled onto the street, with music bumping so Ian and I could hear the license plate buzz each time the bass sounded.

The two men in the car were laughing in smoke as they drove up on the curb and crushed the kittens near the sidewalk.

They pulled by, and the driver looked over, pointed a finger gun at us. Ian stood up and pulled a .38 from the small of his back. I hit the ground, crab-crawling away as he opened fire. The drivers squeaked their tires off to the next street.

"I unloaded," Ian said.

"What the fuck Ian!" I yelled from under my chair.

I staggered to look for surviving kittens and found only one flopping around, its head crushed, like its body didn't get the message yet.

"Let's go drink," Ian said.

"I think they must have been surprised," Ian said, completely calm.

"It's a disproportionate response, IAN!" I said, thinking about Texas gun laws and how they failed in letting Ian own a gun. No cops showed up that night. Like nothing happened.

Mark is right about humanity in some ways; empathy has gotten lost.

# Addicted to Rehab

It's 3:00 pm, in a Relapse Prevention lecture, a pear-shaped turd in a mathletes shirt tries to start a conversation.

"Isn't it unusual for someone to go to rehab so many times?" he says.

"No, Jonah Hill, It's not," I snark. "What are you here for? Marijuana?"

"Yes," he palpitates, "how did you know?"

Jonah here doesn't know any better, but recidivists are common.

Think of addiction as a hole that needs to be filled. In the absence of a spiritual alternative, the hole gets filled with whatever is available: alcohol, drugs, sex, food, self-harm, workouts, and in the case of recidivists—rehab.

I know I made a big fuss about getting here, but that was the withdrawals talking. Once I'm past the physical stuff, I'm happy as a pig in a hospital full of crazy people. I dig into a scene, make entertaining friends, we are all touchy healy, and I want to hang out with them again. I hate to admit this; I've fantasized about showing up at an alumni weekend with a full bar in my car. In my dream, I get everyone drunk, and a few weeks later we are all back in rehab—together again. I admit it's a selfish thought, but everyone here makes jokes about coming back,

"I'll just drink at the airport and save the cost of a plane ticket back... Has anyone made rehab plans for the holiday season...? Now that I've reached my out-of-pocket max for the year, I can go to Passages for Christmas... How much weight do I have to lose to get back in on the eating disorder track...?"

The thing is, they're not joking.

They will be there at Passages, handing over keys, belts, jewelry, and phones come December, and they will be happy to do it because treatment changes life in a way that invites attachment, and attachment is fear. In this case: fear of being alone, fear of being exposed to the unknown, fear of making bad choices. We attach ourselves to habits that make us feel secure.

The bonding that comes from being constantly, emotionally exposed in therapy is intense. We make friends that seem like the best friends we'll ever know and after leaving treatment, we know that feeling will fade, as will the friendships—it is inevitable. We want it back. Aversion to impermanence makes the loss too hard to take. We don't want the good feelings to go away; we don't want things to change when we are happy—this is the behavior that drives addiction.

When I have a spiritual experience, I cling to it. I chase after it hoping I can live the moment again. Like the first time I heard _In Rainbows_ , or the first time I fell in love, or the first time I did a speedball.

I can never get that high again.

And that's the rub.

I love rehab for the same reason I love using—it makes me feel better about myself. And then, it's gone.

# Kiki

Kiki and I sit and exchange tales at lunch, she is my source for all things gossip here. She is young, medium height, and still carries around a little baby fat. Her hair is brunette and straight-long. Her eyes give away a desperate need for security. I have the feeling she is waiting for me to tell her that it will all be okay. Kiki has fresh gossip about her lesbian roommate.

"Last night, when I went to my room, my new roommate had a big smile on her face," Kiki said.

"Every time you come in the room," her roommate blurted, "I've just finished whacking off!"

Kiki twists up a smile, "I'm afraid to go back to my room now." Without warning, Kiki starts crying—Kiki is always two words away from crying. She is racing through emotions faster than I can keep up.

"Why are you crying?" I say, somewhere between irritation and concern.

"It's just my dad," she says, "he hates me."

Kiki is a damaged Disney kids show. She initially told me she was at Catalina Recovery for gambling and drinking, but as we became friends her story changed. Kiki's a trauma sufferer who was raped in her high school locker room by the star of her high school basketball team, while other team members watched. She sat in her living room, sobbing, as she told her mother and father, and her dad implied that she must have led the boy on. He made her feel worse, called her promiscuous. As far as her parents were concerned, it was consensual sex. Her dad, the head coach of the basketball team, didn't want to lose his star point guard.

"Fuck my dad," she says, wiping her eyes. And then she is okay.

Kiki's last _family week_ at rehab was a total disaster. Her mom, an alcoholic, had a friend put vodka in her windshield wiper fluid reservoir. They rigged tubing so she could squirt vodka straight into a water bottle from inside the car. Her mom drove three hours to get to Catalina Recovery and was admitted into detox on arrival.

After lunch, Kiki walks with me through the courtyard, past the Kiva, gossiping the whole way. We stop at my lodge in front of the fountain—I notice the concrete bottom is painted blue. At a glance, the fountain looks like it's filled with flowing blue water, but on a closer look, the water is mossy green. Infected.

"Do you want to meet at the stables after dinner to feed the horses? They like apples," she says. I'm not exactly sure what "feed the horses apples" might be code for in her mind, so I pass and say goodbye.

I need to get my schedule fixed. I have large gaps with nothing to fill my time, and that's exactly what I don't want in a place like Catalina Recovery. While Resident Advisor Jon sorts out my schedule, I write poetic messages on the whiteboard across the hall from the trauma counseling center,

"There are wolves out there."

"Never remember."

"But, who watches you sleep?"

I step back, grin, and appreciate my work, like a secret genius who just solved an advanced Fourier system in a hallway at MIT.

238When I get my schedule back it is filled with strange and wonderful treatment modalities: group therapy, psychoanalysis, cognitive behavior therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), somatic experiencing, somatic release, bio-neurofeedback, and even equine therapy. It's going to be a busy week; the thought makes me a little anxious.

On the flight here, I ripped the seam in my pants and stashed ten tabs of Klonopin in the fold below my belt. It was a stroke of luck that I was skin searched, they didn't check my clothes closely. I take one for my anxiety or just for fun. I figure the odds are the staff won't drug test me until I leave campus.

# Ziggy

I feel the serenity of the Klonopin now, much better. I swagger over to Dancing Lemur for my massage, my feet leading the way, with my upper body defying gravity in a benzo lean.

"You are next sir!" says the dreadlocked masseuse. The room is cozy and dark, scented of orange peel and lavender with soft New Age relaxation music playing on a small radio in the corner. Stones are warming in a specialized toaster oven across from a padded massage table covered with fresh white sheets, topped with a cylindrical pillow for propping up knees.

"My name is Ziggy, and I'll be your therapist today." I like the way she calls herself a therapist rather than a masseuse. I assume the underlying message is, "this ain't no rub-n-tug job."

"Please dress down to whatever you feel comfortable with," she says.

"Is it okay if I keep boots on?" I joke, but she has already exited the room. I strip to my boxer-briefs and slide in under the smooth sheets, they are warm and fresh. It brings the familiar, comforting feeling of putting on a warm shirt from the dryer.

"Okay, I'm ready," I holler at the door, my voice croaks slightly. Ziggy reenters the room and asks if there are any specific parts of my body that I would like for her to work on. I don't joke.

"My neck and shoulders have been killing me," I say, "and my back, inside my left shoulder blade, please." She gets right to work.

The massage puts me in a content place while I chat with the earthy, middle-aged therapist who likes to ask questions more than answer them. She came to Arizona from upstate New York in search of better weather and a better man. She was once a trauma patient at Catalina Recovery. We talk as she digs into my shoulders. Her husband used to beat her, she was codependent, he cheated on her, she had a miscarriage, and Ziggy stabbed him. _I'm not sure if it happened in that order. I was spinning from the work she was doing on my shoulders._ Ziggy packed her shit and drove off one day while he was at work. She picked Arizona with a map and a coin.

I tell her I have guilt for getting a massage while everyone else is at home in the wake of my destruction. Ziggy tells me that my sole responsibility in rehab is to heal.

"Self-care is the most important part of recovery," she says as her firm hands knead my calves, "without it, we can't be there for our family and friends." _Massages help me be a better man._

"Your massage is done," Ziggy says, after a magical hour of pleasure and pain. I'm butter as she gives me two firm swats on my shoulder, "You go have a fantastic day." I slide off the table feeling new.

"I will wait outside while you get dressed," Ziggy says, with a caring smile. "You have no reason to feel guilty for taking care of yourself."

And, that's the shit I'm talking about. I don't know if Ziggy even _likes_ me, but she acts like she _loves_ me. That's why I love it here.

e That night, I went for a long run, and a coyote stopped by to say hello, smiled at me, and bound off in long-legged strides. I shit you not.

# Kato

I resent having to come to anger management.

There's a girl here called Taylor with fragile pronounced cheekbones and wavy blonde hair, she's beautiful, at 20 or 21, but broken. She asks at a volume just below what I can discern if I want to color a page from her coloring book of intricate fractals. She uses brush tipped markers in complete serenity sitting near Dark Mark, her protector. Taylor carries a stuffed animal, and giggles like a kid. They make odd friends.

Dark Mark is calm now. The more Mark talks, the more I like him. He wears large skull rings on both hands and carries himself like a boxer as he teaches Quon and me how to center our gravity on the off chance that someone is coming at us in a bar. I like this interaction with the salty bastard.

Residential Therapist Helmetta paces in front of the group as she digs deep to share,

"We are all good people with events in our lives that caused chaos. Right? We didn't know how to deal with them. Right?" She is talking about Mark. Helmetta has a tick.

"Keep a secure connection, right?" _She Drives._

"With God, right?" _Me._

"Right?" _Fucking._

"Right?" _Crazy._

I notice Phat Stacks from the Tank decked out in hip-hop gear, now with groupies. I move to sit near Kiki and Quon and ask if he is famous.

"Anyone could be famous here," Kiki giggles and slides over, invited by the attention, "But he is not."

I turn to her and back across the room at a Mexican woman who seems out of place. Phat Stacks puts his arm around her, she shrugs away. She is too mature for the Phat Stacks group. I ask Kiki in a muffled pitch, "Who is that?"

"That's Sophia, I don't know her, she keeps to herself, doesn't talk much." I hear Kiki's voice change to _shit talking tone_.

"She's kind of a bitch," she adds.

"She is nice. I like her," Quon says, slightly high-pitched, through his scarf, "she's nice."

Kiki fills me in. Phat Stack's name is Kato; he is here for hitting a kid with his car while high on meth. His friend is a famous rapper which _he thinks_ makes him famous by association. Kato is the annoying flat brimmed hat, low hanging pants, white kid of privilege, who acts like he grew up poor and black. Everything he says came from YouTube.

"He's a Jewgaboo," she says.

"What does that mean?" I ask.

"Like Seth Green in _Can't Hardly Wait._ "

"I haven't seen that one."

"Basically, he's a rich Jewish kid who thinks he is a thug," she explains, hand over her mouth to block lip readers.

Kato brags about being a womanizer, about " _fucking bitches_." He had run-ins with a few women here including Taylor. She shared a trauma story with him, and he mocked her in a group session, laughed at her tragedy. He is standing over Taylor now laughing. Taylor doesn't look up from her coloring and eventually moves away.

Kato is purportedly facing up to twenty years in prison after he discharges for the vehicular manslaughter thing. His wealthy parents are moving him around to different rehabs to keep him out of jail.

"Somebody ought to give that punk a dose of reality," Mark says, narrowing his eyes at Kato. He just got mad—something sent him to the dark side. Minutes later he leaves the group, slamming the door behind him.

# Angry Erik

At dinner I sit with Erik, he is enraged over the dryness of his boiled chicken and broccoli and is making arrangements to leave treatment to go buy organic chicken he will cook himself.

"They can't touch my food!" he rants.

"You want to hear a story?" I say, and don't wait for an answer. "At a country club rehab in Dallas, I talked the RA into letting me bring in a whole set of drums.

'It's my therapeutic meditation,' I yelled at the RA, with crazy eyes. 'I need to play drums to be calm!' And then, I pushed everything off his desk and balled up on the floor.

He let me play for two hours a day. Some of the collegiates and I set-up a practice space in the dining hall and jammed every night." I slap Erik on the back. "How about that?"

I clasp hands together behind my head and lean the chair back to two legs, my feet on the table. I am pleased with myself, the subject change seems to distract Erik temporarily.

"The THC candy lozenges," he rubs his temples, "are okay but not enough for my condition. I need to smoke!"

I met Erik in the tank. He was raging because he could not smoke medical marijuana for, what he considered, unbearable pain. From day one, he wanted to leave. He didn't eat his entire time in the tank. He says his condition makes digestion painful, and marijuana is the only thing that helps.

Erik is 5'11", but only weighs 135 lbs. He wears a signed NY Yankees ball cap, an over-sized hoodie, and sweats every day. His baggy clothes are covering a starved frame. He speaks in a slightly rough, unassuming voice. He reminds me of Mike D from the Beastie Boys. We became fast friends in the lodge when he asked me to write a plea letter to the Catalina Recovery administrators to allow him to use Marijuana on campus. It was a bold effort and ultimately failed, but we bonded over the experience.

Erik has a congenital birth defect in his intestines, he had his first surgery at two years old—the surgery was supposed to fix the problem, but caused adhesion disorder.As he grew up, Erik found himself in greater pain each year, unable to eat most foods. Now, Erik limits himself to brown rice and boiled chicken, or peanut butter and white bread. He can't eat seasoning on anything.

Erik feels like no one else understands his pain, which makes things worse. This is a common sentiment for _pain people—_ being able to associate with other pain people is cathartic.

In pain management, the effective medications (opiates) are all addictive. It's not a matter of _whether or not_ the patient is addicted, but how the addiction is managed. Patients are put on one painkiller and later switched to another as tolerance increases. The medications are _rotated_ under doctor's supervision to make sure there are no complications. Conversion ratios for opioid switching are critical to not killing a patient. Pain patients may kick a physical addiction every few months.

Angry Erik comes from a wealthy Manhattan family splitting time between a Manhattan penthouse and summer home in the South Hamptons. Years ago, Erik's parents decided they didn't want to put up with his erratic behavior—he was forced to live wherever his parents were not. During the offseason, his parents were in Manhattan and Erik lived in the Hamptons. When his parents were in the Hamptons, Erik lived in Manhattan. This left Erik isolated in a beautiful ghost town all fall and winter with limited human interaction. Erik became destructive in his loneliness, punching holes in walls, ripping out toilets. He smashed China and wrote hate messages on the walls in Sharpie. A few months before he arrived in treatment, Erik started a fire in the living room of the Hamptons home and burned down half the house.

Erik muses, "I just watched it burn, all Halloween orange and chimney red."

"That's Tom Waits," I like the reference.

"Who?" He rocks back and forth on his heels. I can't tell if he is fucking with me.

"I'm a test-tube baby," he says. "I'm not real." He says this a lot.

Erik is more mystifying than anyone else here. He grew up in an affluent family and never abused painkillers. Erik's a good, sincere person whose emotions are completely out of control. He tries to leave treatment every morning and has to be talked down by a Residential Therapist. I've stopped trying to talk to him when his face turns crimson with fury. In these moments he's unreachable, and I don't want to stop liking him.

After waiting for 20 minutes at the lodge pharmacy to get a cup of night meds and a cone of water, the nurse on duty gives me Vistaril and melatonin for sleep. The guy in front of me gets Ambien and Xanax. In the morning, I'll get a multivitamin while the mood kids load-up on Ativan, Xanax, and Seroquel.

"Who do I have to stab around here to get good meds?" I say to Erik, who is watching with a stoned smile.

"I can cheek a Seroquel tomorrow night if you distract the nurse. I'll split it with you," he says, "I take 400mg; you can have 200mg." I like Seroquel when I have no tolerance for it, and 200mg a big dose for me. It's like being stoned—makes me want to eat non-stop, and flap my arms around the room like a flightless bird. I make a mental note to smuggle back lots of snacks tomorrow night.

Each patient has to be mouth checked after taking meds—stick out the tongue and finger-hook open the cheeks. This reduces instances of cheeking or hiding pills to sell later. This obstacle can be overcome if you have someone run interference.

# The Zaps

I wake this morning with the lights on again, ghosts are singing me to sleep at night.

I stop by the nurse's station for meds—standing in line the room becomes quiet and gray—I fade in and out of consciousness with shallow breaths. I don't mention to the nurse that I was seconds from passing out. I don't want to land in the tank again for observation. _These are just small panic attacks, nothing serious—my blood pressure is still high, and I'm only eating fruits and vegetables, exercising a lot, I need more calories._

My Dialectical Behavior Therapy group is about validation. We talk about validating self and others as the therapist, Dr. Helen asks us for examples of invalidation in our families of origin.

"I think I have an example," I say. "My great, great grandfather Charles was married to a prostitute who was also a witch. When his son (my great grandfather) was born, Charles rode him on horseback to Cado Lake and tossed him in."

"I think that was invalidating," I added.

"Why did he do that?" Dr. Hellen asked, disturbed.

"He just didn't want a baby," I say. "When the infant didn't drown, Charles had a change of heart and decided to keep him."

Dr. Hellen points out, "Charlie may have been a borderline personality."

"Yeah, he was something alright, he ended up shooting the witch and himself when my great grandfather was 12."

I've always thought of trauma as a major, horrible event like Charlie's murder-suicide, but Dr. Hellen teaches that trauma can live in little events that may seem insignificant.

"If it keeps coming back into your consciousness, it needs to be addressed," Dr. Hellen says. "Trauma is an unresolved negative memory that runs in an endless loop, using up valuable processing power in your central nervous system. No matter how seemingly insignificant, a trauma that is not resolved can deplete your emotional energy, the energy you need to make emotionally intelligent decisions and maintain sobriety."

This reminds me of something I've been reading by Brené Brown. She says, "Recognize your emotions. Be honest. Write a new ending to your story."  It's all about hearing what my feelings are telling me. I just need to learn to listen.

On the way to dinner, I pass Quon on a bench near the Kiva. He is wearing his signature round glasses and an expensive watch with complicated exposed gears. _Quon told me he wants to be a watchmaker, but his parents won't allow it._ He has his telltale scarf wrapped around his face and shouts,

"That's not okay!" just as I walk by, but he is not talking to me. He is talking to himself.

"What's going on Quon?"

"Kato has been telling everyone I am gay," his eyes are crinkled.

"Aren't you?"

"Yes!" He is irritated by my line of questioning, "You know I'm gay, asshole!"

"Kato calls me, 'Faggy China boy,' I want to slit his eyes with a scalpel," Quon says.

He is a mess, I try to calm him down and tell him to sit by me in group if Kato messes with him. I don't know if it helps.

That night, I'm reading in my room on the billowy, white down comforter that I want to steal. A repeating electronic siren starts going off. I hear the RAs moving from room to room rousing patients to exit the building. I drag out of bed in my sweats and a t-shirt to see what the commotion is about. Outside, everyone is herded to the basketball courts in the freezing mist and made to wait for 30 minutes, while someone figures out how to turn off the alarm. I don't have a coat, and I'm shivering uncontrollably. I stand with people from my lodge amidst the confusion, the laughter, the complaining, the loud noises, and _I feel_ a familiar _fading..._

_This time_ , _I'm a famous rock star_ _in a Corvette convertible doing 110 mph up wintry I-19. The wind is brutally fast, the sun is glaring, and my hands are shaking to light my last hit of meth. Everything is super saturated with color like a first-time director got heavy handed with the filters. I can count five, six, seven_ sun _bleached endoskeletons in the distance; even in December, this country is begging for rain. As the desert traces by, I take pop-shots at lounging cattle—I'm putting them out of their stinking misery. My shoulders are roasting to theme music. It's "Here I Go Again" from the seminal Whitesnake release,_ Saints _and Sinners. I probably played on this album._

I'm in my element, melting, with warm vodka in my belly and fireworks going off in my brain.

_My Corvette's bottomed-out-front-end hits the parking lot too fast—the_ overgrown _sign at the front gate reads, "Expect a Miracle." I have vodka dangling from my hand and a cigarette from my mouth when I yank the parking brake. The supercar's tail-end is skidding toward the jumpy rehab scum when I leap from the still moving car in slow motion. I toss the half empty Grey Goose bottle over my shoulder, sending it flipping through the air, a glittering drunken miracle—that never hits the ground._

And there, long hair flowing in the hot desert airstream.

Shirtless and tan, muscles glistening.

Arms raised in a V.

I announce myself...

"We have a seizure over here!" I hear Resident Advisor Jon yell out, he is in umpire squat, waving his hand to sign, _"come see this idiot!"_

My body belongs to someone else, twerking. I am conscious, yet powerless over my flailing body which makes everything more frightening. My last seizure kept me in a dream, warm and longing, comforting even; I wanted to stay there. Out here on the cold, wet concrete, it is too real.

I watch the feet of patients who must be staring, enjoying the change of pace. It's something to talk about at dinner. The seizure is mild, lasting for only a few minutes. I am picked up and put into a golf cart. I realize of all places for a seizure to happen, this is the safest. After an examination, I'm held in the tank for a few hours under observation, given Lamictal and kicked back into circulation.

Crossing the Kiva, I run into Angry Erik and tell him what I saw while in the tank.

"There's a girl who showed up in full stripper dress," I say. "She had fishnets, high heels, a glittery tube top, everything." While I was there, all of her clothes were confiscated, and she was kept isolated in the tank until someone donated a t-shirt and shorts for her to wear.

"She'll make an excellent addition around here," Erik smiles.

# Carly

I can't see the surrounding mountains for the rain and fog, it's thick and relentless this morning. I read until 2:30 am and woke dazed. I look like a sad clown in the mirror, with purple bags over pasty skin.

Jon, the RA, woke me at 6:00 am with an obnoxious level of cheeriness—I want to cut him into little pieces and flush him down the toilet. He returned again at 7:35 am, five minutes after morning check-in started—my addict mind blames him for intentionally waking me late, the second time. This lack of accountability is typical in my addictive thinking _._ I run to make the meeting in my pajamas. Sleeping through morning check-in violates lodge rules, it's enough to get me green-banded.

Patients are required to have a wristband and name tag on at all times—so the staff knows who to chase. Wristbands sort the good addicts from the bad. We are all going to the same concert but sitting in different sections with our blue, green, yellow, and red arm bands. Blue bands offer the greatest freedom. I'm blue now, so I can go anywhere on campus, except for the girls' dorm and the girls' Butt Hut.

If I get green-banded, I'll lose special privileges for a day, including massages and R&R in the hot tub. A yellow band restricts me to the lodge, except for going to classes and groups. If I get a red band—they lynch me on the ropes course.

The ropes course is beyond the end of the track where the grass ends and desert-scape begins. The area surrounding the poles is sandy dirt, rocks, and thorny shrubs. Later in the morning, my process group is taking part in a team-building exercise on the intimidating structure, consisting of three telephone poles spanned with two massive cables to create a V. The V is not for "victory." There are alternating spikes hammered down the sides of one pole to act as a ladder.

We are asked to choose a partner. Kiki, my gossip buddy, wants me. She's shorter than me by about six inches which may make the task more difficult, but I know that she was an athlete in high school. The objective of the exercise is to climb up the ladder pole, one person at a time to the thick cables 35 feet off the ground. Once we reach the top, each person stands on a wire about five feet apart from each other, and we join our hands above our heads to form an A-frame. We support each other by balancing our weight.

I have to rely on Kiki to keep me from falling, but because the cables diverge, falling is inevitable. The challenge is about building trust, letting go of control, and overcoming fear. _Rising Strong_. We're wearing harnesses that are attached to long ropes leveraged with pulleys. At the end of the lines are RAs who may or may not like us. Our lives are really in their hands.

I begin the climb first. Once I reach the top of the pole, it's much higher than it looked from the ground. I'm scared to death of heights, but I'm on three different mood stabilizers which suck the fear right out of me. I tell myself not to look down just in case. Kiki climbs up once I've reached the top. She scales the pole like a champ, fearless. I push the cables apart with my feet so she can squeeze through. We are awkward and fumbling as we try to get into position but eventually both make it onto a cable. We have one hand on the other person and one hand on the pole. The leap of faith is in letting go of the pole, but neither of us is ready to make that leap.

RA Jon yells,

"Now, let go of the pole!"

I yell back,

"NO! Are you sure you have the rope?"

RA Jon yells,

"Just let go up the pole! We've got you!"

So we let go. We make it about two steps and fall straight down. I freefall for about four or five feet and then I'm caught by RA Jon on the other end of the leash. As I'm slowly lowered to the ground, I enjoy the view of harsh desert landscape climbing to ethereal mountains. Even though we didn't make it very far, I have a feeling of accomplishment. I would have done better if Ian were here to ply me with drinks.

On the ground, a woman who made it farther than anyone else is pumped up. Here name is Carly. She's high-fiving people, letting out whoops of pleasure. She tells me not to sweat falling, that most of the therapy is in the climbing and stepping out onto the cable. I think she's just trying to make me feel better, but I thank her anyway. This is my first process group, not quite the miracle of psychology I was anticipating. I'll enjoy the rest of this exercise from a distance and start a conversation with Carly.

"You look so familiar," I say.

"Oh yeah?" She turns her head to her best angle and holds, "I'm an actress."

I'm not sure what goes on in Arizona, but in Austin, actress equates to waitress. Actresses are right up there with musicians in the social hierarchy, considered overly abundant non-contributors. I don't want to hear about her community theater projects ...238

"I was in the last Adam Sandler movie. Maybe that's why you know me," she says.

"Perhaps," I don't show it, but I am genuinely impressed. I don't remember her from any of the Sandler flicks, which I watch religiously with my daughter April. April has been a huge Adam Sandler since she first saw _Happy Gilmore_ on Netflix at five-years-old.

As we talk more about her career, it proves that Carly _is_ a real actress, she has co-starred in some big movies with A-list leading men, all of which she slept with, or at least according to her accounts. Carly leads off with this information like it's a movie credit. We sit on top of a folding table together, and the stories of her sexploitations have me star struck. She bounces around names like Sean Penn, George Clooney, and Owen Wilson like they are guys she went to the high school prom with. She pauses her resume run-through as the silence turns to cheers, p 238atients in the distance erupt.

"Whhooooo! Good job!" They are soulless cheers, recovery cheers.

"How do you feel about your accomplishment?" RT Mata looks at me, with an _I caught you not paying attention_ look. I raise my brows, tighten my smile,

"I've always been good at falling down," and I turn back to Carly for more Hollywood gossip.

"It was just sleazy sex," she continues. She is a great storyteller. I start to remember her as a younger actress on Melrose Place. I remember hearing Howard Stern talk about Carly. He had a big crush on her in her early career as a soft porn star on Cinemax.

At 45, Carly is a staggeringly beautiful woman. She is the movie star on the back page of a celebrity tabloid dressed in a cozy sweater, distressed designer jeans, perfect black boots fitted to the ankles with a Starbucks in hand. She may be 5'4" and a-buck-fifteen.

Like me, she used to go to the liquor store to buy water and vodka and empty the vodka into the water bottle so she could ditch the evidence. I point out that _we are the same_ in this respect. I recognize my pathetic instinct to want to relate to a movie star on any level.

"No evidence, no crime," she laughs, still talking about the vodka, but my mind has left the conversation. I've moved on to self-loathing, chastising for my codependent tendencies. _Fucking mood pills, I need to pull it together._

"Why do you drink?" I ask, trying to re-engage.

"Where would we find happiness if not for the bottle?" she says, sounding theatrical, like this moment has been scripted. "Some of us had people do things we don't believe we can ever forget." _I wonder what Sean Penn did to her?_

Carly carries charms of youth, cracked with experience, and I'm fascinated.

After group, we walk over to the dining hall for lunch. In the lunch line behind a pair of fresh and sweaty newbs, I choose to pass on hot food altogether. Yesterday, the mashed potato surprise sat like spackle in my bowels. The brochure advertised a four-star chef, but this sluggard wouldn't know four stars if Carly was fucking them.

Chef Dan is a gangly tick of a man perpetually covered in red sauce. He hides behind the sneeze guard on the hot food line sucking the scrapple from his fingernails like pork ribs, wiping the saliva on his smock. The chef eyeballs female patients with an ooze that makes me want to bring them a rape kit. My eagerness to eat hot food lessens with each passing day.

I've been living on smoothies prepared each morning by a jovial Mexican grandmother named Juanita. Her purple passion smoothie is amazing. Juanita makes more than enough to go around in the morning, and all the leftovers sit in the fridge until someone drinks them, or they are tossed. They are smoothie crack. _Trigger!_  I drink three or more each day.

I'm having lunch with Sophia from Mexico, a young 40-year-old woman with an exotic presence. She is married to a man twenty years her senior with children seven and nine years old. She speaks about the uncertainty of her future and impending divorce in an accent that could easily be European. As she talks, I am lost in her accent, the words lose meaning as the sounds, the inflections in her voice wash over me. I imagine a Fiji beach, an umbrella drink, and a lazy tan. Sand between my toes. I daydream through the remainder of our conversation. I admit this to her, and she takes it as a compliment. We make plans to have lunch again. Next time I will focus.

# Fear & Love

Last night before sleep, Erik and Justin brought me into an empty room in our lodge and started to make strange, yet familiar sounds.

"Whoooo, hueueueue!!"

"What the fuck are we doing?" I snapped, in need of my Prozac.

"The new guy is in the next room," Erik said, as he high-fived Justin.

"You guys are bastards," I said, remembering the first few sleepless nights.

We have an all-community meeting first thing this morning. Patients and staff gather at the activities center and sit in metal folding chairs arranged in a ninety-person circle. It's a dope-sick group of pajamas, sweats, bedheads, and beanies; all clinging to paper coffee cups, waiting to "check-in." One. By. One.

This is an opportunity to be mindful by choosing a "core feeling" that suits my emotions in _the present_ _moment_. _That's key._ I can only speak about what I know for sure, which is how I feel right now.

A patient might say, " _Right now,_ I am feeling fear," and then explain why he is feeling fear. That same terrified bastard cannot say, " _Today_ , I'm feeling fear." This would imply he can predict the future, which is called "future tripping." Future tripping is bad. We spend too much of our emotional energy worrying about things that never happen. Somebody said that in some group here.

Core feelings are important in treatment; they help identify emotions without the clutter that _crazy_ can bring to thoughts—if I can identify a feeling succinctly, without mental noise, I can address that feeling succinctly.

_Now, have a seat_ _reader_ _, cause I'm going to share some shit it cost my whole life to learn._

There are two core feelings, fear and _love_. That's it. All other feelings are derivative of these two.

Anger is fear.

Happiness is love.

Sadness is fear.

Peace and hope are love.

Hurt is fear.

Gratitude is love.

In therapy, we are taught to observe our feelings without judgment. Feelings are not right or wrong, they just _are_. _That's the bomb right there._ We assume that anger is bad, or peace is good, or hurt is bad—they are not. They are dashboard lights that exist to tell us something about ourselves in a moment: Our engine is overheating. We are almost out of gas. We are about to get laid in the back seat. Feelings are a notification of something happening, either internally or externally that we need to be aware of.

Along the same lines, Buddhism teaches to observe feelings without taking them personally. For example: I cannot end longing, but I can recognize longing as it arises. When I think about my family, I can observe the presence of longing and watch it come and go without letting it define me. It's not right or wrong, it just _is_. I don't have to judge myself for feeling it. Because I long for my family, I might think about how I've fucked my life up and how much of a loser I am. This is not productive thinking. This is shame digging, and it's a hard hole to get out of. _There is a bottle down in that hole waiting for me._ Instead, I can just note that I'm feeling it and think about the reason. Most importantly, I let it go when this feeling is done. This way I don't blow it out of proportion and leave myself with a bunch of new feelings I have created by judging my longing. _Just let me know where to send the bill._

The all-community meeting is a time for giving and receiving awards. They are all _dead people awards_ named after individuals who left treatment and later died from relapses. This is not a tribute. They all die _after_ they have an award created in their honor. It's like being an NFL rookie on the cover of Madden football. It's a curse.

The Layne Staley medallion is the most coveted dead person honor because it buys a paid trip to Starbucks—a rare chance to get off of campus and drink good coffee. On these outings, people load up on 3 or 4 coffees, cookies, protein bars, muffins—everything offered at Starbucks. No one warns us that we are required to take a urine screening when we return and are charged $250 for the privilege.

After the community meeting, I'm off to process group. I stop to chat with a spunky little nutjob named Ellen, who is a writer. She tells me she was writing 20 children's stories a week while smoking copious amounts of meth. Ellen wears a witch's hat, oversized glasses and carries several books with her everywhere she goes. She's an attractive Nanny McPhee. I ask her if I can borrow a book—she looks me up and down, evaluates my worthiness and gives me _Gulliver's Travels_. As she walks away, I can hear her chuckling.

I'm concerned about my first group with Dr. Myron. Carly told me I should arrive five minutes early, or I'll be late. I am seven minutes late, so by her calculations, I'm twelve minutes late. Not an auspicious beginning.

Dr. Myron is a psychologist with OCD. He is well respected in the recovery community—people travel from all over the world to sit in group therapy with him. I'm lucky to have him, they tell me.

"You either love Myron, or you're scared of him," Carly confides face to face as if we are acting out a dramatic scene. "He will abuse you if you are late," she says. _What an odd choice of words._

Carly sits near me and shares her lotion, my skin sloughs off with cracks across my hands from the dry desert air. Carly makes a performance of everything she does. She puts on lotion like she is a hand model in a commercial for Bumble & Bumble. Carly has the kind of mystical energy only actors portray. I can't tell if she's acting when she raises her hands in a tearful plea to the gods during her grief letter reading. A grief _letter_ is something each group member is required to write to a dead family member. We tell [the dead person] how they affected our life and bitch about any resentments we might have toward [the dead person]. It's an exercise to let go of sadness and resentments.

Dr. Myron asks Carly to sit across from an empty chair and make-believe her dead grandmother is sitting there. This is an activity where Carly excels. Flinging arms. When she dialogs, she is a cacophony of emotion, Bette Davis meets Kate Winslet. She plays the part of grief-stricken young adolescent to perfection; she laughs, cries, shrieks—a captivating performance. I want to stand and applaud as her head falls and the monolog sadly ends.

# Snack Time

Snack time is an obligatory social hour. It's the final check-in of the day and one of the few things men and women do together relatively unsupervised.

The new girl, Amanda, is out, and everyone is crowding her. She must have gotten her clothes back—she is driving all the guys crazy with her short skirt and thigh-high schoolgirl stockings. Amanda is from Brooklyn with a good thick accent, she speaks in escalating adjectives. It's never just a day, it's always a "fabulous" day! Her dark wavy hair amplifies her bright blue eyes. Amanda sits across and over from me picking the cherry tomatoes from her salad. She sets them aside, picks out the cucumber slices and sets them on the other side. The only thing I see her eat are the whole green olives which make me crave a cold sweaty martini. As the meal comes to an end and the crowd thins, and I brave a conversation with her.

"Welcome to population," I say, "it's better out here."

"I'm Amanda!" she flips her hair and bounces. "I thought the terrible hospital _was_ the treatment center."

"I thought the same thing," I say, with a rehab smile.

"Everyone here is so amazingly sweet," she glistens.

"You are in a good mood for just getting out of detox," I say, "don't see that much."

"I didn't detox, I'm trauma," she says.

Amanda is... Amanda. When I hear her talk, I want to hate her, but it's not really possible. Her personality is endearing. I can tell she has been in treatment before by one statement, "I'm trauma." She knows the tracks and cuts through the bullshit. She didn't try to explain why she is not defective, not an addict. "I'm trauma." Quick and efficient, it's all I need to know about her. She seems cool, but I'm not in the mood to get into a deeper conversation right now.

"We'll, I'm glad you are here," I pull on my plastic cafeteria tray, planning my exit, organize my cup and utensils on my plate. _Glad you are here_ may sound like a smartass thing to say to someone locked-up in treatment, but it's not. It's rehab talk for; "I'm glad you are not out there dying on the streets." It's a kind sentiment. Before I can get up, Carly and Erik join the table.

"I like your top," Carly says. It's a compliment, but I don't think she meant it as one. Carly sizes up Amanda.

"Someone said I look like a prostitute," Amanda says, as she sticks out her bottom lip and makes a child's exaggerated sad face.

"I was in Sharknado 4 with a woman who had a top just like that," Carly responds. She immediately sucks the attention out of the room and recites her resume: sexual conquests, 53 movies, appearances in four episodes of the early 90s hit TV show, _Melrose Place_.

"I was the girlfriend of one of the main characters." She says, again _._

Carly is leaving tomorrow. After snack-time, I walk her to the women's lodge to say goodbye. When we reach the fountain, her gaze dips, and she offers to send a care package when she gets back to her home in The Hills. I reach out to hug her, but she sets her lips, cocks her head, and leans in for a kiss. I'm not sure if we're acting out a scene from _Melrose Place_ or if it's a real kiss. I panic, turning my head away, and she kisses my neck. It's awkward, so I walk away. _The care package never came._

At my lodge, I sit in the lounge area on an overstuffed leather couch softened by years of recovering men's intestinal distress. I enjoy the propane fumes of the eternal fire with Erik and a new patient from Colorado named Abraham. Abraham tells stories of his ranch and growing weed for the past 15 years, long before it was legal in Colorado. He began adulthood running drugs up from Mexico and stealing cars. I make a mental note to get Abraham's full story before I leave treatment.

# The Microcosm

"Excuse me, Bree, you need morning meds," the six-foot-four _runner_ in Catalina uniform says politely.

"FUCK YOU!" Bree's been in the same sweats for four days now.

"I'm sorry, I was just told to let you know you are late," he says out of breath.

"STOP BOTHERING ME, FUCKTARD!"

Bree cries, she knows she has to go, but there is no way Bree is going without the satisfaction of making someone else feel as miserable as she does.

"I'M GOING ASSSHOLE!!" She storms toward her lodge.

Patients requiring medication must show up to the nurse's station at the scheduled times, or be pulled out of class by a runner. Runners are flunkies. They are addicts who need a job, husky guys well trained to coddle and take endless abuse from patients like Bree. Most of them didn't rehab at Catalina Recovery.

I'm indifferent when it comes to runners. I don't see the value in being mean to someone I am expecting to look out for me. When they catch up to me, I thank them for being nice and go take my meds. _Also, I don't want to get my ass stomped on the day one of these troglodytes finally snaps._

A rehab is a microcosm of real life. It is a village of 70-90 highly unstable people, most of whom don't want to be there. It's a luxurious San Quentin with therapy and less anal sex. Like prison, there are rules, everyone has their place.

The hierarchy of rehab is established by type of disorder and background story hyperbole. If a disorder is not an admired or respected one, a tearful story in front of a large group will go a long way to improving one's status in the microcosm.

Here's what you need to know to not be a punk in rehab:

  * It's cool for girls to be E.D. (Eating Disorder)

    * Girls can move from addiction to E.D. to elevate their status,

      * but it only works for bird-like eating

      * or binge and purge.

    * Overeating does not qualify;

    * blame society.

    * Guys can never be accepted in the general population if they are E.D.

      * unless they are gay,

        * then they are cool.

  * Some mood disorder girls are worth the risk:

    * Anxiety Disorder (Emma Stone),

    * Depression (Kristen Bell),

    * Bipolar Disorder (Marilyn Monroe),

    * and PTSD (Charlize Theron).

  * Some mood disorders are dangerous and should be avoided,

    * Schizophrenia (Brittany Spears),

    * Borderline Personality (Courtney Love).

Mood disorder girls must be evaluated on a case by case basis. This is just a guideline.

  * Only cool guys have PTSD.

  * The coolest kids are hands down the heroin addicts,

    * particularly IV,

    * everyone looks up to them.

  * Alcoholics are a distant second.

    * This includes liquor only,

    * not wine or beer.

    * Beer and wine are not alcohol.

  * IV meth is still for rednecks with bad teeth.

  * Coke people talk too much.

  * Benzos and opiates [pills] are cool,

    * for a secondary DOC (Drug of Choice),

    * but are marginalized as a primary DOC.

  * Pain pills are so heavy metal.

    * In the good way.

  * Fentanyl is the best new IV and is cool

    * if you are connected (Prince),

    * or get it from the streets,

    * but if you steal it from work,

      * you're a nurse.

  * Experimental drugs include:

    * Molly (Ecstasy),

    * Shrooms (Shrooms),

    * Acid (LSD),

    * Ketamine (replaced angel dust).

      * Never tell someone you are in rehab for one of these.

      * You will be mocked.

  * No one talks to the Marijuana addicts.

Marijuana addiction isn't taken seriously in rehab. No one will say it in a group, but the popular opinion is heads are not addicts. This is kind of a bad rap. Breaking the physical addiction of any drug is the easy part of getting sober. It's the endless mental addiction that's a struggle, regardless of DOC. Suffering is not comparable, dude. That said, absolutely everyone smokes weed.

My personal favorite mood people are eating disorder patients, AKA, "The E.D. People." They are fascinating, more than heroin IV even. I like to think of The E.D. People as a famous girl band.

Their tour rider:

  * The E.D. People are to be provided a separate VIP room for eating.

  * The E.D. People always arrive early so they can select food first, without onlookers.

  * The E.D. People require a complete nutritional assessment of every meal or snack.

  * The E.D. People require staff to remove all M&Ms and other sweets from the dining hall.

  * DO NOT look at The E.D. People directly in the eyes, ever.

  * No matter how famous an E.D. person is, DO NOT let them know you recognize them.

One disorder you won't see roaming campus is self-harm, or "Cutters." They are usually rejected in the interview process for needing "a higher level of care." The powers that be think patients cutting themselves up is bad for morale, and the blood stains the sheets.

# Zuri

238 This morning, at the nurse's station, we are doing our weekly blood-pressure pool. Anyone who wants a piece of the action has to pay a dollar and the best blood pressure takes the pot. Erik wants to play, but he doesn't want to pay.

"C'mon, throw in a buck!" I say, in my best Nice Guy Eddie from _Reservoir Dogs_.

Erik laughs and says, "Uh-uh, I don't tip." He is Mr. Pink.

I've never won the money, but I have a secret weapon today. I meditated in my room before the competition, and I got up early to take my mood stabilizer and gabapentin. I'm thoroughly mellow, so I want to make sure the pot is sweet. While sitting for the nurse, I practice diaphragmatic breathing, big belly breaths, four counts in, six counts out. I put up a practically unbeatable number, 117/70. _This is my best, I can't beat this score._ When a new patient arrives, their blood pressure is always horrible. It's from the anxiety of a new place and the toll drug and alcohol withdrawal takes on the body. The numbers gradually get better.

Ben is the only one yet to go; he is young and a runner. He may be some competition. No one else can touch me. There is nervous chatter as the nurse straps the cuff to Ben's arm, but you could hear a hypodermic needle drop as the machine kicks into action. It grinds and pumps, releasing air and pumping in more. It hits a rhythm—puff, puff, puff—the last gasp of air releases, a loud _BEEP_ sounds, and the magic number pops up in red LED. 118/79.

"Yay!" I leap a wobbly leap, giving out a girlish cheer, and before my feet even touch the ground, I know I have overplayed the reaction. No one is excited. Erik has already started to stride away, shaking his head at my grotesque display of uncoolness. Slightly embarrassed at my bravado, I grab my stack of cash and skulk out of the lodge for the early AA meeting.

"I heard you are you writing a book?" Zuri says. She sits down while I'm waiting for a ride to the off-site AA meeting.

"Are you going to the off-site?' I ask, surprised by the sudden conversation. She is on the eating disorder track, and we have no groups together. We haven't met.

"Yes, it's my last one, thankfully," she says.

Patients go to at least one off-campus AA meeting each week as practice for life in the real word. _I wonder if it is a sign that I am institutionalized when I begin to consider a trip to AA the_ real _world._

Zuri is an urban Betty, skinny with long stems in black leggings, blackout clothes, and platform ankle boots that make her even taller than her five-foot-eight. She wears her hair dirty blonde above the shoulders with MTV retro glasses.

Traveling to the meeting and all the way back Zuri shares her story with me. It is her last night at Catalina Recovery. I'm not sure if she sought me out specifically to tell her story, but she comes right out with it.

Zuri grew up in a shitty little Kansas town, awkward and lanky. She was sexually abused by her step-dad from 11-15 years old. When she confronted her mom, she was accused of lying. At 16, Zuri said fuck this shit and split. She spent a few years surfing couches while she finished high school and earned a scholarship to the University of Kansas for cheerleading.

At K.U. Zuri met her first love, Alan, a tall rugby player with a shit-eating grin. After only a few months, things went real bad with Alan. He abused, raped, and punched Zuri. He also insisted on filming their sexual encounters. Alan made Zuri stay home while he went out with his friends, and flew into jealous, drunken rages, kicking the door open, when he returned. He accused her of hiding a man in the house, or covering for one that just left. Paranoid and jealous.

When Zuri tried to leave the relationship, he threatened to share their sex tapes. Zuri left anyway. Alan shared all of the videos and humiliated Zuri. She dropped out of college and moved to Florida where she found work as a bottle service girl at a South Beach strip club called Girl Party. Girl Party is the kind of club where drugs and girls are easy-to-buy. Zuri started stripping immediately.

After a few years at Girl Party, Zuri left Florida to work as a high-class call girl in LA. Working the upscale hotels in LA was a step up. Her clientele was wealthy and willing to be seen in public with her. She specialized in the _girlfriend experience_ ; she was paid to be the perfect full-time girlfriend. This meant she only had to deal with one client at a time, and it was good money, more than she had ever seen. The lifestyle also allowed her to paint, her real passion. She worked being an artist into her girlfriend experience persona, and the clients loved it.

Zuri's art is classical meets pop art; it's fresh with a powerful perspective. She spent her days painting and making connections in the art community of LA while spending her nights as an escort. Zuri did free live art shows anywhere that would have her. She is a natural performer with a knack for marketing herself—a bubbling personality turned on at will, endless legs, and a tight body in tight clothes drew onlookers to her live art shows. As the performances caught on, they brought exposure and a few features in LA media. Her work was noticed by a movie studio executive who hired her for a commissioned piece. She parlayed the success into a relationship with the studio doing live shows for movie premiers in the LA market.

During this period, Zuri was still escorting and met a wealthy client who wanted to invest in her art career. The benefactor hired representation and arranged her first gallery show.

"I describe my process as obsession and relentlessness," she says. "It was all worth it to get discovered."

By the time her big opening came, Zuri was half dead, but her work was impressive.

"I painted for weeks on nothing but gummy bears and meth," She said. The show was expertly marketed, and the work was well received—she sold everything. In a single night, Zuri went from being an escort to a successful artist. Her life changed that fast.

Over the next several weeks she spent money on drugs and the friends who show up to feed off of hype. She was partying in Vegas with Justin Bieber, Cristal, and cocaine. In months, Zuri found herself broke, starved and addicted. Her manager paid for her trip to Catalina Recovery.

Tomorrow, Zuri heads off to her New London studio where she will spend the next six weeks preparing for her follow-up show. Her visit to rehab was a break from relentlessness and obsession, success and growing fame.

Back at Catalina Recovery, we are dropped off at the rear entrance of Dancing Lemur to blow for blood alcohol levels and give up our urine. Another $250.

# Kiva

Tonight, there is a spirituality gathering around the fire pit at the Kiva. There are 40 or 50 bundled up patients sitting in the stone circle. The low rumble of chatter subsides as RA Tim enters the circle. The high fire emits sparks into the chilly evening breeze; I'm standing with Dark Mark, Angry Erik, and Quon. Kiki sees us, runs over and knees Erik in the nuts. Erik holds his crotch, dances a frantic jig and starts screaming obscenities.

"Stop being a pussy," Mark orders.

Angry Erik only listens to Dark Mark when he is in the midst of one of his rages. I think he looks up to Mark. They are friends in anger. Kiki always leads off an interaction with a knee to the groin; it's how she says hello. Those in the know guard crotches against her aggressive hellos, but she always gets the newbs.

Taylor is sitting alone across from us, Kato sitting a row above her with a blonde kid I don't know, they call him Ponyboy. I can see Kato whispering something to Taylor, who is curled into a ball. I point it out to Quon and Dark Mark as Taylor rushes away crying. After the gathering we stand up, Dark Mark taps Erik and me, "Come on," he says and brushes away quickly. We hop down the large stone steps and follow.

Kato and Ponyboy walk up the slope to exit the Kiva. Mark falls in behind them and waves us on. I shrug to Erik feigning dumbass face. Erik laughs, and we follow along the dark pathway that leads to the back door of Weary Wolf Lodge. Passing through a covered area, not visible from the outside, Mark trips Kato from behind and pushes him into the thorny desert brush. Ponyboy moves toward Dark Mark and Erik steps in front of him. I don't know if Erik has a problem with Ponyboy, but he looks ready to fight. Pony backs away.

Kato is lying on his back, tangled in the brush, as Dark Mark steps on his ankle with full weight. Kato struggles to free himself, tries to look tough, but he's wincing, holding back the tears _._

"Fuck you!" Kato wails. His eyes are red with humiliation.

Mark glares and says nothing. He is cold, efficient, and dead-eyed. I nervous laugh— _Mark is fucking scary_. I make a teleconnection with Erik, with eyes wide.

" _WTF just happened?"_

Kato is just lucky Ian wasn't here.

Angry doesn't like Kato either. Kato was the lodge leader when Erik arrived, and from day one Kato picked on him, ostracizing him. Kato called Erik out in front of our lodge mates for being skinny, for wearing the same sweats often—generally being a dick. I think maybe Pony is an okay kid; everyone seems to like him. I don't know what is true about Kato, and what isn't. Gossip around here is about as reliable as one might expect from a bunch of lying, cheating, stealing, addicts.

Dark Mark is a reluctant hero. He is Christian Bale Batman, real and tortured—an unlikely protagonist. That's exactly how I will write him in my book. Dark Mark is alone, Taylor is the family he lost, Kato is the Joker.

# Ozzy

In Addiction Education we are asked to talk about the first time we used a mind altering substance. It takes me a little while to pinpoint my first time; it was Ozzy's fault. During the summer of my 12th birthday, we moved to Texas from Kansas. I didn't know quite what to expect from Texas, I'd heard that it was all cattle and tumbleweeds, which wasn't the case, but it was hot. Warmer than any place I'd ever been in my life.

I first remember experimenting with alcohol that summer when I hung out up in my room drinking a "mix-master" out of a shampoo bottle. I never fully got the taste of Johnson's Baby Shampoo out of the bottle, but I snuck down to the closet under the stairs and filled it with small amounts of liquor from every bottle in the closet. In this way, borrowing my parent's liquor could go undetected. It was a brutal mixture of Bailey's, Run, Tequila, Gin, Crème de menthe, and shampoo.

When the heat ultimately faded into a school year. I was not looking forward to being the new kid at school. Those first few months, I remember being invisible to girls. My adult teeth were just setting in, and they were a nightmare, bucked like a Sunday morning cartoon character. Even other undesirables kept their distance from me out of fear of getting abused for hanging out with the goofy new kid. My self-esteem was at an all-time low. I walked around like a ghost. I remember a math teacher, who hated me, sticking out his front teeth to mock me when no one was looking. I never told anyone about that.

One day, in 7th grade, Ian showed up at my school. He kicked the shit out of me for calling him at redneck in history class, and we both got detention for a week. In that time together we bonded. In many ways, Ian is what I've always wanted to be, strong, confident, unwavering. I over-think things, make things too complicated, which can lead to a lack of self-confidence, but Ian has never had that problem. He can make a decision and never doubt himself.

After ceaseless bitching, my mom _finally_ took me to get braces. Most kids cringe at the thought of getting braces; I was thrilled. I had a mouth full of beautiful heavy metal within a week. In another two weeks, my teeth lined up perfectly. Two weeks was all it took to change my life. I had to wear braces for the next nine months, but I didn't care, my teeth looked normal, that's all that mattered.

This period of my life was Kafka's _Metamorphosis_ in reverse. I transformed from a cockroach to a real kid; my self-esteem did a complete flip-flop. It was around that time that Ian and I discovered the other Heavy Metal: Ozzy Osbourne, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Ronnie James Dio.

That year, no matter how hot it was, I wore my prized Levi's denim jacket everywhere I went with my signature "Ozzy for President" button on the breast pocket flap. No one _ever_ extracted more identity from a button, in the history of buttons.

The Levi's denim jacket had two big, rectangular, inner pockets that held my life. I carried everything in those pockets—knives, weed, wallets, homework, fireworks, condoms (that I would never get to use), you name it. If it was of interest to a thirteen-year-old boy, I had it in those pockets. They were also perfect for the old Walmart five-finger-discount when it was time to pick-up the new Deep Purple cassette. The magic-finger-shuffle was the only way to get new music in those days, that or stay up all night waiting for a DJ to play a requested song. My copy of "Rainbow in the Dark" by _Ronnie James Dio_ was missing the intro. After calling 101 KLOL Houston a dozen times, I sat—fingers on play and record—all night and woke at 1:00 am to catch the song five seconds too late.

My dad had a rule against buying new music.

"It is pointless to spend hard earned money on cassettes; just buy blank tapes and copy the music from your friends." He said this gesticulating the universal money between the fingers sign. To this day, this is the logic I use to justify torrenting everything. My dad will get mad if I buy media; _it's pointless._

During this period, Ian and I went to our first concert, Ozzy Osbourne, and Mötley Crüe. I was overjoyed the day my ticket finally showed up in my mailbox. I bragged to all of the kids in junior high, but their reaction was not what I expected. Everyone was concerned—Mötley Crüe worshiped the devil, and Satanism was contagious. My mom had no idea of the evil she had signed me up for when she drove me to Houston and dropped me off in front of The Summit. I cheered for two of my favorite bands from the nosebleeds. When Ian passed me a joint, I didn't think twice. I tried it the way I'd seen Cheech and Chong do it in _Up in Smoke_ : puff-puff, make a dramatic effort of inhaling, hold my breath, and dance around. I blew a long stream of burnt _Reese's Peanut Butter_ smoke into the colored lights of the area and watched as it joined the pungent cloud that had formed near the rafters, a collective effort of the stoned Heavy Metal masses. I felt nothing, and I started to tell Ian his weed was... _mmmmReese's Peanut Butter Cups..._ A colorful warm washed over me, Shout at the Devil took on new, deeper meaning as my mind opened. I knew instantly, I was a Satan worshiper... who wanted chocolate.

That year, marijuana became my friend in isolation, and Heavy Metal taught me to mock the hypocrisy of organized religion. I am still chasing that first _mmmmReese's Peanut Butter Cups..._ feeling _._

During the same period, my adventures with the Classic Van began. Classic Van was a hold-over from the late seventies, featuring pimp vector graphics wrapped around teardrop windows, fold-out couch/bed conversion, custom lighting, and brown shag carpet. It was a disco ball on wheels. My mom drove Classic Van to her middle-school teaching job, against her will. She hated it. My dad loved Classic Van but refused to drive it anywhere, except on hunting trips.

Deep fried in my first year of marijuana haze, Ian and I discovered we could sneak the van out in the middle of the night by pushing it up the driveway, and cranking it on the street. We could drive around all night as long as we were back by 5:00 am in the morning. Driving Classic Van with shag carpet and thunder pimp graphics lent itself to smoking lots marijuana and listening to Reggae. We spent each Monday or Tuesday of the summer cruising, between 2 am and 5 am, stoned.

We roof surfed, jumped road crowns, and once backed it into a dumpster. We beat the shit out of Classic Van, high as kites and my mom always took the blame, which sucked, but it was too much fun to quit.

My mom went back to work once the summer ended. During the first week of classes, drug dogs alerted on Classic Van. Actually, the drug dog refused to come out from under Classic Van. Mom was called to the principal's office and told to go stand by Classic Van while police officers searched every inch for drugs or drug paraphernalia. They found nothing incriminating, because we left nothing, save for maybe some shake in the shag carpet. It was a humiliating experience for mom; I did not dare tell her the truth for many years.

# Taylor

"Dark Mark attacked Kato last night," Kiki says over breakfast. We are sitting near bubbling fruit drink machines in the dining hall, it's early before the breakfast crowd has a chance to flock to the bacon and suspect scrambled eggs. She is hovering over a bowl of fruit, coffee, and a plate full of thick cut bacon.

"I was there," I say, distracted by a nugget of semi-solid peanut butter on my spoon that the dishwasher missed. It formed a bond in the heated drying cycle. I try to scrape it off, but the glob gets stuck under my nail and transfers from finger to finger when I try to dislodge it. It's a "peanut booger." I amuse myself with my new phrase.

"What are you smiling about?" Kiki says.

"Nothing, Mark just warned him to stay away from Taylor," I say, standing, walking backward against the conversation to get a new spoon.

"Well, Mark was discharged today," Kiki says. I stop pulling away. "Kato went to the RAs, and it was a big deal. He had bruises and stated that Mark threatened his life. Pony backed him up." I'm shocked. Kiki's voice rises to a preachy pitch now that she has my attention.

"Striking another patient is grounds for an automatic discharge. He may face charges," she is Oprah now.

"That little shit," I say. "I was starting to like Ponyboy."

I can't help but feel guilty for this. I knew what I was doing when I pointed out Kato at the Kiva. I knew Mark would blow up—after breakfast, I have a massage scheduled; I never miss massages.

I'm waiting in the lobby of Dancing Lemur for a therapist to call my name. All the _mood people_ live in the co-ed lodge, Dancing Lemur. On the outside, _The Lemur_ looks much like other buildings on campus with an adobe facade and seasonal water fountain. When you enter, the lodge interior is modern and minimalist, with 24-inch earth-tone tiles and a large glassed-in fireplace. The furniture is dark leather; everything is designed in right angles. This lodge has a warm buzz; patients are playing board games and laughing like they are at summer camp. It's not what I expected from a mood lodge. I thought everyone would be shitting in their hands and rubbing it on their faces, but this is kind of nice. All of the doors to the bedrooms are open; there is little or no clutter. Mood patients definitely have a problem getting out of their pajamas but seem...happy, _the crazy little fuckers._

I notice Taylor waiting for something, staring at nothing. I move near her. I'd given her back my half colored fractal art in addiction education and ask if I can finish it while we wait. Taylor tells me her story. She keeps eye contact but glazes over.

238  Taylor grew up in Tucson never knowing her real father. She was raised by her mother and stepfather. Her mother was from Tucson, and her step-father was originally from Mexico. Taylor looks like a cross between Taylor Swift and Kristen Dunst. She has the defined features of a movie star, striking from every angle, about five-foot-six and thin. She barely exists when she speaks—so fragile from abuse that she's afraid to talk to anyone at a volume that can be heard. As a kid, Taylor would spend summers in Mexico where her step-father's family lived. In Mexico, her blonde hair and blue eyes made her different.

"I hated standing out so much, I just wanted to blend in," she says, "every time we went somewhere, people would touch my head and call me, _'Güera.'_ It was supposed to be good luck or something."

As she grew up, her stepfather got too friendly, and by the time she was 8, he was coming into her room late at night on a regular basis. At 13, Taylor's mother sent her to live in Mexico with her stepdad's family. There she was molested by her uncle and nearly sold into sexual slavery. Her mother saved her and brought her back to the US, but she never divorced the abusive stepdad.

"On family week my mother and stepfather are coming here," she says, "and everyone will know what he did," I asked her what she's going to do when she leaves. "I don't know." She looks at the floor, "I want to leave Tucson."

At dinner, Quon gives me his copy of Jules Verne's _20,000 Leagues Under the Sea_. I'll read it tonight. I'm going crazy with nothing to _like_ or _tweet_. I ask Quon why he thinks we spend so much time walking from building to building.

"It seems almost like they schedule classes so we _have_ to walk across campus all day," I complain.

"Get up early and keep your feet moving," Quon says, "that's what they want from us."

He smells of good cologne. How did he get that cologne in here? I want to drink it.

"They don't want you to wallow or isolate," Quon makes a good point I didn't think of. This is the second time I am surprised by Quon. His neediness has subsided, and his real personality is showing real promise, "I want to kill my mother and father." _Maybe not._

It's about time for the staff to come and tell me to turn my lights out. I sneak peanut butter and crackers back to my room after social hour—breaking the rules. Everyone hides snacks for late night munchies. During the day the RAs conduct random room searches and confiscate contraband, which includes drugs, razors, magazines, alcohol, candy, and other food. The reasoning behind the _no food rule_ has to do with the wildlife, I'm told.

"We don't need coyotes sniffing around in the rooms," RA Jon says, making no sense. He is an asshole.

_I wonder if the RAs have been rummaging through my valuables or reading my journal?_ There are no locks on anything—I hide my journal behind the air conditioning intake filter and my money beneath the tissues in the bottom of a Kleenex box. We can keep $100 in our rooms, but only carry around twenty of it. All other cash and credit cards must be locked in a safe in the accounting office. I leave a pack of crackers on my dresser each morning. If they are gone when I get back to my room, I'll know my room has been searched.

# Callum

Callum catches me in the lodge as I'm reading _Born to Run_. He is ready to do _his chapter_ , but I'm into my reading. The term chapter has become slang for someone telling me their story.

"I'm leaving tomorrow, Love," he says. I go back to my room, get my journal, and we sit by the fire to talk.

Callum is a private assistant for a rap super-mogul. The client is a handful, making Callum have decibel levels measured in each hotel room to be sure the air conditioners are felt and not heard. Callum tells me he is invaluable because he knows things like how to hold a runway, for a Gulfstream G650, at Chicago O'Hare when a spoiled superstar is chronically late... _Actually, let me back up a little and talk about the evening when I first met Callum._

Callum walked into my room with a thick English accent and way too much luggage—a blend of Ricky Gervais  and your favorite Uncle Bob— _if your favorite Uncle Bob makes a sort of wet clicking sound when he talks._ He was my roommate for one night only, but we were friends throughout my stay at Catalina Recovery.

Callum has a happy Buddha belly he shows off from underneath his short shirts. I lied on my bed as we chatted and he repeatedly leaned over with his belly button staring me straight in the eye. He called me "Love" throughout the evening. "Shall I take this side Love?" He was also touchy, he even kissed me on the cheek once. I know this is cultural stuff, but in early recovery, I have no patience for diplomacy. When Callum fell asleep, he snored like my old blue heeler on sleep medication. That was the last straw. I stayed in the room through most of that night to be polite, but when the clock read 5:00 am, I grabbed my comforter and walked down the hall to lay on the couch in front of the fire.

When the sun came up, I went to the nurse's station to complain about the invasion of my personal space. Callum may know how to get special treatment in five-star hotels, but I know rehabs. The trick to getting a new roommate is _not_ to ask to have the other patient moved, the Nurses won't do it. It's too damaging to a fragile psyche. I needed a good reason to get myself moved, I know from experience that snoring is not sufficient. If I complain about snoring, I'll get foam earplugs or a white noise machine. Violation of personal space is the perfect red flag—then it becomes about _my psyche_ and my emotional comfort level.

I spoke to Justin, my roommate from the tank. He didn't have a roommate and said I could come room with him. I took him up on it—I knew he didn't snore. The next morning, I went back to Callum and explained my reasons for moving. I was honest with him, and he took it well. The experience could have gone another way with a lesser person, but this was the moment we became friends.

When we sit near the fire to talk about Callum's _chapter_ , he catches me with an intense glare.

"I'm going to tell you something I've never told another soul," Callum says, and then farts a 1000-watt trombone fart, with a side order of two-day-old sausage.

"Sweet Jesus!" I gag.

"That's an icebreaker Love," Callum says and gives a wink of deviltry.

Callum was raised in London to wealthy parents—his mother's family owns a coffee empire. The company is based in a South American country, which is where Callum was also partly raised.

Callum was at university on the day he received a phone message from his mother that his grandmother passed away at the age of 79. She left him a good chunk of her coffee money which he invested in diversified pharmaceuticals with extensive holdings in cocaine.

One of his best friends is a Pop Icon, who has had a few hits that everyone, who wasn't locked in a closet in the 1990s, knows. The two did their first lines of blow together at 16 and would get sober together at the age of 44.

While still at University, Callum made investments with fund wizard Bernie Madoff, who made Callum's funds disappear. Broke, Callum completed University with a degree in Economics and moved to LA to live with his best friend from youth, who was exploring new lows in his own life. Pop Icon was in a slump in his career and had resorted to dealing cocaine to fund a growing drug problem. He took Callum under his wing and trained him to be a drug dealer, a job at which Callum excelled. Callum would have easily won the Cadillac in _Glengarry Glen Ross_. He is a born salesman with the gift of gab, a silky smooth accent, and personality that puts people at ease. He is a natural choice for selling drugs to high-end clientele.

Callum spent the next year dealing, burrowing deeper into a costly cocaine habit. Eventually, he and Pop Icon found themselves in a situation that was too hopeless to continue. Pop Icon's manager got him admitted into a recovery center in Arizona, and he asked Callum to drive him there.

This trip would have made Hunter S. Thompson proud, with Callum driving Pop Icon's 918 Porsche Spyder, both of them freebasing coke and smoking heroin the whole way. After many lost hours on the road, the two realized they would not make it to Arizona alive and agreed to stop at The Palazzo, a five-star resort in Las Vegas to recuperate. (Vegas is _not_ on the way to Tucson.) That night Callum and Pop Icon consumed copious amounts of cocaine and heroin. The next morning the only drug remnants powdered the carpet. At 4:00 am they called a charter jet service to pick them up. At 7:00 am—still high, no sleep—Callum and Pop Icon boarded a Learjet 45XR for a quick hop to a private airport in Tucson.

They were met by a limousine and chauffeured to the exotic Catalina Lago treatment facility just down the road from Catalina Recovery. After only 24 hours in treatment, Pop Icon called Callum who was staying nearby at the Westin Tucson, "I can't remain here another minute," his voice quivering over the phone, "They've taken my possessions, my Sheffield razor!"

"You must stay in treatment Love," Callum said, "it will save you." _I'm writing this dialog while watching Robert Altman's, Gosford Park. Can you tell?_

Callum pleaded with Pop Icon to stay for just one more day, but Pop Icon refused, and he always gave in to Pop Icon's demands. Callum isn't gay, more like ambiguously heterosexual. It's part of his unique ability to make people feel well taken care of.

A few hours later, Callum picked Pop Icon up and took him back to the Westin Tucson for a private detox. Callum cared for his childhood friend for four days, tending to his every need, suffering by his side in his own withdrawal.

In four days' time, a detoxed Pop Icon agreed to go back into treatment. He was so moved by Callum's friendship and compassion, he gifted a Callum a trip to nearby Catalina Recovery.

# Big Mistake

In high school, I had a lying, cheating girlfriend who I will call Anna. I found out the extent of her cheating years later when friends from our circle drunkenly opened up, talking about diseases she gave them and asked if I had them too.

The summer after high school, I went to a party hosted in a shitty two-bedroom squat and instantly knew I didn't belong there. The room was filled with stoner friends of the guy Anna was cheating with. I had nothing against smoking weed, but it was not my life's ambition. I looked down on people who spent their lives stoned, in a constant state of ambivalence—I was naive.

Several beers and a bong hit later, I was starting to warm up to the lifestyle—Anna's other boyfriend, who we will call Douchestick, began looking at me funny and ruined my buzz. Actually, I noticed _everyone_ was staring at me weirdly, not just Douchestick. _Was it the weed?_ I have no tolerance for good weed. I started to get lost between _internal_ and external dialog, having trouble keeping the two separated in my mind. _Did I just say Douchestick out loud?_

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Douchestick said.

"I'm pretty sure I just said Douchestick out loud," I _thought_ I thought to myself, but the words came out of my mouth. _This made me laugh in my mind or out loud, not sure._

"What's your fucking problem!" Douchestick definitely said this.

"What's your fucking problem?" _Did he just repeat himself or did I say, "What's your fucking problem?"_ There it is again.

"This bitch thinks he's funny!" I have no idea who said this, but it made me laugh more, and Douchestick punched me, and then everyone laughed.

I can hear the cicadas—they get loud when the weather gets hot like this. They hate the heat and are crying for winter to come, making their sad summer clicking sound, it's more of a pained grinding. I read somewhere that cicadas can get up to 90db in volume. That's as loud as a Boeing 737 aircraft at one nautical... someone has on too much cologne, maybe to cover up the smell of the spilled bong water on this carpet. Who spills bong water and doesn't clean it up? What kind of people... Why are they standing over me and laughing and pointing? Fade up the slider on the laugh track... It's muted on channel three...

"Bahhh!! Ha! Ha! Ha!" The room was filled with glee as I sat up. I noticed Ian standing in the corner with a bottle, watching. I braced myself with the coffee table to get to my feet and made my exit.

_In_ delayed _motion,_ I jumped in my car, started it up, and immediately lost track of where I was and what I was supposed to be doing. I kept touching the left side of my face, I couldn't feel my teeth. Driving around, Aerosmith on the radio was making me sick. I bent down to change the station and smashed head-on into the windshield... _I can hear cicadas again... Beep, Beep, Beep! Why is my horn honking?_

I reached up to feel glass shards on my forehead and tasted blood in my mouth. I looked around to see what had happened and all I could make out was one car in front of me damaged severely. I couldn't see the front of my own car, but I could see a bubble in the windshield where my head fit. My key broke off in the ignition as I twisted the keychain to start the engine. In the crash, my knee slammed against the steering column and bent the key all the way back into an L shape. I was dazed but lucid enough to get the fuck out of the car, and walk away quickly.

I surveyed the scene and saw the car I'd hit, hit two other vehicles. There were three cars _not including my own_ severely damaged, I didn't know if any people were hurt. The neighborhood was still asleep, no one out of their houses yet. Plodding down the road a car pulled up next to me rolled down the window, and a young college girl asked me if I needed a ride. I remember little about her other than she was sweet, saw the wreck, and knew I was trying to get away. She asked me where I needed to go, I didn't know. She asked me where I 'd come from, and I said I was at a party. She was heading to a party, and I said let's go.

She drove to the party, the one I'd just left, the hostile environment. My evil ex-girlfriend gave me a pillow and a couch because I couldn't leave. She gave me aspirin, told me to go to sleep. _Two things you don't do with someone with a concussion._ I knew I couldn't call anyone that night if I didn't want to face a DWI charge. Early on, my life was becoming unmanageable because of alcohol and drug use. This was a clear sign alcohol, and drugs would be an ongoing problem in my life.

Weeks later I went to the wrecker yard to see my car in the harsh daylight of sobriety and couldn't believe I'd survived the crash. I saw a mangled mess hardly recognizable as my Nissan 240SX. I totaled four cars and got off with a warning.

# Sophia

Last night, I had a dream about my wife I now realize is reoccurring. In the dream, I ask Mia if she is in another relationship, she won't answer, and I become more and more frustrated that she's not responding. I get belligerent.

"I'm not seeing anyone!" She is angry, begging me to leave her alone. I don't believe her—I've had this dream throughout my life. Anna did this to me.

In Somatic Experiencing, Dr. Allan slowly rolls a yoga ball towards me and asks if he is invading my personal space. I stare at him, disappointed, head tilted like a Golden Lab—I don't respond. He can sense my hostility because I'm laying it on pretty thick. I stare at a picture of the Dalai Lama on the filing cabinet directly across from my chair. Dr. Allan asks if I can tell him why the Dalai Lama is smiling in the photograph. I walk out and compliment him on his technique.

Somatic Experiencing is a new field of therapy (created in 1998) that is becoming an increasingly popular modality in progressive treatment centers that deal with trauma patients. It was developed by Dr. Peter Levine who observed the trauma faced by animals in the wild. For example, a gazelle is walking along minding his own business when _WHAM, a_ fucking lion jumps on his back with nine-inch claws and rips him to shreds and eats him bit by bit while he is still alive. It's a horror movie death scene. This happens every day, but somehow gazelles show no symptoms of stress.

The three survival responses are fight, _flight_ , and _freeze_. Watching _When Animals Attack_ on YouTube, Dr. Levine discovered trauma is processed in the third survival response, freeze. When fight and flight are not healthy options gazelles freeze. This makes a less enticing target. This reaction creates a massive amount of energy, or stress, that needs to be discharged. Dr. Peter noticed animals in the wild release stress after a near death experience by shaking and trembling. If trauma processing is incomplete, the fear is trapped in the central nervous and makes the animal constantly feel under threat. It's the same for humans.

Dr. Allan and I didn't make any progress in my first Somatic Experiencing session, but I took away a good story about gazelles.

Tonight at snack, I have a chance to sit with Sophia, the sophisticated Mexican woman I saw with Kato, and I listen to her story. I've noticed her sitting in the back of groups, alone, quietly observing. It made me curious. Sophia is slender with dark hair, sunbathed skin—the few wrinkles she has, work to her advantage. At a young age, Sophia married a man twenty years her senior and moved to Mexico to live a life of servants and mansions.

Shortly after her second child, Sophia realized her body was changing, and she could no longer give her husband what he wanted physically. _I have never heard any woman be this frank about her sexuality._ After an emotional struggle; fighting, not talking, separation, Sophia agreed to an open relationship so her husband could have a mistress. _Again,_ ga-ga-ga _._ She hoped that the arrangement would save their marriage if just for the kids' sake. The husband was happy for a while but decided he wanted to have a threesome with his wife and mistress together. Sophia was initially not accepting of the idea, but she met and liked the mistress and after a night of many tequilas agreed to give it a try.

Her husband didn't account for the possibility that Sophia might like the female experience more than she liked being with him. She grew into a woman with him and had never had other male lovers, much less female lovers. Sophia had never experienced the tenderness in love making a woman could offer. She didn't know caring and thoughtfulness could be a part of the sexual experience.

For the next year, Sophia lived the young, wild, life she had missed out on her first time around. She met and fell in love with a beautiful woman, a partner in crime. They enjoyed the good life together on vacations in Monte Carlo, Rome, London, Cleveland. Sophia was wealthy and in love. Her husband was preoccupied with other women and work. In Mexico, she had servants to take care of her kids—she took advantage of not having any responsibilities.

Within a year, her relationship with the other woman fell apart in the way that addiction based relationships do. By the time Sophia bottomed out and showed back up at home, her husband was done with her. He sent her to Arizona for rehab with no plans of letting her come back home—he wanted to spend the rest of his life with his mistress and Sophia's two children. This is where Sophia's life is today, filled with uncertainty as her family skis in Vail for the holiday season she will spend in rehab.

While Sophia and I sit and talk, Quon comes up and starts babbling.

"I'm so angry about... you are so beautiful," he stammers, "you two look good together, are you two married?" Quon is whacked out on Ambien tonight, and he can't walk or talk. People like to take their meds before snack so they can be fucked up while they socialize. It's typical addictive behavior, and it makes things a lot more interesting. I tell Sophia goodnight and walk with Quon back to his lodge to make sure he makes it. He falls on the pebble path, and I help him up off the ground straining my neck.

"Come on buddy, you can do this," I say, pulling his arm over my shoulder.

"You know, I'm not really gay? Right?" He slurs through the meds, "It's just so they leave me alone."

"I know Quon."

"Are you at least Chinese?" I ask.

"You are so stupid," he swats across his body with his free hand. After I drop Quon off at Dancing Lemur, I walk back to my lodge and march straight to the nurse's station.

"I need ibuprofen or Tylenol for my neck," skipping the small talk.

"You are going to need approval from your doctor," she sings the response to me, her pitch climbing to the end of the sentence.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I yell, losing my temper. "I watch you guys hand out crack all day! I just need an over-the-fucking-counter pain pill for my neck! It is killing me!"

"You are going to need approval from your doctor," she sings again. I'm impressed she didn't bite on my tantrum, and it somehow makes me feel better. I walk away and vow not to act like a petulant child again.

# Smith and Wednesday

Shortly after moving to Austin at 19, I had my first taste of heroin with a drummer named Smith who was addicted to everything: crack, cocaine, alcohol, meth, gold spray paint, you name it, and he was addicted to it, but his drug of choice was heroin. He shot a lot of heroin.

Smith had a girlfriend who looked so much like Christina Ricci in _The Adams Family_ , her stripper stage name was Wednesday. She wore all black and had a black bob. She was an attractive heroin junky. Smith looked like Rob Zombie with dreads and a _13_ tattooed on his neck.

One nighty, Smith showed up for band practice tweaking with a box of adult magazines, pipes, bongs, and DVDs from a local head shop where he worked called Planet K. He owed most of us money and asked if we wanted any of the loot as payment.

I made the mistake of loaning him a ride cymbal that he immediately sold for dope—his head shop robbery was an attempt at a reparation. As he finished his final shift at Planet K, he emptied the register and took everything he could carry. He spent the money on heroin which he offered to share. That evening, I smoked heroin for the first time.

Drugs like MDMA, coke, meth, give you an energetic high. With these you're king, or you love everyone or both, but uppers make you pay back the fun with a painful recovery from depletion, lack of sleep, similar to an alcohol hangover, but more powerful. Depression. Coke is always my worst hangover.

The first time I smoked heroin, I melted slowly, it lasted for several hours and then I un-melted. No horrific headache, no pain, but it wasn't the drug I'd heard about. When it hit, I was slightly disappointed. It was chill; it was a nice drug, but I knew its reputation and thought it wasn't worth the risk. The next night, I smoked more, lots of warmth, different waves of heat around my body that built up until it felt like fucking the sun. I didn't know that I was capable of feeling that much peace.

I picked Smith and Wednesday every Thursday for band practice. I dropped her off at the all nude strip club and took him to practice; it was the only way I could get him to show up.

Knocking on the door never drew an answer. When I arrived to pick them up, I let myself in, and Wednesday was typically naked, screaming at Smith for shooting her last bit of dope. The house was barely standing with scents of rotting feet and an over-ripe litter box. Sometimes, I'd watch her apply cover-up makeup to purple bruises left by constant drug abuse. Sometimes, I would agree to bring them dope to bribe them out of the house. She was never happy, and it was impossible to get her to put on clothes. As much fun as it sounds, it was frustrating to deal with the two of them.

To make side money, Wednesday would often take on clients for private shows and _other things_. One client paid her to eat pineapple for a few days. Wednesday and Smith would take a taxi to the client's house where Wednesday would sit on a contraption with a toilet elevated over a crawl space. Her client would lay beneath the toilet, and I would rather not describe what happened next. For her time, she was paid enough to keep two young lovers in heroin for days. Last I heard, somebody talked to a friend of Smith in New York a few years ago, he overdosed. Dead.

Smith's passing always makes me think about my good fortune. If I'd had a 13 tattooed on my neck, his fate could have just as easily been mine.

# Dr. Myron

Group therapy is my favorite shit right now. My process group is six people and a therapist. We meet four times per week for two hours at-a-time. Over the course of my stay here, we will get comfortable enough in group to all cry in front of each other. A good therapist can make a group immensely entertaining, or he can let the group devolve into a knitting circle, bogged down by whining and gossip. I like to gossip just as much as the next crackhead, but group is where I do my real work. I need a therapist who can spot bullshit, control cross-talk, and advice giving and make me listen to feedback. I've done my part _;_ I'm all fucked up—now it's up to my therapist to make me cry. Crying is healing.

Today, I'm with my favorite thin, gray-balding, sixty-something Jewish wizard called Dr. Myron. He is Martin Landau in _Rounders_ crossed with the Oracle from the first _Matrix_. People come from all over the world to sit with Dr. Myron and experience his obsessive-compulsive genius. His insight slices like a razor. I can say something benign about my day, and Dr. Myron will point out a significant thought about my approach to life that will make me want to be a better person. That's the magic, that and crying. I love it so much when patients try to hold it back—the whites go red as the wet starts to fill the corners of their eyes. We all try so hard to hold back tears first few times, but it's inevitable when you sit with Dr. Myron. No one can resist the wizard's powers to conjure blubbering. I wait longingly for Myron's feedback after a juicy share to see the waterworks.

"We support you!" we all chant at every emotional release.

People cry so much in Myron's groups there are rules governing weeping. If there's a Kleenex box in the middle of the room, we may not hand the box or even a tissue to someone who's crying. We don't console them; no patting on the back, no hugging.

Saying, "It's okay," is NOT okay. Not allowed.

"If the process of feeling an emotion is interrupted," Dr. Myron lectures, "a patient cannot feel it all the way through to a conclusion."

"By consoling, the opportunity to process and heal is stolen," he continues, "we must be allowed to breathe through our emotions."

I've never thought about it this way. From the Wizard's point I extrapolate: every time my kid cries and my response is, "don't cry buddy," I am telling him not to feel—invalidating his emotions.

Dr. Myron's group rules:

  1. What happens in group stays in group.

  2. No cross talk.

  3. No advice giving.

  4. After feedback, only say, "Thank you."

  5. Nothing on your lap or in your hands while someone is sharing.

  6. Never wear a hat.

  7. Be five minutes early.

  8. No cups without lids.

  9. No smoking on break.

  10. No laughing at shares.

Rules 1-3 are standard in group therapy. Confidentiality is a necessity to get patients to open up. Crosstalk is interrupting a share to get my two cents in. It's not healthy for the person sharing and means I am not listening. Advice giving is not tolerated. If I tell a patient what to do in a situation, I am claiming I have that level of insight, if that's the case then why am I in treatment? I can only know what my experience has taught me about myself, valuable information, but not the same as telling the person how to feel or what to do. This is a hard habit to break. The general rule is when giving feedback use "I, me" speak rather than "you, your" to relate to the share rather than judge it.

Dr. Myron takes this to the next level, by adding the hear, see, feel, relate requirement.

I'm not allowed to say, "Smoking crack is bad for you." I should say, "When I hear you talk about smoking crack; I feel a desire to smoke it also. I relate to your desire to smoke crack even though I know it is not good for me."

Rules 4 and 5 are Dr. Myron's unique rules, they are useful. Saying only "thank you" stops me from thinking about what I will say next while the other person is giving feedback. It slows down the dialog, forces me to reflect on the comments I just heard.

Group members must keep their laps clear during a share to minimize distractions. No note taking, shuffling papers, or holding coffee are permissible.

Rules 6-8 are Dr. Myron's OCD run amok. They serve no therapeutic purpose and are only there to keep Dr. Myron calm.

Rule 9, the no smoking rule, is deceptively clever. Dr. Myron believes that nicotine, like any other drug, will come between us and our emotions. For example, walking outside to smoke in the middle of a crying fit helps a patient stop crying. It's just like fucking consoling. Bad! Numbs the feelings. Therein lies Dr. Myron's genius.

Group gives me a chance to talk about my feelings with people I am comfortable with and learn from their experiences. I'm amazed at how much I can relate to a person I've cried in front of and has cried in front of me. By the end of treatment, I'll feel bonded to these people, like we will be lifelong friends. I will never speak to them again. In the real world, there is no point.

Ian walked out of process group during a break, saw a car in the parking lot with a prescription bottle on the back seat, and before he could use his _rational mind_ , his _emotional mind_ had already made a plan to come back after group, break into the car, and steal the prescription. After the break, Ian came back into group and told us the thoughts of committing a crime and how quickly they happened.

"This is an example of how attached we are to our addiction," Dr. Myron says. "We are aware our habits are harmful, yet we are unable to change them, we cling to them, unwilling to let go. This self-division leads to surrender to our addiction."

"Ian holding himself accountable," Quon says, "is a good example of how to change."

"Shut-up Quon," Ian says.

Today was a visitor day, the one day each week when we are allowed to have people come in from the outside. I was happy to have Ian stop by to visit with me. We sat in the Kiva, and I filled him in on everything that has been going on here. Visiting with Ian made me want a drink.

# Malcolm and Tyson

I met Malcolm in a Dallas treatment center and again in a rehab in Palm Springs. Malcolm goes to treatment like most people go on vacation. The night we became new roommates, Malcolm was quick to tell me,

"Dudeman, I snuck in an eight ball of coke and sixty vikes," Malcolm calls everyone Dudeman.

"You want to do some?" he asked, eagerly.

"Seriously?"

"Fuck yeah, Dudeman. I'm serious as a motherfucker."

"No," I said, laughing. That was a new one for me. I've seen a lot of shit in rehab, but not that kind of brazen genius.

"I'll pass, but you go on, party it up," I said.

Malcolm smuggled in the _contraband_ by putting it in a snuff can, which he pinched between his butt cheeks while they were going through his clothes in the _scrub search_. He claims that he had no idea he was still holding. His accountant, who is also a drug addict, drove him most of the way to rehab. It took them two days just to get out of Dallas, after running around town to score meth, coke, and pills for the trip. They ended up doing the drugs in a hotel with hookers and left when they thought they were cleaned out. Malcolm overlooked some of his stash and didn't realize it until he started emptying his pockets in the bathroom of the admission office. His quick thinking saved the dope.

I resisted the temptation for as long as I could, but he kept talking about how pure the blow was. After 30-long-minutes of fighting, I did my first line of coke in rehab. For the next several nights we rotated between snorting coke and Vicodin, with lines always standing in our bathroom drawer. The two of us were alone in a six-person room in the collegiate dorm while waiting for a space to come available in the Sad Bastard Lodge. The Sad Bastard Lodge was a more civilized accommodation for family men but filled with sad sacks who had lost everything and just wanted their lives back. The desperation in the Sad Bastard dorm was palpable.

The collegiate dorm was out of control, but fun, with a raucous gathering of collegiate boys every night at the Butt Hut (outside of our window). They spent every evening vaping, smoking, and playing a game called, _What are the Odds,_ a numbers based truth or dare type game, without the possibility of truth.

" _What are the odds you will put Nair on your eyebrows... What are the odds you will bite the head off of this dead bird... What are the odds you will let me kick you in the nuts as hard as I can... What are the odds you will piss your pants standing here in front of everyone..."_

These are a few of the creative challenges we watched collegiates accept—while we were high on coke, laughing hysterically. The beauty of _What are the Odds_ is someone always loses. Somebody _always_ has to eat something rotten or gets kicked in the balls. It is reality entertainment in its purest form.

On day four, Malcolm and I were surprised by our new roommate, Tyson. Tyson is slim, very well groomed, with perfectly styled faux-hawk, and expensive clothes. In other words, he is gay. We made the get-to-know-you talk and offered him some blow, which is admittedly an _odd_ thing to do when meeting someone for the first time in rehab. He turned it down, but we liked him anyway. Tyson is 34, an alcoholic, suffers from chronic pain, from San Francisco, and used to be a marathon runner. He was here last month, went home for five days, relapsed, and now he's back.

The three of us talked late into the night about spirituality, particularly about Buddhism and the Dharma. Before sleep, Malcolm told Tyson that he planned to tape a plastic bag over his head and rape him. We all became great friends.

Tyson had a series of car accidents that put him in permanent chronic pain programs. He met his boyfriend while in treatment in San Francisco. His boyfriend was in his sixth month, for heroin, when they met. One night, Tyson asked if I thought a chronic pain sufferer on opiates could have a healthy relationship with a heroin addict.

I didn't stop reading my book, didn't even hesitate, "Nope." I said.

"But..." It was clearly not what Tyson wanted to hear; he probably wanted me to wax poetic about true love conquering all or some bullshit.

"No!" I repeated, "unless you want to die together."

This time, I did look up, proud of myself, thinking I was funny and ironic. Tyson was slumped, defeated. I didn't realize he didn't already know the obvious truth. At his lowest, he didn't want to let go of his life preserver. _I am the same, we have the same codependency issues._

He was crying.

I felt sorry for my bravado. I was right, to be honest, but there was a better way.

I was happy to have Tyson for a roommate, he's open minded, doesn't snore, and introduced me to the Tao Te Ching. For that, I am endlessly grateful.

Malcolm, on the other hand, was just entertaining as hell. A twisted misogynist married to a fierce Mexican beauty, way out of his league, Malcolm was a relentless salesman. His best pickup line was, "Baby, I want to marry you," he would say, shifting weight to his left hip, right hand patting his gut.

"Can I have a limo pick you up tomorrow so we can spend a month in Italy together?" He uses this line on every attractive girl he meets in a Texas accent that isn't Matthew McConaughey Hill Country, but more of a nasally Houston twang. Malcolm gave all the cute collegiate girls cigarette cartons to see who could be bought.

In Malcolm's _incident_ , he had a manic episode brought on by weeks of IV meth use. His wife stabbed him in the back with a steak knife, and he choked her until she passed out, with the knife still in his back. Malcolm believes their marriage is in a good place despite the episode.

"When I took her by the throat, I took her by the hand," he explains, delusional.

At the end of his 30 days, Malcolm would leave rehab, to face assault and battery charges, but he was confident they would be dropped. Like many people in rehab, Malcolm is a Type A personality. He owns a construction company in Dallas and uses rehab as a place to hide out from relatives, from the law, and from his addiction. Once he cleans up, he heads back out into the fray with no intention of ever quitting. He is honest in this way.

Malcolm has an unusual bipolar flare that endears him to most people he meets despite a barbarously inappropriate sense of humor. He jokes about things like masturbating and building a shed over his tool, referencing his belly and his falace. He confessed to jerking off in the shower with Tyson's pricey tea tree foaming facial wash. Often in the middle of conversation Malcolm would hop up and announce, "I'm going to shower."

This is his code phrase for going to jerk off. He has done it in the middle of a hand of poker.

"Play my hand," he'd say to a collegiate bystander, "I have to go shower."

This phrase always sent OCD Tyson into a germ-phobic panic. Malcolm would jerk off with anything he could get his hands on. He used prescription acne cream to masturbate, it made all the skin sluff off his penis.

Before he got into construction, Malcolm spent ten years as sous chef for a French brasserie called Elouan, an upscale restaurant in Dallas, where from time to time he cooked for talented and famous people, among them was former President George Bush (the first one). Bush frequented Elouan for an off-the-menu offering of corn pudding, one of his favorite dishes from childhood. The restaurant was upscale but not pretentious, priced to keep out the commoners, with casual elegance.

One evening, Malcolm was hiding out in the basement dry storage with the grains, beans, and other packaged and canned goods. It was one place where kitchen staff could take a break from the hectic commotion of a Saturday night rush, with a street level window that allowed for a cigarette and other smoke to escape. It was Malcolm's place to shoot an IV hit to the neck when one of the front-of-the-house staff came back and said the police were outside asking to talk to him. Malcolm's serrated mind raced through paranoid loose ends that could have led the police to him. Did his dealer get busted and give him up? Did his landlord turn him in?

One certainty—he would not stay around and find out. He ran out the back door, jumped in his car and took off to a friend's house where he hid under the bed waiting for the police to kick in the door.

He got a call later from a co-worker, he knew was _cool,_ asking where he was. She explained the Secret Service had come to let Malcolm know that Former President Bush was coming in and wanted the corn pudding. Malcolm's recipe.

# Joy

It's sunny out today, so I skip lunch to sit in the Kiva. Joy is there and in no time, we are arguing.

"I knew a guy from treatment, who received a liver transplant and drank again right away," Joy is loud, "and he was a doctor!"

"That's awesome," I hold up my hand for a Joy slap.

"I met a guy in Palm Beach who was a meth addict and had to have a heart transplant," I say, knowing I've got her with this one. "He continued to use meth after the transplant until the doctors refused to support his operation anymore."

"You made that up, asshole," scrunching her face.

"No! He died!" I say, thrilled at my own assertion.

We go on like this for a while, reveling in our verbal compendium of suffering.

Joy is from Portland, tall with red hair and bookish glasses. She is thin, athletic, smart. In real life, she and I might actually work as a couple. Joy graduated from the University of Oregon with a Psychology degree and went on to masters and doctoral work in Developmental Psychology at UCLA. Joy smoked cocaine freebase through six years of graduate studies. She met her husband, Evan, while in her last year at UCLA. Evan was ex-Army recently back from Iraq, suffering from PTSD.

On their very first date, Joy gave Evan his first taste of crack and by sunrise, they were in a penny alley boy's town bar sharing a bottle of tequila with a half-dead Hombre, who charged by the sip. After many drinks, Evan followed Joy into the bathroom to keep an eye on her while she puked. The sun scorched Hombre followed them in and offered Evan cocaine folded up in a dollar bill. They all squeezed into a stall in the women's bathroom, Joy puking, the men over her taking bumps from a car key until the blow was all gone. Evan squared up with Hombre, put on his best _Scarface_ accent and asked the question you always ask after doing a few good lines with a Mexican drug dealer.

"Mas Yayo?"

"No mas," Hombre responded shoulders shrugged.

The leathery scamp explained in broken English he could get some if they went with him, so Evan cleaned up Joy, they hopped into the back of a beat up 80s Chevy sedan and headed off to buy drugs somewhere in Tijuana.

As the car jerked to a start, Evan, had a lucid moment, yelled, "Alto! Stop!"

He didn't wait for the driver to respond, grabbing Joy's arm to pull her from moving the car. Too far gone to walk, Evan threw her over his shoulder and humped it, double-time, to the border.

Walking across the American checkpoint, Evan was pulled aside for a random search, and agents found a dollar bill of coke in Evan's front pants pocket. He had forgotten it and went to jail for possession. Joy headed back to LA to finish up her graduate work. Evan was released in a few weeks and the two married a year later.

# Here Kitty Kitty

In process group, Quon is in a rare mood,

"Kitty Kitty came to the door soaked from the rain. I felt sorry for her. I put her in the microwave to dry off."

"Oh SHIT, Quon!" I struggle to swallow my laughter, but Quon is completely dead-pan. I don't know if he is kidding or not.

"No crosstalk," Dr. Myron snaps in his quiet, intense tone. I try, but I can't settle the laughter, I lose control and burst, I rush out of the group, the door slamming behind me. Dr. Myron is pissed. In the hall, I spend a few minutes pulling my shit together, regain my composure and immediately break the rules of the group to tell Angry Erik what just happened.

"No, he didn't," Erik looks at me out of one eye in disbelief, "No, fucking way."

"Yes, fucking way," I say.

"Did the cat live?" Angry Erik is concerned.

"I don't know," I realize, there is more to the story, "I need to get back in there."

I return to the group as soon as the laughing subsides. When I open the door to step back in, Quon is still talking about the cat—which survived the microwave with only burnt ears and, amazingly, later had kittens. While I listen, I doodle a cat in a microwave giving a middle finger through the Faraday cage window. Ear burned and folded. My caption reads, "Borderline personality is funny! But, not for cats!" This is not a good exercise for not laughing and I'm breaking a Dr. Myron rule.

"One day I came home from therapy," Quon continues, "and Kitty Kitty's kittens were all eaten by Ruff Ruff." I lose it again, realizing that none of this is a joke, it all really happened. I run out of the group. I know by the scowl on Dr. Myron's face, there is no coming back today, so I go to my lodge to beat everyone to meds.

Nurses in the lodges are on-call around the clock dispensing medication, giving basic medical advice and managing the nail clippers. I sign for a pair of clippers, and I'm monitored while I self-manicure. The nurses are protecting me from myself. I could cut down to the cuticle, or slowly hack away at my wrist searching for an artery, no doubt a painful _and time-consuming_ way to go.

The lunch med line is already long; everyone is jonesing for their feel-good meds. Patients still receiving benzos are extra early for that Xanax to take the edge off their withdrawals. Patients are required to have their blood pressure checked, and answer a series of questions;

"How did you sleep last night?" The nurse stands behind her counter, white smock, a pen in her hand and one behind her ear ready to record every detail of my wellness,

"And for how many hours?"

"What is your level of pain?"

"Have you had any thoughts of using?"

"Have you had any thoughts of harming yourself?"

"Harming others?" She goes on like this, every day.

"Good."

"8"

"1"

"No."

"No."

"No." Not missing a beat.

These questions are asked each time medications are dispensed. I fucked around with the answers once (long pause), once. That act of defiance landed me in a meeting with a Residential Therapist. I spent an hour convincing her I didn't really want to cut RA Jon into tiny pieces and flush him down the toilet.

# Biofeedback

Dr. Nancy is hooking up a bunch of probes to my head, arms and torso, and trying to stress me out in bio neurofeedback. Dr. Nancy is a slender beauty, elegant in her late sixties, which she makes look like 50. She is pure intellect, with a rebellious attitude, telling me why I shouldn't be taking half the meds they are giving me here. I want to be her dog. She asks me to look at words that are scrolling down a monitor and say the color of each word. The words are names of colors. But the name does not match the color of the word. _For example, the word orange is green, the word blue is orange._ As I name the color of each word, the scrolling speeds up, a wrong answer causes a startling, "BEEP!" and requires me to start again. While I perform the task, Dr. Nancy measures my brain waves, heart, rate, breathing and blood oxygen levels.

I figure out the trick and look at _only_ the last letter of the word and name the color. This method helps me burn through correct answers faster than the phrases can scroll.

My Bio Neurofeedback results were:

  * May have strong creative problem-solving or artistic skills or interest.

  * May have been regarded as stubborn by others.

  * Maybe perfectionistic or experience symptoms consistent with obsessive-compulsive tendencies.

  * May hyper-focus on a single task.

  * Presents as calm under stress.

  * May experience fitful sleep.

  * May have racing thoughts or a chattery mind.

  * May feel anxious.

  * May be impatient or easily agitated or frustrated.

  * May get overly tired when reading or problem-solving.

Dr. Nancy explains, "Your results show that your mind races when you're at rest," she removes her bifocals, "but focus improves when you are stressed."

I begin pulling the sticky leads from my body,

"What does that mean?"

"It means you have a predisposition to addiction," she smiles.

"I came all the way to Arizona for you tell me I'm an addict?" I joke, but not really.

"Your mind wants to be engaged," she continues, "you are restless when not fully focused." I thank her for her help, not certain what to do with the information. I don't know—I was having trouble sitting still and wasn't really listening anyway.

That night I talk to my mom on the phone, and she sounds convinced I'm not getting any better. I tell her about Bio Neurofeedback. She is not impressed. I tell her about identifying emotions, validation, addiction education, listening to my body, boundaries, codependency, mindfulness... nothing. I tell her I've found God.

"I'm glad you're finally getting better," she says, sounding suddenly enthusiastic.

I feel guilty talking to my family about my time in treatment. I don't want to say I feel good; the guilt cripples me. I know I let everyone down, but I need to let go of my shame. If I don't, I'll be my downfall, again. I want my mom to tell Mia that I'm getting better so we can relate to each other again. I want Mia to want me to get better.

# Bella Mia

I met Mia when I was working as an Art Director for a software company in Austin. Mia was the Lead Software Engineer, and we worked on projects and traveled together often. We traveled to Xerox in Rochester, NY in the dead of winter, which should have been miserable, but we made snow angels. She was shy, unassuming and always dressed down in an industry comprised of mostly nerds who have never touched a breast. She was breathtaking without trying, and smart. I was drawn to her. I got to know her by sending her semi-flirty badgering work chats.

"Why aren't you working?"

"You don't really know how to program, do you?"

"I can see you looking at porn."

"Are you drunk right now?"

With each message, I'd look over my cubical wall and wait for a laugh to gauge if I was going too far or not far enough. Mia always laughed. Within a few weeks, we were together every night, isolated from our friends, in the way a new codependent relationship requires. We drank a lot. Our favorite drink was a pint glass full of ice then filled up almost to the top with Absolute vodka, garnish with a celery stalk, a dash of hot sauce and a splash of bloody Mary mix. We drank two or three of these each night, watching Entourage or boxing. I was in heaven.

Our first date was a non-date. To celebrate our first software product launch, I threw a party with an Irish Car Bomb theme. I invited everyone from work and my Austin musician friends. I bought a case of Jameson, a case of Baileys Irish Cream, 24-shot glasses, 24-pint glasses and a keg of Guinness. There was nothing else to drink. All night we did Irish car bombs—which resulted in Irish vomit bombs, and a yard full of passed out bodies. The night was a haze of debauchery, violence, and laughter. Ian took over that night.

Late the next morning, I woke under my coffee table, covered in puke and cigarette butts. The door to my house was wide open, and my dog was missing. I staggered out to the driveway to call for my dog Bella and noticed my 22-foot Clipper Marine sailboat was full of bullet holes.

I was infuriated someone shot up the hull of my boat but had to get to work. _I'll get that motherfucker later._

I went back to the house, to the freezer for morning liquor to help my hangover and there between the ice cream sandwiches and the empty vodka bottle was my frozen Smith & Wesson 357 Magnum. I removed the gun, wondering what asshole was messing with it and I found a note taped to it that read,

" _I'm sorry about your boat. -Ian."_

That day at work, co-workers laughed at a video of me on YouTube, running everyone off, brandishing a weapon, and shooting up my boat.

Mia told me she hung around, we kissed, and then I passed out on the living room floor. Mia liked the danger. It was the beginning of a romantic relationship.

# The Little Girl

You can't throw a box of Kleenex in rehab without hitting a patient who was chronically invalidated growing up.

"If a person confides in me, they are not looking for advice unless they specifically ask for it, they are looking for validation," Dr. Hellen says in Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Dr. Hellen has wispy wild hair and matching eyes. In her mid-forties, she is Stands with Fists from _Dances with Wolves_.

Dr. Hellen shares a Zen Koan to help us understand the importance of childhood validation.

_"A family of three stopped at a rusty cafe along I-19, a few miles short of Tucson, AZ. Both parents sat solidly in their mid-30s, across from a 10-year-old girl, all looking at menus. A pink-clad waitress approached with sensible_ shoes _charm,_

' _What can I get you, folks?' the little girl perked up,_

' _I would like meatloaf!' father looked over his menu,_

' _No. She'll have a burger and fries.'_

The waitress dawned a smile and turned to the girl,

' _Would you like mashed potatoes with that meatloaf honey?'_

The little girl looked at her parents and said,

' _She thinks I'm real.'"_

This story reminds me of my kids, eating out with them at IHOP on a Sunday morning, the smell of coffee and blueberry pancakes, how exhausting it was to wrangle three young kids in a restaurant, how it put Mia and me at odds. These moments made me want to drink. I look now upon these moments with nostalgia, longing.

"This Kaon shows the psychological harm that chronic invalidation can cause," Dr. Hellen explains, "the little girl in the story was invalidated out of her own existence. The validation she gets from the waitress reinforces her point of view, and she knows her feelings are heard and understood, finally." Dr. Hellen is on a roll now.

"It doesn't matter if she is right or wrong, it doesn't mean she always gets the meatloaf. It's important for her parents to _recognize_ she has a valid opinion about the meatloaf." Hellen sits down, leans back in her leather chair to give us time to absorb her particular brand of _come to Jesus._

I see mostly bored looks around the room, but she _has_ me. I'm sold on validation as either a weapon or a tool. Just depends on how I use it.

"So, I am focused on making sure my children have correct information, but what they really need to know is that I'm listening to them?" I turn the words up at the end so they sound like a question, but I already know I'm brilliant, like Dr. Hellen.

"Yes," she says, but doesn't seem impressed by my brilliance.

I try again, "In therapy, everything we say is validated by therapists to make us more willing to express our feelings. Kids need the same thing." This time, _she smiles._

# Justin

Justin and I are hiding in our room to skip a relapse prevention lecture.

"I wish I had my phone to check NCAA 238 football scores," Justin says.

"I feel you," I say, "I'm dying to watch the bowl games."

At Catalina Recovery, patients may not use mobile devices. This takes adjustment, but it is not all bad. Once I enjoy someone looking me in the eye as I talk to them, I realize without phones, people communicate with intent. I imagine in the future; parents will send their kids to rehabs like this one for device addictions—little Bobby's first experience with human-to-human interaction will be in rehab.

238 238Before his arrival here, Justin was living in his beater 2001 Honda Accord, at the back of the Walmart parking lot with no idea that he would soon be brutally raped in county jail.

Walmart welcomes travelers to park in their lots at night, so they can wake up and buy supplies before hitting the road—they are not so welcoming of homeless people. Justin parked near the travel trailers at night to sleep, and moved to the other side of the lot, blending into the crowded parts, during the day—to use.

I moved in with Justin after I ran out on Callum. I'd spent a night with Justin in the tank and knew I liked him enough to take a chance on rooming with him—he didn't snore. My first night in his room we chatted late getting to know each other. Justin's a 19-year-old _trash can junky,_ meaning he will take anything he can get his hands on. Justin is good-looking, but he thinks that he looks like Justin Timberlake, and he thinks he should go around saying this—he shouldn't _._

Justin has dark hair and wears a flat-brimmed ball cap with the KC Royals logo. He carries trouble around with him in a crooked smile, and like most of us, he has difficulty controlling his emotions.

At Walmart, Justin sat in his running car all day with the air conditioner struggling to keep him cool in the sweltering Texas heat, while using meth, coke, oxy, hydrocodone, weed and occasionally wet (marijuana mixed with PCP).

Justin's parents saw his deterioration but did not want him back in their home, they had other children to consider. Justin's father offered $20 and a full tank of gas each morning at 7:30 am. They met at the Exxon Tiger-Mart near his father's house and talked for a few minutes while Justin filled up his car. Justin collected his daily allowance and was on his way—to cop.

The $20 bought two grams of decent weed, which Justin split and sold it to turn $20 into $40, so he would have enough money to cop meth for the morning and some fast food.

His life went on like this for six weeks until late one night, on a drug delivery for extra cash, he was pulled over for a faulty tail light. Tearing apart his car, the officers found—hidden among the piles of dirty clothes and trash—the meth and heroin he was supposed to deliver. Justin resisted arrest and hit one of the officers, a move that landed him in a county jail holding unit with the most hardened inmates—gang banger killers, crooks, and rapists. The unit was a large white-walled blank canvas with cement floors, metal picnic tables and a row of metal bunks in a loft overlooking the common room. The area was overrun with monstrous inmates in orange scrubs when Justin was marched through the middle of the crowd to a verbal torrent of threats and sexual innuendos.

"Fresh Meat!"

"That's MY punk!"

"Dead boy walking in!"

He kept his head down to the sheets in his hands and followed the guard up the stairs to his bunk, where he stayed, afraid to move. He did his best to not look at anyone directly but was drawing unwanted attention from everywhere.

After lights-out, three inmates circled Justin's bunk and began a cat-call to him. He called for help from the night guard but was ignored.

"We're going to fuck you, boy," the taunting continued throughout the evening until early in the morning, when Justin finally faded off to sleep.

"I couldn't breathe," he said. "I woke up, someone was holding me in a headlock, face down in a pillow. I couldn't do shit. I couldn't move."

"Did you scream for help? I asked, immediately wishing I hadn't.

"They gagged me with a towel," he said. "I remember being hit in the back of the head with something, a few times, but I was awake until I got choked out." He takes a break, and we sit quietly for a couple minutes.

"I woke up, and my pants were gone, my underwear was ripped, so fucking bloody. My sheets were covered in blood. My ass hurt," he said.

I start laughing, "I'm sorry man, it's just..." I'm cracking up now. "I just..."

"It's not fucking funny," Justin is jerking breaths, starting to smile through tears.

"Did you at least get a reach around?"

"Fuck you, man!" He is laughing now.

"At least I know who to go to when I get horny in here."

We laugh for a few more minutes and agree that the humor is fucked up. Then the laughing subsides, and it's quiet.

Even in treatment, where we are used to being exposed, this is a hard conversation to have. I didn't know what to say, so I made fun of Justin. It sounds mean, I know, but it's all I had to work with. I could only think to make him laugh. What do you say to something like that?

Justin breaks the tension to tell me a story about a heroin junky friend who got a tattoo of a syringe on the side of his penis.

"He had to fluff it to keep it hard while he got the tattoo," he says.

"FUCK!"

"He said it was the most painful thing he had ever experienced, and he was high," Justin says. "The guy OD'd the very next day and died. He went through all that pain, and just died."

Suddenly somber again, Justin gets back into his story. That morning there was a new guard on duty, in bloody ripped underwear, covered in crusted jiz, Justin dragged his battered ass through grackling inmates to the side of the unit nearest the desk of the officer on duty.

"These guys will rape me," he pleaded, hands gripping the bars. "They already did." He is trying to whisper with inmates around him, but everyone knows.

"I think you are right, they will," the guard laughed and relaxed back in his chair, feet up on his desk with an ashtray spilling over onto the floor. "Why don't you tell me who punked you, and I'll talk to them about it."

Justin knew this was a death sentence and didn't take the bait.

"If I get raped, I'll fucking kill myself," Justin was in tears.

He knew saying this would get him moved into protective custody. This move presented other problems, but he could avoid another rape.

Justin was removed from the common unit and put into segregation, solitary in the psych ward. Now he would have to wait until he could be evaluated by a psychologist before the possibility of making bail. Justin spent three weeks in solitary, he was put in front of a judge in orange jumpsuit and handcuffs. His parents finally came around in support, and he was released under the stipulation he goes directly to rehab.

Justin arrived at Catalina Recovery two hours before I did, we came to room together my first night in the tank. He was the lump wrapped in my blanket.

# White-Knuckling

I've heard a lot of "rock bottom" stories like Justin's; the money is spent, the job is lost, homelessness is found, the wife and kids are long gone, prison time is inevitable. Some of us reach this place more than once—we recover and find ourselves back there in months or years. In AA they say there are only three outcomes to alcoholism: prison, institutionalization, or death.

After my second rehab and five months of sobriety, I found my way back to alcohol by way of cocaine. At five months without a drink, I was doing service work, going to AA meetings, had a sponsor—doing everything right. The problem was, while I was not drinking, I was not sober, which is called being dry-drunk or white-knuckling it. I was miserable, clinging to my _desire_ for alcohol. I could not let go of my _attachment_ to using—my _ego_.

There are three stages of relapse: _emotional_ , _mental_ , and _physical_. I was white-knuckling, already in _emotional_ relapse _,_ when one day at lunch, a co-worker mentioned she really liked cocaine;

"Hey... I like cocaine too," smiling big at the thought of feeling anything but bored. I leaned in close over the round table, making it wobble, "I have a connect." _With those words, I was into my mental relapse._

My cocaine connection was Ian's old girlfriend a, once-upon-a-time, hot piece of Mexican ass named Yvette, who is now a single mom with four young kids and a healthy cocaine habit. Just like that, it was on. Yvette delivered an eight ball to my office. _Maybe a little coke won't be a problem—I'm not a drug addict. Cocaine: It's fun, I'm not addicted to it, I_ _don't even like it that much._ Here I was bargaining, deep into a mental relapse and hours from a physical relapse. __

Over the next few days, I did cocaine at work, lunch, home, and it was only a week before I started drinking again. Within a month, Mia kicked me out of the house. Ian and I moved into an apartment, my kids were devastated, and I was humiliated—destroying everything in my wake. I thought I was committed to sobriety, but I was pretending. _My physical relapse, followed by the downward spiral, happened as quickly as this short paragraph._ Everything _turned back to shit in days._

I drank heavily, working through a half gallon per day—a handle. I started to notice physical problems at the apartment. I couldn't make the flight of stairs without losing my breath, and I began having chest pains. I started gaining a lot of weight from drinking and eating poorly; I didn't care anymore. Some mornings I would wake up in my car, in front of Mia's house with no recollection of how I'd gotten there.

On one particularly heavy vodka night, I fell down the long flight of stairs inside my apartment and hit my head on the tile at the bottom. I got up to climb my way back, and I could see Ian at the top of the stairs laughing,

"Light-weight!" he yelled. "Stay down you pussy!" I felt the warm blood run down my cheek and _faded to black..._

_You know I'm a dreamer, but my heart's of gold, I had to run away_ high _so I wouldn't come home low, just when things went bad doesn't mean they were always wrong, just take this song and you'll never be left... KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!_

Two days later, my song was interrupted by knocking in my head or outside; I couldn't tell the origin. Ian was not around. I could smell vomit and cold piss in my pants. My hair was caked in blood. Lying between the base of the stairs and front door, I dragged myself up to answer the knocking.

I can't express the sadness I saw on my kids' faces when I answered the door—I was filled with shame. Mia was livid, took the kids back home and didn't answer her phone for a week.

Eventually, it blew over, and we spent the summer having sleepovers and swimming. I avoided explaining to the kids, hoping they would not remember. I never stopped drinking. At the end of the summer, I checked into an Intensive Outpatient Program and within a month I was back at home. I convinced Mia—passed my psychological evaluation, again.

Losing my family should have been a wake-up call, but I pulled the same crap four times—kicked-out, working my way back in—each time losing more trust and credibility until I was nothing in the eyes of my loved ones. A piece of shit in my own eyes. I could not stop myself from drinking.

# Dax

It's early Wednesday morning, and I'm loaded with the energy that newfound sobriety brings. I'm feeling the pull to fix things, to make things work, to put things into pairs so nothing ever has to be alone. These are little obsessions that keep my mind racing at night leaving me mentally exhausted. The manic energy feels good, it's a mighty high to make things right, to change them until they are the way the universe needs them to be. The way I want them to be. I know this feeling won't last, I will crash. This is the pitfall I must be mindful of or risk losing all the work I've done; all the progress I've made.

I see my psychiatrist and ask for the bipolar addiction cocktail that other people are taking. I have to come right out and tell him what I want, rather than lead him to a conclusion. He knows his business, and I'm not the first depressed alcoholic with bipolar tendencies to walk through his door, but I want to get this right.

I write a short report on my symptoms, my history with behavior meds, my goals, and what I would like to be prescribed, in exact doses. I tell him I need 200 mg of Lamictal per day along with 40 mg of Prozac and 900 mg of Neurontin, and he gives it _all_ to me. _I want to be zapped out of existence._

There are a few sweaty newb faces in general population today. Most new patients come in looking broken and weary. I try to remember what it was like a short time ago, to muster enough compassion to make them feel at a little welcomed—I'm getting short on time, and I don't care that much. Within a week color will return to their newb faces, clarity to their eyes, bounce in their steps; they will get to forget what today feels like, but I'll get to live it again and again, my own private _Groundhog Day_.

It gives me some hope to see people go from anguish to relative peace when they... _Holy fucking shit!_ A new patient named Shae just shared that she had three boyfriends in a row commit suicide. She found the body each time, which she goes into detail about. She is a bipolar meth addict. _So much for relative peace._

Before lunch, I play music in the dining hall with a kid named Dax, a rapper-addict who has character that the other punks his age don't show. He is lanky and looks like a model from _Details_ Magazine, save for one detail: his teeth are severely damaged with deposits near the gum line from too much meth use. I want to hold him down with my foot on his forehead, and scrape them with a chisel, but I don't want to draw attention to his deformity. At 22 Dax wears a tough persona; he's compensating. He is feminine which makes people assume he is gay. He tells me about a therapist here that tried to get him to admit to being gay.

"He wouldn't take no for an answer," said Dax. "He kept telling me I'm gay, and I should just own up to it."

"What a hack," I laugh, "your therapist wanted some ass."

"Probably," Dax says. I get the impression from his tone that he gets this often.

In our conversations, he proves to be considerate, a deep thinker. These are characteristics he hides around his peers. Around the collegiates, he talks like a suburban gang banger punk, going on about rolling with his boys, slinging dope and being strapped. He was arrested for possession of cocaine and Fentanyl.

Dax claims he shot someone and is facing prison time when he leaves treatment, but I doubt it. He says his parents are well-connected and will get him off. For now, he is hiding out in rehab. People give Dax a hard time about what might happen to him in prison; he confided that he worries about it too.

We've been writing indie-EMO songs together; I encourage him to keep writing on the guitar and give up the rapper shit. I feel like a dysfunctional mentor around him, like I have something to offer, it makes me feel good. He is young and could still have a life. _My eyes are welling with tears as I write this, and I don't know why._

Dax is working on a song called "Make this Pain." It's a story of a junky couple who have a suicide pact, but the guy ODs before they can carry it out. Now he's trying to convince her to kill herself, from his grave. Real uplifting stuff.

_Come on girl and dance_ on _my garden_

_We were_ doin _H_ till _the end of my day_

_Come on girl_ lets _finish what we started_

And make all this pain go away, go away,

make this pain

It is not horrible. I was right about this kid.

Tonight Me, Dax, Justin, and a new kid named Andrew hung around the dining hall after the snacking crowd thinned. Every night Dax drinks a whip-it, which is not the inhalant that most people know, it is rehab speed.

"The key is to _whip it_ for at least 20 minutes," Dax tells us while he cranks a teaspoon in the Styrofoam cup filled with 8 scoops of Folger's crystals, 8 creamers, and 8 packs of sugar. The mixture makes a brown paste, that is "activated" by the whipping. I don't know how much actual science there is behind the rehab chemistry, but Dax and several other kids drink this sludge every night, and they swear by it.

"Once the crystals are activated you top it off with milk and chug it like a Guinness," says Dax, "It's the closest thing you can get to a meth fix in here."

The new kid, Andrew is still sweating, fresh out of the tank. He is a _buzzard dust_ fiend and struggling with detox. I can see in his eyes; he is not going to make it. Justin passes him the whip-it, and we all watch as he chugs. With-in five minutes he is grinding—pacing back and forth and does not respond to our questions. He has a concerned smile, clenching his fists, with large beads of sweat dripping from his red face. Late that night, I notice him still pacing out in front of the men's lodge. He has drawn the attention of a few RT's who are trying to talk him down. They seem to have it under control, so I go to bed.

# Mata

I wake in good spirits bright and early, it's cold and dark outside my window, but it's not raining, which is promising. I dress in slim black slacks, black thermal underwear shirt, black slouch hat, and new boots, recently delivered. They are Madden half boots, black with a thick metal hoop lashed to the outside with a leather strap. I didn't bring any clothes with me and ended up ordering everything from Amazon. I try to order on a schedule that allows me to receive a delivery each day. This is my attempt to feel like someone out there is thinking about me. It's easiest to make a small number of clothes go a long way if they all look the same, so I order everything in different shades of black.

Over breakfast this morning, the gossip is about the new kid, Andrew. Quon says,

"Last night Andrew freaked out on a whip-it and AMA'd."

People AMA all the time, it's a sad reality of treatment. It means they leave "against medical advice" as opposed to being discharged by a doctor after completing the program. Andrew was pacing and having paranoid fits until 4:00 am when he packed his clothes and left campus, followed out by two burly RAs. A few therapists tried to talk him into staying, while we waited for a cab. He sat in front of admissions until he was picked up at 6:00 am this morning.

We have meditation after breakfast today, a welcomed change of scheduling. Mata is our Sikh meditation instructor. He is tall with dark skin, black hair and a Sikh-stache with long points that he twists up into curls. Mata wears all white dress wrapped around his body and a turban. I am fascinated with Mata, his presence is enlightened, calming—I have never met a Sikh. _I imagine him in his real life fighting off_ saber-toothed _tigers with a long_ curled _dagger._ I ask him about his turban, and he explains that _the Dastaar_ 63 represents honor, respect, courage, and spirituality. He also lets me know that it is not a turban.

Today, Mata taught us mindfulness through meditation—doing only one thing, with full attention and focus, while acknowledging feelings and bodily sensations. Mata tells us to practice mindfulness to exist clearly in each moment.

"We are all clouds of dust floating along the surface of the earth," Mata says, a sentiment that gives me chills.

I'm finally reaching a place in my meditation where I can focus intently on breathing. I'm hoping to expand my sessions into actively observing my feelings as they come and go. I've never felt this level of spiritual focus—it brings me peace.

In meditation, I can acknowledge I've spent my life in pursuit of selfish endeavors. I have acted in a way that focuses on my desires and my ego, before my family, friends, and my relationship with the universe. It's time to let go of those desires, to accept the _impermanence_ of everything including myself and my suffering—to let go of _suffering_ each day.

As a young man, Mata served in Vietnam and like many soldiers of the time, he drank and used heavily throughout his tour of duty. One morning after a long night of rice moonshine and hash he found himself beside the Nung river naked and covered in mud. Mata was woken by voices, coming from across the narrow stretch of river. The voices of North Vietnamese soldiers. He froze, silencing breath and movement to go unnoticed or appear dead. If they saw him, he would be attacked and killed. Mata had no idea how he came to be by the river and was sure that he would not live long enough to answer the question.

A young South Vietnamese woman saw the scene play out, and approached to offer help. She brought a blanket to cover him, walked him to her nearby primitive hut with no kitchen, no bath, no running water. Her family was seated on a dirt floor and slept on bamboo mats. Despite their meager resources, they offered Mata water and food. The young woman cleaned him up and washed his uniform. That afternoon, Mata said misunderstood goodbyes and made the journey back to his division, passing through unfriendly territory littered with snipers and land mines. Mata did not take lightly the second chance he was given and vowed to never drink again. He was never able to thank the young woman who saved his life.

# Morgan and Ponyboy

After snack check-in, several people go out in the chilly mountain evening to play basketball. Justin and I are schooled by a six-foot-tall new girl named Amy. She and Kiki, both played 5A high school basketball. Justin and I did not. We try our best try to take them on but are embarrassed five games to none, a loss that will draw lots of shit around campus tomorrow. We ever get the ball.

While we play, Ponyboy is nearby on the track with Morgan. They call him Ponyboy because he looks like C. Thomas Howell from The Outsiders—he doesn't understand the reference. I guess C. Thomas Howell's movie career had died before Ponyboy was born. Ponyboy suffers from OCD and other mood disorders. Pony is making out with Morgan, a stunning 18-year-old pot dealer, a model from LA. She is a down to earth, free spirit, and the face of a hip clothing line.

Morgan is a paradox, a rich girl who grew up on the streets of LA to avoid being shuffled from her thug dad's Manhattan Beach home to her mom's home in Malibu. Morgan dealt weed on the streets of LA at 12 years old for a man she met at one of her dad's parties. I met her father at family week, he looks like Benicio del Toro. Morgan has such a perfect blend of ethnicities; she is the cultural face of the future. On the streets, Morgan used her natural good looks to sell weed, and by 18, she was living in a car with an abusive boyfriend. This seems to be a common thread in many backstories around here for both codependents and drug addicts. They always end up living in cars. Morgan's mom hired a detective to find her and sent her to Catalina Recovery for a fresh start. Morgan flew here on her family's private jet.

While Justin and I are getting our asses stomped in basketball, we notice Pony and Morgan have moved out of sight. Kiki quietly goes looking for them and finds them moaning behind a cluster of cacti—she rushes back to the basketball court to share the gossip as two Resident Advisors motor by in a golf cart looking for Ponyboy. _He always seems to be in trouble._ In perfect time, Ponyboy and Morgan pop up and walk back toward the basketball court. They are held briefly for questioning, and Morgan is sent back to Desert Storm while Ponyboy is whisked away to face the repercussions of whatever it was he did to have them searching for him. The next day, Morgan is questioned and cracks under the pressure. She admits they were having sex.

Since she and Ponyboy were not caught in the act, they were not punished but are not allowed to speak to each other again or risk being kicked out. This incident in the cacti signified the official beginning of nightly _Fuck Patrol._

# Crazy Jay

This morning is my tenth day here, and I have no idea what day of the week it is. This is a good sign. I am not fully committed to treatment until I lose track of the days.

Quon and I played music at breakfast. Quon often serenades meal crowds with classical music. People complain that it's depressing, but I think it's amazing—today we played a Norah Jones song I didn't know. We morphed it into a funky instrumental groove. While we were putting away our instruments, Joy and Taylor came up and commented how beautiful it was. This was Quon's first chance to enjoy playing without the weight of his parents' expectations; he spread his wings musically today—played from his heart. Quon told me he had goosebumps. He has never experienced the best part of playing music, the goosebumps.

At our morning lodge meeting, the group mentioned _Crazy Jay_ at the end of The Serenity Prayer.

" _God grant me the serenity_

to accept the things, I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

Annnnnd, Crazy Jay!"

They all cheered.

"Who is this Jay?" I asked, addressing the whole room.

Jay left treatment right before I showed up; he is the Southern California artist responsible for album covers from some of the coolest bands in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. He's most known for designing a famous logo for an iconic punk band.

Jay referred to the United States as the _Great Dark Satan._ His anti-authoritarian art with crude caricatures of Hitler and Uncle Sam was ubiquitous across Southern California in the 80s and inspired artists like Shepard Fairey.

Jay was in treatment for addiction and depression and did not take well to the structured setting. He liked to roam the courtyard sifting through the small rocks for quartz crystals, which he would crush into a fine powder and snort. The burn of the coarse powder felt so much like snorting meth he got high from it.

According to legend, after one of his sold-out shows at a warehouse studio in Miami, Jay was carrying around a pocket full of meth, a bottle of vodka, and $75,000. Stumbling near a tourist attraction, an alligator pond, Jay decided to _make it rain._ The money meant little to him, but the idea was entertaining. He tossed the entire stack of $100s over the water and watched people jump into an alligator pit after it. He wanted to watch people risk their lives for the Great Dark Satan's duty.

Jay jumped the fence one night and had a limo waiting on the highway to take him to score meth. He never came back.

# How it Works

Tonight, I am going to an off-site Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with Kiki, Quon, and Taylor. The meeting is at the local VFW building. There is a set format that must be followed to qualify as an _official_ AA meeting, but the _flavor_ is different in the various regions, usually dependent on demographics. In Austin, there are young agnostic meetings. In San Francisco, there are LGBTQ meetings. I'm sure in the Panhandle there are animal husbandry meetings. Outside of Tucson, the meetings are conservative and skew older. This meeting is filled with mostly God and queer fearing Republicans.

The room itself is smallish and lit with fluorescents. There are no windows. Everything is smoke stained with brown gradients on the ceiling and walls. The furniture looks like it was salvaged from a grease fire. Most regions don't have "smoker" meetings anymore, but they still do here. Thankfully, this is a non-smoking meeting.

There is a long row of mismatched tables that cuts the center of the room. The tables have names and sobriety dates carved into the tops, with messages about God cut in boredom and colored with blue or black ink. In honor of the religious truck-stop vibe, I carve, "For a good time, CALL GOD!"

The tables are littered with bowls of assorted hard candies, gum, and suckers. There is a stack of blue AA Big Books on each table, many have "This is Stolen!" written on the sides of pages.

Woven baskets for collecting money remind me of the ones I used to pass at Catholic services as an altar boy and stealing a pull from the blood of Christ ripple for a cheap buzz, before mass. I was fired from being an altar boy.

Around the tables are folding chairs, mismatched. The hardcore _Big Book thumpers_ sit in these chairs. This is called, "being in the middle of the boat." More chairs are lining the walls of the room, where the not-so-hardcore or newly sober people sit. This is called, "being on the edge of the boat," where you are more likely to fall out and drown.

It is obvious we are treatment patients, arriving together with hospital bands on our arms, in a white van. The meeting is chaired by Bill, a lanky man with one thick string of hair folded over the crown of his head and greasy turtle shell glasses torqued from years of anxious chewing. From across the table, I can see white flakes of wax trapped in his ear hairs. He speaks in artificially nice tones, the kind of nice that skins victims to sew together a _women suit_.

"Sheila, would you start with _How It Works_?" _Buffalo_ Bill asks Shelia to read the standard opener from the book. Sheila is a young, attractive black woman, completely out of place in a room of old, bald white men.

"Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest..."

Sheila reads the long chapter, and my attention turns to my mates from treatment. Taylor is coloring. Quon is whispering some crazy thing to Kiki, and they are both struggling to not laugh out loud. I start thinking about what my share will be about; I like to prepare before it gets to me—I want to be profound. _Maybe I'll talk about the moment I realized my life was unmanageable. It's a standard, but I can always bring down the house with it. It's a safe bet for this crowd—I need to start working on tears now if I'm going that route._

Today is the day for my 30-day chip, but I don't want to get it here. I'd rather wait and get it at my home group. Chips are given out at each meeting as a reward for increments of sobriety: 30 days, 60, 90, 6 months, 1 year, and so on. There is a chip called a _desire chip_ for people in their first 24 hours of sobriety with a desire to be sober—I have a238  jar full of those. We can also trade in a _wet_ one for a _dry_ one. Which means a person is giving it another go after a relapse.

As the turn passes around the room, old bald guy #4 shares, "I finally retired from being Director of the Universe..." Everyone laughs. He is talking about "letting go of control." It's an overused theme, this and "self-will run riot" come up in shares all the time. These are AA clichés that don't require the alcoholic to reveal anything overly personal. Old bald guy #5 has a funny line, "I'm been sober since the Battle of the Bulge."

"They're phoning it in," I whisper to Kiki.

Those of us who show up together in the white abduction van, are the _real_ heavy hitters in these meetings. We are so exposed on a daily basis, it's nothing to do some next level emoting in front of a new audience. We are the Daniel Day-Lewis' of _these rooms_.

When it's Taylor's turn to share, she absolutely kills it. Most of the time she bounces around like a 13-year-old girl, doing cute SpongeBob impressions. When she shares in the group, her eyes turn black, as she morphs into something unholy and jaded. It's an impressive transformation. She talked tonight, in front of a group of strangers, about the tragedy that is her life, about how she is terrified of what will happen when she leaves treatment and has to go back to her meth addict mom and abusive stepdad—with little hope for change. She says this has been the most peaceful time in her life. There are few dry eyes in the house when she finishes.

When the turn comes to me, I pass. I can't follow that. Shelia, the young black woman, looks at me and says, "My sponsor always told me, 'If you pass, that's your ass.'" I'm starting to like this group. At the end of the meeting we all hold hands, say the _Our Father_ , load back up and ride to campus. In the van, Taylor falls back into her SpongeBob impressions like nothing ever happened.

# Christmas Eve

"Who are you!?" I heard the yelling from across the hall.

"What do you want!?" more intense now.

"Who are you!?" banging against the wall or door, and then a few seconds later,

"Don't ever sneak up on me!"

"I could have killed you!" It was Ben.

The guy across the hall from me is Ben, an ex-Army Ranger. A staff member conducting wellness checks made the mistake of sneaking up on Ben, who jumped out of bed and tackled the RA, pinning him face down with his arms twisted behind his back.

Ben is a 29-year-old medical school student who had a breakdown—the trauma patient that walks around campus with a stuffed animal for good reason—that's Ben. He was molested by a family member at 8 years old. The stuffed bear is his eight-year-old self; he now has the power to protect. Ben fought in Afghanistan and suffers from significant trauma and PTSD.

Last night the Resident Advisors did more wellness checks than usual. In rehab, you have to get used to people checking in on you throughout the evening. The law requires bed checks every three hours, but they were around much more than normal last night after Justin was caught sneaking a girl into our room. The purpose of bed checks is to make sure the patient isn't hanging, isn't fucking, and didn't jump out the window to run for the fences. Typically, the RA just sticks his head in the room and flashes a light at the patient. In Ben's case, they came all the way in near his bed. Having someone sneak into his room in the middle of the night was a significant fight-or-flight trigger for Ben, who was traumatized and programmed to fight.

Today is Christmas Eve, and I'm missing my family. I'm not sure what we will do for Christmas, but I doubt it'll be much. On holidays in rehab, there are thoughts that everyone tries to avoid. _What is going on at home right now? Are my kids sad? Will my_ being away damage _them for life?_

We pretend Christmas is not happening, which is easier than it sounds when shielded from the outside world. Patients have families they can't see or families that don't want to see them. Several have children with Child Protective Services; holidays are a reminder that their kids are with strangers. _By the time I leave treatment, I will have missed Christmas, New Years, Valentine's Day and Easter with my family._

I've decided to hide out in my room for the night to avoid any renegade holiday spirit. I don't want to accidentally run into a rendition of the 12 DOCs of Christmas.

We went on an outing today to watch a classics showing of _Cool Hand Luke_ 73 at a theater in old downtown Tucson. This is the first time I've been off. I'm becoming institutionalized, accepting a life controlled by someone else, no longer wanting to leave the confines of campus, and most terrifying of all—I like the food. _Why leave?_ I'd rather stay here, get acupuncture and a massage—away from of the real world and its people invading my space. Going back out into the world after being protected in _the womb_ is a shitty proposition; no one, in their right mind, should want to leave the nurturing perinatal goo of _the womb._

My whole process group went to the movie—three addicts with co-occurring personality disorders, one borderline personality, and a bipolar. We went with just five people, but it felt more like ten with all the personality disorders.

# Christmas Day

The sun's coming up over humbling mountains. My kids are up by now. It's 8:30 am back home. I bet they are super excited, tearing into their presents. I miss the excitement of my children being excited. _Today, I am hopelessness in the abyss. Merry Christmas._ _I am that sad bastard in Dallas who just wants his family back._

After breakfast, I walk back to the lodge. I pull on the glass door and dart past the reception desk on the way to bury my head under a pillow. I'm avoiding the 5th invitation to do genetic testing for medication efficacy—it will cost another grand to find out I don't respond well to painkillers that I _can't take anyway._

"Excuse me!" the RA says. _She is here, alone on Christmas._

I spin around in a smile acting like I didn't see her there, "Hey, you!" _I don't know her name._ "Merry Christmas!"

"You have a package," she says. "Well, it's a gift bag, someone dropped it off." She is curious, but it's none of her business.

"Were you expecting a package from someone?" she asks.

If it's from family, then they shouldn't search it, but I know my family didn't drop off anything.

"It's from my mom," I say, and lean over the counter to grab the bag.

"Sorry, I have to go through it," pulling it just out of reach. She gives me an apologetic smile that says, _I hate this part of the job,_ but she really doesn't. I watch her dig through my shit bummed in a scowl.

The gift bag is beautiful, organic, and recycled, and reclaimed from a hundred-year-old barn in West Texas. She removes tissue paper, crinkled in picture-perfect wads—I'm curious myself now—she pulls free the leather-bound Hemingway journal I'd seen in the gift shop. I know immediately who it's from—the only person who knew I wanted it and is classy enough to pull it off. The thoughtful gift was from Sophia. She made my day on an otherwise dreary Christmas.

Most of staff members are home for the holiday, but _crazy_ doesn't take a day off. This place is a suicide hotline convention, with people crying everywhere. The few RTs that are here are running from one fire to the next, trying to avoid a catastrophe. I have turkey and stuffing with the guys from my lodge while I watch a couple of mood patients melt-down in the dining hall. It is the most enjoyable meal I've had since I arrived.

At 2:00 pm, I'm in an obligatory Christmas group hosted by my, Yakama donned, process group therapist, Dr. Myron. Everyone is sharing stories about holiday-induced relapses. I tell the story of climbing out my window, drunk, to escape my in-laws and staying in a hotel with a blind homeless man.

There's a guy here I've been trying to place. He says he is from Houston but spends time in Austin. I feel I must know him. I walk up but don't sit down and ask what he does for a living. He boasts he does nothing—not unusual around here—and tells me he splits his time between living in Brooklyn and Houston. I write him off as a wealthy hipster.

"He is an actor in a lot of movies. _Look_ at him." Kiki tells me when I sit back down and feel stupid. _Oh, he's that guy._

Family week was brutal for Actor. He sat wilted in a chair across from his wife and paid languid attention while she, in front of his process group, spat demeaning flames of hate at him. She mocked his feelings, she mocked their relationship, she mocked Dr. Myron, and you don't FUCK with my Dr. Myron. She's the vapid, hot Hollywood wife that married a guy because he is famous, was disgusted by the number of cheeseburgers he consumed and wanted a divorce. _Those cheeseburgers made him the character actor that bought her that diamond ring she's sporting._ Ending a marriage during the 30 days of rehab is the lowest, lowdown thing a spouse can do. For the rest of the week, everyone was sympathetic to him and shunned her.

_OH SNAP!_ Actor is crying—not actor crying—real crying.

"I have no self-esteem," he sobs, head in hands. Broken. He could play a sad Santa.

Sophia is leaving tomorrow morning. I knew she was leaving soon, but didn't realize it was this soon. She tells me she will pick me up when I get out and give me a ride to the airport. We give big hugs and say our goodbyes.

# Porn List

Our Christmas celebration was a Saturday night movie party in the gym, with folding chairs, half-heartedly hung mistletoe, Thanksgiving crate paper, and folding turkeys. We were semi-enthusiastic about watching Elf—again—and eat copious doses of Domino's pizza. I know it doesn't sound like much of a party but it classifies as a gala event in rehab.

During the festivity, Kato, Ponyboy, and Justin made a list of the nice-looking young girls and associated them with their pornstar doppelgangers. Gossip is like fire in the wind across the population of a rehab. The girls had known about the _Porn List_ before it was finished. Pulling shit like that is a big blunder treatment, trauma is everywhere: one girl on the list was forced into porn at a young age, another girl was traumatized by a gang rape, and Taylor was almost sold into sexual slavery. When Taylor heard she was on the list, she ran from the party crying with Kiki running after her.

That night the girls' dorm blew up. Justin was implicated for his involvement and questioned. He lost his temper with the RAs making matters worse, claiming he had nothing to do with it. The last time I saw Justin was just after he was questioned. He was banging on the piano in the cafeteria and ran out the back door, across the property to the gate that leads to a nearby highway.

Later that night, I found a note in my dresser from Justin. The message contained a friendly goodbye with his phone number—he was leaving but wanted to stay in touch. He left a stuffed animal and a scarf. I thought it seemed a little gay, but I was flattered. Later on, I realized that the gifts were for Amanda, Justin wanted me to pass them along, he is not a great written word communicator. I will miss having Justin as a roommate.

# Blind Willie

I made Blind Willie ride in the shopping cart and ran him into parked cars. Together, we rode the cart down the feeder road on I-35, and I lose memory...

When Mia and I fight, I run away. I always have an exit strategy. Last Christmas, her Irish parents visited from New York, we drank Jameson's Irish Whiskey and got belligerent—I was supposed to be sober. I don't remember how the evening progressed, but the conversation got louder and louder as I argued with Mia's mom. Mia split us up a few times and sent me to our bedroom. I was blotto and infuriated; I fled through a window to drive downtown for more beverages. _Once I start, I can't stop._

Swerving around the neighborhood, I passed Willie, an old black, man trudging through the drizzly weather. I stopped and offered him a ride. I knew him. I had given Willie rides in the past, on the blistering summer days, when I saw him rambling his way to the day labor corner at Home Depot. He was ashy-dark with snowy hair and a splintered face. Well into his seventies—Willie was gaunt from alcoholism.

I asked drunkenly if he wanted to go get well-oiled with me. It was clear we were on the same wavelength, so we got a bottle and went to his residence—a burned out U-Haul trailer with no wheels, abandoned in the middle of a field he claimed to own. A diseased dog tied with rope and intended to protect Willie's possessions had worn a perfect circle into dirt and rock from endless loops of anxiety. Away from the trailer were a haphazard fire pit and a 50-gallon plastic drum half-full of khaki colored water. I asked him to show me inside: a brown mattress, soiled clothes, gas lantern, canned foods, and his paintings—his _home_ qualified him as _homeless_. I sat in front of the open fire on an orange five-gallon bucket, we shared a can of ravioli and drank Makers Mark.

As the real rain got started, I was struck with the idea to go to Mexico. He needed to buy a gun; I knew where to get a gun in Mexico. We jumped in my Tahoe, stopped for vodka and Diet Coke, and made our way down I-35 set on making it to Nuevo Laredo.

We were two unusual traveling companions with a made up a story about filming a music documentary. He was a famous blues musician named Blind Willie Johnson, and we were on our way to his final show in San Antonio. We played the story everywhere we went. I asked him to pretend he was blind, but he wasn't much of an actor, so he wore my sunglasses. Not one person questioned why I didn't have a camera.

At a barbecue place near New Braunfels, North of San Antonio, the staff gave us free food, free t-shirts, and took a picture with Blind Willie; asked if they could put it on their Facebook page.

"Sure?" I said, "for a pound of lean brisket."

"And some uh dat bread!" Willie chimed in,

"Tah-go!"

We eventually made it to San Antonio, but I was too smashed to go on. I stopped at a Holiday Inn off of I-35 for a room. While Willie waited in the Tahoe, I smuggled the remaining hooch and brisket up to the room, in my shirt.

Blind Willie hadn't showered in weeks; the smell and his ragged clothes drew some attention. Willie suffers from more than one mental disorder; he couldn't stop talking nonsensically to every person we passed, which scared adults and children. Anxious we would get kicked out, I yelled at Willie in a torrent of stoned insults and then shouted at the manager of the hotel—for no reason. We were asked to leave. I appealed Willie was homeless and didn't have anywhere to go, but it didn't help. In the car, we decided we should go shopping across the highway at an HEB where we stole a shopping cart to play bumper cars.

I woke up in the hotel at 3 o'clock in the morning, Willie was gone, and there was the shopping cart in the room—on the 3rd floor. I figured Willie was street smart; he would find his way home.

A few days passed, before I made it back to Austin alive. I stopped by Willie's U-Haul to see if he was there, and he was not. The next day I went by again, and this time, he was, and alive. On some level, I was relieved, even though I told myself I didn't care one way or another.

Willie told me he was walking North on I-35 in pouring rain, when a woman pulled her car to the side of the road, took pity, and drove him to Walmart where she bought him a cart full of food, new clothes, and linens. She drove him home. He said it was the best luck of his life and offered me some Raviolis—a _whole can_ this time.

I stopped back by to visit Willie a few weeks later, and he was not there. The trailer was empty, everything was gone. I never saw him again, but I still have one of his paintings. It's terrible.

# Gossip

Plenty of chatter across the dinner table tonight.

"Taylor AMA'd," Kiki drops the bomb. She broke down after the porn list spread.

"She called her _fucking_ abusive step-father to pick her up," Quon is funny when he is angry; his voice goes up an octave and pinches. Some people are not meant to use the F-word.

I can't believe she is going back to the crappy life she was working so hard to get away from. My body is rigid at the news.

"Kato!" I say, looking for someone to blame.

"Kato is my roommate, I'll put a pillow over his face," Angry Erik sneers. We all manage a laugh.

"That's not a bad idea." Quon's eyes narrow into slits, he looks evil. _Why are all of my friends here homicidal?_

"We are not killing him," I say, trying to be the voice of reason.

"No! The roommate thing!" Quon is yelling on a frequency only Coyotes can hear. "We can use this to get him discharged," he says.

"You brilliant little fucker!" I grab him in a headlock, start rubbing my knuckles on his scalp aggressively, "Chinese rug burn!" I yell.

"I'm not Chinese you asshole!" Quon protests, pushing me away but smiling. We talk through our plan for the rest of the meal.

After dinner, I head back for evening check-in. There is a new patient in the lodge tonight: Dan the wealthy oil man, from Oklahoma, yet another person hiding in rehab to avoid a jail sentence. He has had ten DUIs in Oklahoma and has never served a day in prison, which he claims with a little too much bravado. He rubs me the wrong way.

Dan has used influence and money to keep himself free. His current lawyer is famous for defending Timothy McVeigh of the Oklahoma City bombing _McVeighs_. He tells us his lawyer charges $10k to have a retired judge from the precinct come in and tell the sitting judge that Dan is a good old boy and should be let off. It has worked in the past, but this time, Dan may be out of chances. He is expecting to go to prison for DUI number ten. A man in Texas was recently convicted of his 9th DWI and sentenced to life.

# Nina

This morning at breakfast, Nina bounces in, sits beside me, and mocks my body language, shoulders gathered, arms folded, head down wary in a browed smile. _Her way of cheering me up?_

"Are you messing with me?" I ask.

"It's you, man!" she pushes me excitedly.

"This is how you look," mocking me again, this time with a big frown.

"I'm mirroring you man!" she is yelling, but happy as fuck.

"That's not how I look," there's a creeping smile I'm trying to hide behind my shoulder.

"You need to do your belly breathing, Dude!"

The way Nina calls people _Man_ and _Dude_ sounds like Erik Stoltz in _Pulp Fiction_. Actually, Erik Stoltz in _Fast Times_. She digs deep into that first _Deh_ and drags out the _U_ , it's lyrical, an art form. _Dehoooode._ Part of her charm. She wants me to practice diaphragmatic breathing—taking deep breaths with my belly while counting exhales longer than inhales.

"It's a Buddhist meditation technique," she says.

Nina, Sophia's roommate, is a half Japanese, half Irish 29-year-old marathon runner who comes across as a tomboy with the delivery of a comedian. She talks with her hands and punches my arm to exclamate statements. Nina carries around a stuffed lion she calls _Elvis_ , her spirit animal. She is in treatment for trauma from an abusive relationship.

Everything Nina does is funny and airy with the dark side trauma brings. Like many people here, she can go _to the other_ side without warning. When it happens, I see her eyes go a few shades darker, a different person is behind them—I see a torn heart, body language closes off and sharing stops. There is no consoling this kind of hurt, no tissues, this takes years to unravel, if ever. But, right now—she is in a good place.

"Thanks for making fun of me," I say, ironically angry, pushing away from the table. I bang my chair back into place, grin, and walk across the span of the dining hall to grab a guitar, and I turn toward the back door. Nina follows.

Sitting at the base of _God's_ snow-capped miracle, it's hard not to be humbled. I play a Jeff Buckley tune while Nina talks about the man she left, and we both stare at the mountain.

Xavier is an abusive ex-con on parole from a stint in Rikers Island; he is a two-time loser for drugs and armed robbery. Nina admittedly doesn't have good taste in men. Nina and Xavier were involved for six weeks, and in that time he stripped her of all self-worth, isolating her from family and friends. A few times he choked Nina to near death and threatened to kill her if she did anything other than what he commanded. He locked her in a closet as she attempted to push past him go visit her family. Xavier was insanely jealous of Nina's friends and accused her of infidelity if she spoke to another person.

One evening Nina was trying to get away to a Yoga class, but they were arguing. She pulled a folded envelope from her coat pocket that had not been there before. It had "Xavier" written on it, and contained two unmarked pills. Nina approached the bedroom warily and inquired about the pills. Xavier flew into a rage.

"I know you are trying to poison me!" working himself up.

"I can't trust you!" Xavier is schizophrenic and a borderline personality.

Nina said nothing. They both knew that he put them in her coat, but there is no way she could talk her way past his rage. Xavier grabbed her, gouging his fingernails into the tender flesh on the underside of her arm. He dragged her into the bedroom closet where she spent the night cowered behind her clothes.

"I never wanted to leave that closet," she says.

Nina will have to go back to her New York hometown tomorrow and ask the judge for a long-term restraining order to keep Xavier away from her. She expects to have to face him in court. Xavier has threatened to end her life over the phone and through fake social media accounts. Even though she is trying to make light of it, she's obviously nervous about the trip—kicking dirt—vacillating between strength and fear.

Walking into the lodge for the night a new RA at the front desk stops me, "There was a call for you." He hands me a sticky note that says "Mia" with her phone number.

"Why didn't someone come find me?" RA Asshole looks at me with food in his dated goatee and shrugs.

People from the outside have to be screened before they can talk to a patient. Sometimes this is a good thing. I don't have to deal with uncomfortable phone conversations with in-laws about falling on the cake at my sister-in-law's wedding. No debt collectors to hang up on. No lies about why I can't come back to work. If someone was not on my approved list, the caller is told in a firm emotionless tone, "It can neither be confirmed nor denied that the person you are looking for is at this facility.

I wanted to talk to Mia. I try her back, and it goes straight to voicemail.

# Full of You

" _It's empty of me to be so full of you," I don't know who said it, but that about sums it up._

All the characters I meet in rehabs are affected by some flavor of codependency. CODA is a 12-step program we are required to attend several times a week at Catalina Recovery. It is a program that teaches us to recognize and change codependent behaviors.

The traditional notion of codependency in addiction is of the enabler driving the alcoholic to the liquor store out of some twisted sense of love or helping. The net result: the enabler becomes a contributor to the addiction and makes things worse. Not everyone fits this definition. The roles have been broadened to encompass the behaviors and contributions of an addict's entire family. There are six commonly accepted codependency addiction roles:

_The Addict (that's me)_

The family revolves around the addict. This is the alcoholic or junky that is out of control, with self-will run riot and suffering from a spiritual malady. However, you want to define him, this is the fuck-up with the disease.

The Hero (my wife, Mia)

This is the person who puts on a good face for the public and tries to make everything look better. The hero is a perfectionist, driven by guilt and shame. This is also the person who will be pivotal in the recovery of the addict once they shed their hero skin.

The Mascot (my sister, Erin)

The Mascot is the jokester. They try to make everyone laugh in the face of the adversity of a crumbling family. The Mascot can be a hindrance in the recovery process. The jokes can hurt. This role is also driven by guilt and shame.

The Lost Child (my youngest brother, Kevin)

This role is lost in the chaos of addiction. They step out of the way and let things unfold around them and are often overlooked. The Lost Child gives up their own needs for the greater good but is a ticking time bomb, driven by guilt, loneliness, neglect, and anger.

_The Scapegoat (middle brother, Tod)_

The Scapegoat is a trouble maker. He acts out to divert attention from the addict to be noticed. The Scapegoat is driven by feelings of shame, guilt, and emptiness.

The Caretaker (dear sweet mom)

The Caretaker is the enabler. They try desperately to be the glue that holds the family together. In doing so, they make all the other roles possible. The Caretaker (Enabler) hides the problems in public and helps the addict in their active addiction. She is driven by feelings of inadequacy, fear, and helplessness.

Simply put, codependency is caring about someone else's feelings more than your own.

The Dharma principle of dependent arising states that everything in the universe depends on everything else. It all fits together; one part wouldn't exist without another. We are not-self, we are part of a whole, _interdependent_ whether we recognize it or not. Interdependence is _mutual dependence_ , a balance of independence and codependence. Where each person gives and takes in a relationship based on the needs of all involved. If all of the attention shifts to one person, others are getting hurt. In treatment, we are supposed to learn to cultivate healthy interdependent relationships. Sort of like Marxism.

# Grandma

My life in alcoholism and addiction is full of resentments and regrets. In process group today, I present a _Grief Letter_ to my Grandmother. The letter is intended to tell her, posthumously, how she influenced my life, both positively and negatively, and to apologize for my wrongs.

I read my letter to an empty chair in front of my entire process group. Before I start, we take a few minutes for me to relax, breathe, then imagine her in front of me. I describe what she looks like.

"She is fragile, with dark skin and dark curly hair, she is angry at me, she is wearing a blue checked cooking smock and an oven mitt," I say. "She is in a recliner, watching Fox News and yelling at the TV. I can see her weathered Cajun skin, she is growling. She is cursing at Obama; he is not on the TV..."

Dr. Myron interrupts, "Okay if you have a clear image in your head, I think we can begin now." I read my letter.

_Dear Grandma_ Mausey _,_

_It's been several years since you passed away; I miss you, and I'm writing to you to let you know how I feel about you and our relationship. You've been a large part of my life you shaped who I am by being who_ you _are and trying to guide me the best that you knew how._

_I appreciate that you tried your best to expose me to God as you see him. I remember going to church with you at a young age when I visited over the several summers I spent in Southern Louisiana. I remember your psychedelic Virgin Mary above the sink in the kitchen and you steadfastly saying your Rosary every morning. I wish that I could have found more of the passion and commitment that you had in your religion and spirituality. I_ truly _wish I could have learned that deep faith from you. I've always admired your commitment to faith and your dedication to the church._

I miss our time cooking together. Much of what I've learned to do in the kitchen, the basis for my recipes, comes from you and your guidance, observation, tasting, and smelling. I miss the way that you were insistent that my dice was super tight when I cut onions for the Holy Trinity. I have your voice in my head to this day each time I sharpen my knives. I miss you peeling tomatoes for me warm and fresh from your garden it made me feel special and important. I miss your willingness to try new foods. When no one else would. I offered things like ceviche and had to explain that it was seafood cooked with citric acid. Despite the reticence in your eyes, you were perfectly willing to be the first to try something new eating something way out of your comfort zone. Your assessments are always perfectly on point and without cultural bias when it came to food.

I also miss your work ethic and your drive. I remember when you worked with my dad to build a deck on the house. As a little boy, I watched you lead the project, cut more wood, haul more supplies, and hammer more nails than anyone else. I always wanted your strength.

I won't miss your obsession with Fox News, and you're yelling cuss words about Obama at the television. I don't miss the racism that I was exposed to from a young age, the stories of things that happened in Southern Louisiana told with racism at their core.

_I don't miss your judgment of me and disapproval later in life over my alcoholism. I felt like we stopped being friends when I struggled with_ alcoholism _. I got the sense that you could barely stand the sight of me as my addiction got worse. I don't miss the way that you gossiped about other people in the family and had to assume that you said the same things about me._

_I'm angry at you for not being my friend during those times when I needed you most. I'm_ angry with you _for not offering spiritual guidance when I needed it. I'm_ angry with you _for not being more sensitive to Grandpa's death. I was hurt when you gave his things away when he died. I felt that you were relieved that he was gone._

_I apologize for not being more present in my twenties I should have visited more often. I apologize for not being there for you later as your health faded. It was_ obvious _you were not long for this world, and I avoided you._

_I appreciate you for your wisdom and guidance. I appreciate that you shared your passion for creating with me and made cooking my passion. I_ appreciate _that you taught me about your French Cajun culture. I appreciate the love that you gave me as a young child I miss you each day._

I was accused, by the group, of not being sincere in my delivery, but Dr. Myron came to my defense. The truth, I did think the exercise was silly and said what I thought he wanted to hear. If I were going to process guilt related to my grandmother's passing, it would be different.

While my grandmother was dying, I was in outpatient rehab and drinking. _I would soon be on my way back to inpatient treatment._ I was obnoxious in groups; they knew I was drunk but let me stay. I got news that my grandmother was dying, she was in the hospital, and doctors weren't sure how long she would live. Ian and I left the next day to visit her in New Orleans. We drank vodka the whole way.

We made it as far as Houston, the 5th Ward, I don't know why we stopped there, I wanted a new experience, I was procrastinating to avoid death. There is no such thing as _new_ in the 5th Ward which runs on decaying grocery marts and grave liquor stores. McDonald's, Target, Wal-Mart, national chains are afraid to set foot in this part of Houston. I stopped at a 5th Ward barbershop to get a haircut, and Ian waited in the car.

"Can someone catch up my fade for a minute?" The 100% African American clientele expelled a sharp collective breath, but a silver-haired barber, my own private Cedric the Entertainer, stepped up.

"Come on sit yo' ass down white boy fo' you get beat." I did. I was good _drunk_ me, _friendly drunk_ me, not dark yet. I chatted it up with everyone. I know a lot about Longhorn football, and luckily they were fans. It could have gone either way in Houston, the fan base is split between Texas A&M and the University of Texas. I was funny, on my game, edgy but not polarizing, safe but not too safe. I was self-deprecating racist toward white people. _It's easy to do._ By the time I left there, I had everyone laughing and had some friends in the room. The cut was $8, and I gave Cedric the Entertainer a $20.

"Keep it old timer, put it toward your casket." I took a flier on that joke.

"Fuck you!" He laughed.

"Bye Cedric the Entertainer! I'm coming back with some bottles, and we gone get fuuuuckked up!!" I meant it! "I love you, man, I love all you muthafuh..." Two bigger guys got up and lumbered toward me, so I left.

Outside I was smiling. I had accomplished something; I destroyed my whole life _but_ made friends at the barbershop. I felt like I belonged there. I had to give up playing music in bars a few years ago because of my drinking, so I started playing Southern Gospel at the all black churches in my hometown. I figured I was not just any white devil walking in there off the street. I earned my place in that barber's chair.

Crossing the parking lot on the way back to my car, I was jumped by three young guys, who mostly kicked the shit out of me on the ground and took my money. I only had cash. _I'm not stupid enough to carry my wallet into a 5th Ward barbershop._

Laying there on the ground, as the kicks came painfully crushing to my ribs, I had time to think. I knew these kids didn't mean any harm. They have it rough. They are suffering, like me, we are the same in that way and... _kick to the face..._ _blackness..._

_Chim_ chiminey

_Chim_ chiminey

_Chim_ chim cher _-ee!_

A sweep is as lucky

As lucky can be...

_Khoff_ Khak Khak _!!_ Bleurghch _!_

I woke coughing blood but happy the kicking had stopped. I was also relieved to discover those crazy kids didn't take my car keys. When I stood, they waved from across the street and pointed. I waved and gave a broken smile and wobbled sideways to my car.

With a bloody lung, a purple eye, and maybe a few broken ribs, I stayed in Houston for the night. I got a room at the Hyatt, planning to put in a few hours at the hotel bar before crashing. Hyatts always have the best hotel bars—reasonably priced but classy, I puke in them often.

I dodged traffic in the parking garage, with its ramps going every-which-way, was everyone's best friend and an obnoxious tipper at the front desk. Got my key, "where's the bar sweetheart?" and crawled up on the stool next to a guy who played tight end at the University of Texas during the nineties. Fantastic luck—I remembered him. It was one of those nights, when I get on a solid dunk and random events fit together in a grand show of serendipity. #88 and I hit it off, we bought each other drinks and pissed off his girlfriend who was being ignored. He was happy to have someone to relive the glory days and convince his young girlfriend that it was a big deal to have started for the Longhorns.

After two hours of drinking, I got into an argument with the bartender over who was in _The French Connection_ , James Caan or Gene Hackman. I threw my glass at him, and I was asked to leave the bar and go to my room. Instead, I swayed out to the parking lot, leaning into a heavy wind the whole way. I pulled my limp parts into the Tahoe, slid behind the steering wheel, fumbled with my keys _...and..._

... _David played, and it pleased the Lord_

But you don't really care for music, do you?

It goes like this

The fourth, the fifth

The minor fall, the major lift

The baffled king composing...

RAP! RAP!! RAP!!!

"Come back later!" I grumbled.

"Open the door! Sir!"

I stirred back to sleep until someone grabbed my arm,

"What are you doing here, Sir?" He snapped, play-acting authority.

"Why did you turn off my music?"

"Sir, you weren't listening to any music. Why are you sleeping in a running car?"

My brain was skipping.

"I have a room key," I said. He glared and flicked a June bug off his shoulder with his walkie-talkie, and stepped on it.

"That's bad luck mannn," I said, reached out with my room card, and he called a front desk person who luckily I'd tipped a drunken amount at check-in. They vouched for me.

Then he said—and I thought I was still dreaming because it was one of the few _perfect_ moments in my life,

"Sir, I will call the proper authorities—if you do not relocate yourself—to your before-mentioned hotel room—inside the hotel facility—immediately." I didn't know what to say, I hadn't realized it before: he was cognitively underdeveloped. Not in the celebrity had a baby after 50 way, but in the over-compensating—I used to be a hall monitor in Jr. High, and now I'm a security guard—way.

I toppled from the car, probably left the door open, and made my way to the room at about 5:00 am. _Kenny Powers followed me the whole way._

That night, I continued to drink in the room, ordered a bottle of Absolut from room service, called the front desk no less than nine times to thank them for not kicking me out. The next morning, I went out to my car, there was damage to the front bumper in the shape of a yellow U. The driver's side door was wide open. I raced down the spiral, out of the garage, and drove back to Austin. I would use the accident as an excuse for not making it to visit my sick grandmother.

"If you've been drinking DO NOT come home, go detox! Mia bristled, "Go to a hospital!"

I did. I went to the emergency room,

"I've been drinking and need to detox," I told the young Asian doctor.

He looked at me like I was drunk.

"I ammm drunk!" I said, hearing his thoughts.

He put me in a room, took blood to check liver enzymes, hooked up an IV to rehydrate me, gave me an Ativan and prescription for Xanax, and sent me on my way.

Alcoholics are prescribed addictive medications by doctors who don't know any better or don't care. I've relapsed three times because of prescription drugs. I'm an alcoholic, I can't take any addictive drugs. No benzos, no painkillers, no sleeping pills, no Nyquil, no Almond extract, no Tiramisu.

Sounds pretty stupid right? Try relapsing six or seven times with a few near-death incidents. All of it, the booze, the crank, the pills; it all kicks off the same dopamine release. That's why we're _really_ in here. My choice is booze, but drug addicts have the same problem, we are led back to our DOC by anything that stimulates dopamine production. Flavor doesn't matter.

# Suzy Q

Christmas day is finally over. I never thought I'd be so happy to see Christmas in the rear-view mirror. Yesterday was long, filled with shame. I wish I could be back home with Mia and my kids

In the dining hall; _half Japanese_ Nina, Sue and I are painting and laughing around a long wooden table—expressive art therapy. Sue is the funniest person here. Nina and Sue together are tough to keep up with; their combined darkness goes to a place that I don't recognize. Humor is their escape—it's a club that is private—only members know the language. They use brutal insights and impersonations to cope with traumas of the past. Sue is attractive but not in an overtly sexy way; she wears roundish glasses, perpetually tousled hair, lightly worn clothes from Buffalo Exchange—never Macy's. She likes furniture that is used, so she can paint it bright colors that don't match anything—I imagine her as Daria, the cartoon character.

Sue has asked me about writing a chapter about her, so when she abruptly begins telling us her story, I'm not surprised. Her change in her demeanor is blunt. A dark cloud shadows the room, and I realize she is telling us a thing she has told no one.

Sue has suffered various traumas throughout her life, but the final straw—a date rape—happened a few weeks before she arrived at Catalina Recovery. Friday night in November, Sue went out to a bar on her own. She has a boyfriend, but he is not a drinker and stayed home. At the bar, Sue met a guy, sipped drinks, shot pool, and joked around. He seemed sociable enough. She remembers arm wrestling with him, and then nothing else in the bar.

"My memory comes in traces after that," she says.

"I was punched in the stomach and dragged by my hair." Sue continues, "I remember garbage cans and trash. I remember the smell of rotten eggs close to my face. I was hit again, and I don't remember." She stops talking and paints the sun.

"How does this look? More orange?" Nina and I look at each other, we don't answer.

"When I woke up, 238 he was on top of me, my shirt was up around my neck. My back hurt, felt like I was lying in rocks."

"Oh, my," Nina says, mouth gaping, eyes locked on to Sue.

"He had something over my mouth, I don't know." Sue tenses her lower eyelids,

"And then he punched me right in the nose, that fucking hurt, but I remember calling him a pussy."

"Fuck yeah, girl!" Nina yells, angry.

She says she had only two drinks, not enough for blackout and memory loss. The next morning, she woke up on her front steps, sore, bruised, not remembering much. She lied to her boyfriend about what had happened—told him she was in a fight and stayed with a friend.

"An entirely unbelievable story," she said.

"I felt shameful," Sue looks up at Nina but not at me. I'm not in this club; I'm not in the room.

"I couldn't recall anything at first. I could tell I'd had rough sex with no lubricant." She continued to paint, cocking her head to the side, trying to decide if she was proud of her work.

Other parts of her body hurt, sore all over with markings on her back. Soon she received a text message from an unknown number, the message contained a photo of her lying mostly naked in the alley behind the bar with a strange guy's face, giving a thumbs up, in the frame. Disturbing remembrances of the night started coming back. The next text message recalled details about the trim of her pubic hair, how the asphalt pebbles stuck to her back, dragging her to the car.

Sue tried to find out who was texting her but could not get a straight answer. She questioned the person on the other end, but the responses stopped. Sue eventually told her boyfriend what had happened, and he surprised her with his understanding. They went to the police together. The text messages were a slam dunk.

"This guy is an idiot," the detective cheered, coffee stained tie, button down shirt only half-untucked.

"We never get this kind of evidence." That day, they tracked the number and made an arrest. Sue is waiting for the trial and is going to testify. My heart goes out to Sue, telling a story like this must be difficult. She never stopped painting.

In a traumatic event, the brain cannot process information as it normally does. The unresolved traumatic incident gets stuck in the central nervous system as if in a continual feedback loop, playing over and over again. Remembering the trauma may feel as bad as going through it the first time, because the images, smells, and feelings haven't changed. These memories affect the way the victim relates to people until they can be processed through to a conclusion. That's what everything is about here—processing things our bodies can't forget. Creating new neuropathways, for new memories. In EMDR you can take an event and actually re-associate it with a positive conclusion—new neuropathway.

# EMDR

To process traumas like Sue's, many patients at Catalina Recovery go to Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR) sessions. EMDR is a psychotherapy approach used primarily for the treatment of the traumas that contribute to addictive behaviors.

EMDR's my preferred treatment next to group therapy. In short: I stare at a light that moves back and forth. _Like the classic image of a_ penduluming _pocket watch._ This is called bilateral stimulation; it simulates REM sleep, which is where we process daily events. Your eyes will follow any bilateral stimulation—try closing your eyes and sitting feet on the floor, hands on thighs. Now, pat your thighs, left-right-left-right continuously. Notice your eyes following the stimulation? It's involuntary. Simulated rapid eye movement. Pretty cool huh?

Dr. Eva, the therapist who conducts my sessions, is a Persian woman with clothes that barely hang on her skinny frame. She speaks in such an easy voice I feel my eyes get heavy; my nervous system gives in to relaxation. I like this feeling. Nostalgia of my youth, my mom telling me stories before bed. The comfort and security of not knowing what life has in store for me.

In our sessions, Dr. Eva has helped me process the traumas that contribute to my addiction. I've had four sessions with her. My shame is lifted a little bit each time; eventually, I may be able to function in my wisemind, with emotional stability.

I have to take another urine test today. I've pissed dirty twice—positive for benzos. I hope this lab clears me.

"Do you have a clear conscience?" Dr. Myron asked.

"Yes."

"Then you have nothing to worry about," he said, "This is an example of something that's outside of your control." I am supposed to let go of things I can't control.

I forgot to mention the Klonopin I took last week.

# Abraham

Abraham is a powerful figure. His demeanor and life story buy him a certain level of respect in the men's lodge that others don't get. Abraham looks like he's one welfare check away from being homeless, tall with a long dirty goatee, wearing the same plaid sweatshirt every day with perpetually stoned eyes even though he's sober.

Shortly after he dragged his beat-up military duffle bag into the lodge, he remarked on being _self-pay_ —Abraham shelled out up to $65,000 cash to be here for a month. Then I overheard him talking to his wife about buying their two daughters Lipizzaner stallions and a 16-foot horse trailer for Christmas. Total cost: $100,000. _The kids are 10 and 12 years old._

Many people here are powerful, rich and famous, and others pretend to be. In the rare moments that Abraham talks about his life, we know he's not lying. He is secretive about his personal life. By this time, many people here have heard that I'm writing a book and have offered their stories; I was surprised when Abraham turned to me one day at lunch and started talking.

Abraham has not always been on the right side of the... has never been on the right side of the law. He estimates he saw over 60 people killed in Mexico during his smuggling days. _I was smart enough not to ask for details._

Abraham is a child of the seventies. The winter he turned 12 years old, his parents kicked him out of the house, and he when to live with his grandmother. By 14, he was roaming the streets of Seattle selling dope to get by. Abraham has an innate understanding of business that has served him throughout his life. In another time, Abraham could be the CEO of a major corporation, but in this time, Abraham is a major pot producer.

At 17 years old, he was running significant amounts of heroin and cocaine up from Mexico, driving a loaded car across the border, pretending he was a college student on his way back from a party weekend. He dropped the drugs off in LA, picked up another car loaded with weapons, and drove back to Mexico. Abraham made a good living this way for a few years, risked a lot, and saw many people die.

By 19, Abraham hatched a plan to reduce the hazard of being imprisoned or murdered by scalping concert tickets lawfully. He bought stacks of concert tickets and stood out in front of venues selling band buttons for $75—each button came with a free concert ticket.

After scalping one Northwestern hippie music festival, he moved inside and set-up a tent to sell trashcan Kool-Aid he loaded with several sheets of acid. Abraham sold a Dixie cup of acid for $20. And he sold out. Abraham estimates he sold cups of acid-laced Kool-Aid to 3000 people and made around $60,000 that weekend. He called his tent the _Jim Jones Experience._

Abraham met a wife and settled down in Colorado. He noted everyone around him was farming marijuana and dove head first into learning the trade. In two years, Abraham was producing large crops of high-quality bud. As the money got better, he bought a plane and expanded his distribution network, flying thousands of kilos to the major cities in the Midwest and across the East Coast. During this time, Abraham was exposed to more violence and death, like what he had seen in Mexico, but smaller numbers and fewer beheadings. After a decade of lobbying, Colorado legalized medical marijuana. Abraham was one of the first people to get a license and grew his distribution network to sell to dispensaries and wholesalers—instantly a major player in the medical marijuana business. That's Abraham.

In all his years of skirting the law, Abraham was never connected with a drug charge and has never served a day of his life in prison. Today, the ATF and other Federal organizations know of him and follow him closely while he runs his empire, sprawling hundreds of acres with 50 employees to produce a yield of about $2 million of commercial medical grade marijuana every 4 months. That amounts to $6 million dollars a year gross and estimates he clears about $4.8 million of that per year. Everything he owns, ranch, planes, production facilities, all bought and paid for with his early marijuana money.

Abraham employs disabled people to roll medical marijuana joints (sold retail) and uses ex-convicts only for production. His employees live in apartments built into the warehouses where his marijuana is grown and act as security at night. Abraham pays employees a good base salary plus a few ounces of weed each month. Abraham is at Catalina Recovery for PTSD and painkiller addiction. He flew here in his own plane.

I heard from Abraham after we left treatment—he sold his business for $25,000,000 to a conglomerate. He and his family are living off the grid.

# Rehab Romance

Romantic relationships in rehab are nothing like relationships in real life. Lock up a bunch of young people for 30 days and give them a new lease on life, they're gonna have sex. In the haze of recovery, with the laissez-fair attitudes toward dress and hygiene, attractiveness is relative. Here is a quick primer:

  * 9 on the outside is a 7 in rehab.

  * 4 in rehab is actually a 6.

  * 9 in rehab is like an 11 in the real world.

Generally speaking, just push your low-end down two points and you are good. Here is the kicker, though: you have to factor in sobriety. If you are like me, and you have done everything drunk your whole life, you may be using drunk ratings which, everyone knows, are different from sober ratings. _Beer goggles._ Sobriety subtracts 2 points from standard beer goggles. If you are usually down for a drunk 9, which is a sober-real-life 7, then in rehab that same 7 is a 5. Therefore, a sober-rehab 7 is a drunk-real-life 11. Make sense? Relativity is fucked up.

The average lifespan of a rehab romance is three days, but one can last as little as a few hours or as much as five days. When two really unstable people fall in love, the world just spins faster. No matter how significant the significant other is on the outside, they have no real understanding of what a person in recovery is going through. Only another rehabber gets it.

When a patient arrives, he is told to avoid romantic relationships at all cost, it is forbidden. The strictly enforced "no fraternizing" policy even applies when smoking at one of the campus Butt Huts. A Butt Hut is the covered area near each lodge where men and women can smoke, separately. The theory: smoking leads to humping. Humping is bad because there are no condoms available unless a patient is willing to smuggle one in their ass or vagina, which would be ironic.

Patients should be focused on recovery, not romance, but patients spend twelve or more hours together each day and are only human. A relationship that would usually take months to progress, from the first date to break-up, should start and finish within five days here. This estimate even includes time for an amicable separation. Three days for a bad break-up. Most people get into rehab relationships knowing the score; they know it won't last; the community is too small to burn bridges. They will part ways after rehab and never speak again, so what's the point in getting butt hurt?238

The hardest part of a rehab romance is the physical act of hooking-up. There are, of course, different levels of hooking-up. Kissing in rehab is super special because it's such a challenge to pull off. Having _actual_ sex is like planning a prison break from Alcatraz. Not only do you have to know the place and time, but you also have to know the schedules of the _Fuck Patrol._

Here are some favorite hook-up locations at Catalina Recovery:

  * The elevator in the men's dorm. (Rumor is: this where Aerosmith got the idea for their song, _Love in an Elevator_.)

  * Behind cacti beyond the track.

  * Near the stables after dark.

  * Behind the gym during snack.

  * The Labyrinth after dinner.

  * The Kiva before sunrise.

  * Any therapist's office left unattended and unlocked.

  * In the pool early morning.

  * Any flat surface, not in the gym, during an all-community gathering.

There are many possibilities, but none is 100% safe. It is even possible for two patients to have sex in an actual bed, but it's a high-risk maneuver. Sneaking someone into a room has to be done, at night, between bed checks, with a roommate in the room, and without Fuck Patrol seeing someone climbing in through the window. Justin has had Amanda in our room. I waited in the shower. When gossip started to spread, RAs started watching our room closely. I was in there when RA Jon came in to search the shower, closet, and under the bed. I thought he was looking for contraband, but he was looking for Amanda.

I've seen a hell-of-a-lot of couples come and go in my short time here:

  * Ben and Taylor

  * Justin and Amanda

  * Ponyboy and Morgan

  * Job and Taylor

  * Ponyboy and Kiki

  * Job and Nina

  * Ponyboy and Taylor

  * Morgan and Kato

  * Kiki and Justin

  * Nina and Erik

  * Amanda and Kiki

  * Kato and Ponyboy (Probably.)

They say, "The odds are good, but the goods are odd." This is what RAs smugly tell patients. The implication: everyone is so fucked-up, a relationship begun in treatment has zero chance of surviving on the outside. The best two addicts can hope for is a short-term codependent entanglement, followed by relapse and another stint in rehab. They tell us not to get into any serious relationships until we have been sober for at least a year.

There is one more thing I should tell you. If you have never had sober sex before, you should expect it to be horrible the first 10-12 times. A real nightmare—like having sex with the lights on, arms tangled, foreheads bumping—like dancing in a potato sack. Don't be discouraged. We've _all_ been there. It gets better.

# Bree

I should be starting family week, but I don't have any family coming, so it's an extra week for me. Family week is a whole thing. A patient chooses family members to work with in group therapy sessions. It gives everyone an opportunity to voice their complaints, receive feedback from a therapist and from their process group. Visitors may not speak to the patient outside of group until the final day of family week. It's a long-held tradition and is considered the most important of the four weeks spent at Catalina Recovery. I invited my wife—she declined.

I'm in a relapse prevention lecture with Bree, a young, spoiled heroin addict who started on OxyContin. It's a universal theme for young people addicted to heroin—they get the first taste from mom's medicine cabinet. When mom's opiates dry up, they find a cheaper source on the street. Heroin is a cheap and easy opiate to score. OxyContin is much more difficult.

Bree was a competitive skater who showed enough promise to be groomed for the Olympics. She did not have the mental discipline to qualify, but her failure earned her a respectable heroin habit, which didn't help with getting her into the Olympics, but qualified her for rehab.

Bree has cried non-stop since she arrived; she is driving us all crazy! When I say hello, she cries with a disgusted look on her face. When I don't say anything to her, she cries with a disgusted look on her face. We rarely see the staff here get irritated with a patient. They're paid well to exercise patience, and treat clients with kid gloves. However, I've seen more than one staff member rake her with contempt—all she does is cry. Did I mention that she cries a lot?

Dr. Hellen would say Bree operates purely in her _Emotional Mind_. _Nice segue, huh?_ According to Dialectical Behavior Therapy, we have two emotional states that can overlap to create an ideal mind state. _Reasonable Mind_ and _Emotional Mind_ meet to create a sweet spot called _Wise Mind._

In Reasonable Mind we let logical, intellectual, fact-driven, focused attention drive our behavior. Reasonable Mind sounds like a good state to be in, on the surface, but making decisions based on reason alone lacks the emotional intelligence of empathy and sympathy. _Sociopath._

In Emotional Mind our behavior is primarily controlled by emotions. Logic-driven behavior is absent. We are driven by our feelings, emotions, passions—impulsive and reactionary. _Any drama person ever._

_Wise Mind_ is the overlap of Reasonable Mind and Emotional Mind that creates _intuition_ , the ability to know what is both emotionally and rationally intelligent behavior. Think of two eyes. Individually they can still see, but together they can see with depth. This is _Wise Mind_ 87.

This is some of the shit I've picked up in all of these trips to rehab. I've spent enough time and money—I should have a PhD in Addictionology by now.

# The Loop

This morning sucks. The newness of this place has worn off. I've taken every class offered—now things are repeating, it's called _the loop..._ or _Groundhog Day._

It's gonna be cold, it's gonna be gray, and it's gonna last you for the rest of your life.

I fell into the three-week curriculum on the day I entered general population. Now, I've reached the end of the coursework. For the next week, the time I would usually spend in family week, I will be repeating classes with sweaty newbs. _This is a sign it's time to leave._

Several of us are hiding out in the Kiva to skip an all-community meeting about new rules being implemented in retaliation for the _Porn List_ incident.

"Kato got kicked out!" Quon says. Quon, Angry Erik and I rejoice.

"I hated that ass condom!" I pump a balled fist ala Tiger Woods.

"What you guys all _fuck boy_ about?" Kiki asks with her signature Kiki swagger.

"We got Kato discharged!" Angry Erik is happy.

Kiki sits down.

"I had nine Klonopin that I smuggled in," I explain.

"You didn't share!" Kiki protests.

"Shut up and listen," Angry Erik is angry.

"We had Erik plant the Klonopin in the top drawer of Kato's dresser hidden beneath a pack of crackers," I say. "Quon spread a rumor that Kato was selling benzos, and Kato's room got tossed. They found the crackers, found the Klonopin, and boom, immediate discharge."

"It was my idea," Quon adds, speaking broken Chinese or something.

"Wow, yeah, sneaking in drugs is a no-no," Kiki says, smug. Then, she gives us the real lowdown.

"Kato got into Hazelden in California," Kiki says. "It's nicer than this dump. He's been on the waiting list. His time was up here soon anyway." The rich kid gets off scot-free again? The news takes some of our thunder, but Kiki is not going to ruin this moment for us. And, I can't face the possibility that I wasted all of that Klonopin.

We all sit for a few minutes in satisfied silence, smiling, occasionally patting each other on the back. Today is a good day for _the recidivists_ , we inspired change. There's hope for us yet. It's a shame Taylor and Dark Mark aren't here.

That afternoon in process group, Quon has another story about killing animals. Caring for a friend's canary named Mr. Roxy, the bird escaped into his apartment. After a long day of hunting, he captured Mr. Roxy and held him in both hands scolding,

"Never do that again! Naughty bird!" Quon is acting out the crime, fingers locked to make a double-fist.

"I stopped shaking him when he stopped moving," Quon says, "His head flopped over. I think I broke Mr. Roxy's neck."

Quon shows no feeling, no empathy—a cold blank face—as if it the story shouldn't be surprising or interesting to anyone. I love Quon to death but wonder if maybe he _is_ a sociopath.

After group, I make my way back to the men's lodge against a cold desert waft—Kiki is standing out front waiting for me,

"Angry Erik left treatment today," she says.

"What the fuck!" I say, looking past Kiki into the lodge, looking for Erik.

"He had an 'episode' and was discharged," Kiki says.

Erik and I became close in his time here; I hate to see him go. I've become attached to my group of misfits, and they seem to be falling out quickly.

"His Psychiatrist prescribed him lithium, and he refused to take it," she says. "He tried to climb in through the window of the pharmacy screaming at the nurses—he was dragged back out by two of the larger RAs."

It happened so quickly. He was never here.

# Amy

Amy is here because she drugged both of her parents so she could have a party .

I wake at 5:30 this morning against my will, and skulk down for a coffee. I pass the women's Butt Hut in the dark and can hear them outside already belching laughter and sucking down cigarettes. I am disgusted by the sounds and cigarette pollution on a brisk mountain morning. Deep breaths, 4 in, 6 out.

I check in with attendance RA, Samuel L. Jackson, at the dining hall, expecting to be first,

"I got you bro, good morning." RA, Samuel L. Jackson, says.

"Thanks, maannn." I say. "loved you in _Snakes on a Plane_." He gives me a _bad_ muthafucker look.

Amy is already there so I pull up a chair at her table and we sit and talk. She has been a light-hearted friend here at Catalina Recovery, barely out of high school, she is a young one that I try my best to advise, but only when I can provide insight that's worth a shit. Amy is tall and tough, with long blond hair and a fresh face, always talking—always smiling. Her laugh is a roar of energy and saliva. It explodes in her belly, I can see the shockwave make its way up her body, toward the mouth. I want to duck, dodging a blast from a super soaker.

I first hung out with Anne on the basketball court, playing a late night one-on-one game that was funny and brutal. She played high school basketball and can hit an outside jumper and elbow her way to the post like a pro. I have no skills what so ever beyond being a boy. That requisite didn't help me at all in this situation, so I cheated. I punched, elbowed, blocked, tripped and committed every other imaginable foul, that didn't help me either. It was, however, hilarious and we both got weak from laughter as she beat me 11-0. After the game we sat on the court and she told me about her _incident_.

Amy was about to graduate high school and wanted to have a party, but her parents stood in the way. Leading up to the night of the party, Amy had been on a four-day rollercoaster of Xanax and Adderall. She admittedly wasn't thinking clearly. She had been arguing with her parents, and they weren't talking. On Friday after school her best friend, Amy, texted her.

AMY: wnt 2 have party 2nite

AMY: OMG YMMD how

AMY: IDK

_AMY: FTW_ let _HF_

AMY: hehe

And with that, her master plan was set into motion. Amy planned to drug her father's drink with Xanax and knock him out. She figured her, moo-moo wearing, medicated mom would take care of herself. Her mom was usually doing the Ambien zombie sway by 9:00 pm. That night, dad firmly planted in his leather Lazy Boy, she put two, 2mg Xanbars in a scotch rocks she poured. He sucked down half the drink and passed out with-in 30 minutes. In a stroke of luck, her mom sallied forth and finished the drink.

"It was like a movie, where people come from two towns over to party, people that I don't even know," she says.

Four hours into the drug and alcohol fueled romp her dad woke up and went berserk. He kicked everyone out and got into a fist fight with a high school football player. The lineman kicked her dad's ass in his own driveway, and Amy was grounded for all of eternity. That night, she left her bedroom window.

"I don't know what I was doing, I was fucked up. I was mad," she says.

"Why were you mad?" I ask, needing to understand this logic. There is clearly a generation gap.

"Because my dad is a dick!"

The next few days were a blur of coke, booze, and sex. By the end of the weekend, Amy was suicidal. She limped home for help, and her parents packed her up and shipped her off to Catalina Recovery.

The next morning, I am so sore. It feels like I jumped out of a sixth story window. When I see Amy at the Kiva, I said,

"I don't know what happened last night, but I want it to happen again," Amy purses her lips and hoots,

"If you think you're man enough! Anytime!"

"Bring it on skank hoe!" I sneer.

We played ball for the next three nights. I lost all of them.

# Ethan Method

I must come to terms with my future. I'll be leaving here in a few days; I've got my sober living home squared away. I move in on Monday—it's right near my favorite South Austin ramen restaurant. I'm trying not to think about family, but Ethan's birthday is today; I miss him dearly.

During Ethan's birth or at least hours prior, I was not sober. I'd taken Xanax early in the evening and made a run to the store for a pint of vodka and a 24-ounce beer. I again took Xanax later in the night and probably had a beer or two stashed in my car. This is one of three births I _can_ remember.

We were still young, idealistic, and wanted to have a natural birth in a birthing center to avoid drugging our newborn baby. We learned a hard lesson that day.

Mia and I started our gift of natural childbirth by taking Bradley Method classes twice per week for six weeks. The classes were about breathing and support, but in Austin, they took on a hippie slant. It was all I could do to stay awake for those two-hour classes. The one thing I remember was a naturally oily, corpulent woman, coaching, stretching herself into unpleasant positions while breastfeeding a 5-year-old boy. Through most of the classes, I sat in thousand-yard contemplation, picking my fingernails, waiting for the future to arrive.

Mia went into labor on a Saturday at 4ish. It was time to panic—leaped in the car, sped toward the birthing center, which was an hour drive through Austin traffic. About halfway there a motorcycle cop pulled us over. As he stepped off his black and white Harley and removed his Poncherello aviators, I was beaming—I knew I had the opportunity of a lifetime.

"My wife is in labor!" I yelled strangling the steering wheel.

The officer apologized and offered to give us a police escort to the hospital. I politely refused, delighted with myself.

We arrived at the birthing center at 5:00 pm and after nine long months, Mia was ready to pop. She worked her way into full labor at about 3:00 am and pushed for the next five hours. Mia would push and push and push, but our firstborn had a huge head, and it would not squeeze through.

We tried every trick the midwife could come up with, every position, every angle, from jumping jacks to handstands to get that baby out of there. The thing that finally worked was holding her up in the air with my hands under her knees, her back to my chest. She looked like she was sitting in a chair but held aloft by me. And in that position, the midwife instructed me to bounce her up and down to shake our baby loose. The midwife was on the floor ready to catch. A playground game but with blood. By the end of the delivery, the blood was everywhere. It looked like a hotel room in The Shining.

Ethan did finally shake loose, we were overjoyed and exhausted. Born at 8:35 am. I thought at that point the work was done, but boy was I wrong. Next up, the afterbirth. In Bradley Method they explain the placenta is an organ, what they don't caution—it looks like a two-pound bloody oyster. After it was all done, I went into the bathroom to take a piss and ran into the insidious flesh blob inhabiting a clear plastic bag in the shower. Ever seen _Scarface_ ; the chainsaw scene? Yeah, I spewed.

Eventually, the bile and chunks stopped flowing, and I ambled back into the birthing room. The midwife asked us if we wanted to take home the placenta to plant it or dry it.

"Fuck? Why would I want to dry it?" I asked, instantly regretting.

"Some people like to _eat_ the placenta," she claimed.

Puke flowing again.

"It's good for you!" She kept going.

I kept retching.

When she finally shut up, I cleaned up. We put together our belongings and took our newly born baby home.

"Leave the placenta, take the cannoli," I said in my best Clemenza.

# Amanda

Amanda approached me in the kiva about writing a chapter while I was still roommates with her rehab boyfriend, Justin. I'd written the _prison rape_ chapter about him, and she wanted to be included.

"I need to know a little about the incident that landed you here," I told her.

Her smile broke, she said couldn't do it and ran off sobbing. A few days later Amanda approached me again in the dining hall, still with tears, but she was ready to tell her story. Based on what I'd heard from Justin, I had a general idea of what was coming. I couldn't write anything unless she wanted it shared.

I've discovered a strange phenomenon in doing these interviews. Once a person breaks through in the group, they want to share more—it's therapeutic.

Amanda is a 19-year-old Jewish princess from Brooklyn whose parents are strictly Orthodox. She raised the ire of some women in population when she arrived, prancing around in impeccably undersized yoga pants, a tight tank top, and boots. She's been driving the men crazy.

Before coming to treatment, Amanda met a 33-year-old man named Danny over SnapChat. The age difference was a little creepy, but he was convincing, and he drove a Ferrari.

On their first date, Amanda climbed into his car,

"This is my cousin, Paulie," Danny nodded to the back seat. The car reeked of Drakkar Noir, and bong water. Amanda was surprised that he'd brought his cousin on their first date. Danny told her they were going to a friend's house to pick-up some weed and drop Paulie off. They pulled up to the curb in front of the house, which was overgrown and looked unoccupied.

"My cousin is watching this house for a friend," Tony explained.

"Oh yeah, I've seen this one on Lifetime Movie Network," I say, incredulous. "It was called, ' _Don't Go in the House!_ '"

"I know, shut up," she says. "I don't know how to explain it, I was curious. I guess I'm young and stupid?"

Inside the house, it was dark and dank, just as you would expect from a Lifetime movie: rays of sunlight creeping through torn curtains, highlighting specks of dust floating in the stale air. Creepy old _dead people_ furniture. _The usual._ Danny offered Amanda a taste of a brown drink that perspired on the table.

"The drink was already poured?" I clarify.

"Do you want me to tell the story or not?" she snaps.

"Okay," I'm apologetic. I know she is about to be upset, so I shut it.

She waited for a moment, debating. Amanda sipped the drink slowly, while Danny and Paulie made tasteless jokes. She supposed she would never associate with either of these people in public. They were baffoons. When Amanda excused herself to the restroom, she had trouble walking. The two men pushed into the bathroom behind her, and Amanda lost control of her faculties. She had trouble talking and then standing, Danny cornered her, dragged her into an empty bedroom, with sheets over the windows, and pushed her down to a bare mattress on the floor.

_Amanda says she remembers everything, but can't tell me everything._ She was bound at the wrists. The younger one had a video camera and recorded. She was repeatedly raped, in pain when the drugs wore off—afraid for her life. Amanda was dropped off at 6:00 am the next morning.

When she got out of the car, Danny said, "Bye, sweetie."

"Bye, fucking, sweetie?" she repeated. "Like we were BFFs!?" _Oh_ shit, _she is_ really _crying, in the dining hall, I hope people do think I did this._

Amanda knew a video existed, but didn't know what would happen next. A few days passed and nothing. A few more days passed, the Danny popped up on text with a photo of her having sex. It was graphic, and something she did not remember.

"It felt like I was looking at someone else," she said.

He threatened her with a video from the night of the rape, coerced Amanda into meeting him again. She agreed out of fear; over the next month was blackmailed into a sexual relationship with both Danny and Paulie.

Eventually, she ended the nightmare by seeking help from her ex-boyfriend, Anthony, who was home on leave from his service in the Israeli Defense Force. Despite being an ex, he was tight with her and her family, and from the same synagogue. After the break-up, they remained close, and she trusted him. As shameful as she felt, Amanda admitted everything, and Anthony became enraged.

Amanda doesn't know what happened to Danny—33-year-old rapist—or his red Ferrari, but he didn't contact her again. She heard rumors about what Anthony might have done. Even Paulie left the neighborhood amidst rumors he was facing rape charges or worse, Anthony. Amanda is not sure if the video is gone or if it will pop up. Anthony hung around long enough to be sure Amanda was safe and flew back to Israel. Amanda flew to Catalina Recovery.

# Chop the Wood

Almost all rehab facilities introduce patients to the concepts of Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12 steps. There are many flavors of 12-step programs, but Alcoholics Anonymous is the O.G. Addicts usually start out in Alcoholics Anonymous, learn the ropes, then move on to Narcotics Anonymous or Cokeheads Anonymous.

In AA, right off the bat, the second and third steps ask the alcoholic to seek a higher power. This is a topic of endless debate in the AA community, and with each passing decade agnostics and atheists grow in numbers. AA requires that everyone give over control of their lives to a power greater than themselves. I've always struggled with the higher power concept, but having been through several treatments without spirituality and failing, I've been trying to remedy this shortcoming.

Tonight, I heard this Zen koan:

One evening, a wise elder told his grandson about a fierce battle between two bears. "These bears are fighting for dominance," he continued. "One bear is full of anger, hate, fear, shame, guilt, and resentment. The other bear is filled with love, gratitude, happiness, kindness, compassion, and generosity." The little boy thought about it for a minute and asked his grandfather, "Which bear wins?" The old man replied, "The one you feed."

I think about this— _whatever I dwell on, I feed._

If I put myself in a dark place, closed off emotionally, wrapped in negative thinking, the odds of a spiritual experience are slim because I have closed myself off to it. In doing so, I am looking at darkness—it's entering my life.

If I can let go of my shame feelings, maybe I can feed my love feelings. I may not believe in a God, but spiritual experiences are undeniable. I just have to be in a position to let them happen. If I'm in a place where I'm surrounded by goodness, helping other people, thinking positive thoughts, living what Buddhists call Metta _or_ lovingkindness, I am opening myself to spirituality. There is hope.

# Job

Sitting at sunrise breakfast, I'm grateful for the morning in the mountains, the opportunity to breathe in fresh air and inner peace. I'm thankful for the morning and sanctuary when Quon approaches wrapped in cashmere.

"Amy just told me that Job relapsed," Quon was upset delivering the news.

"Shit." Job is a solid kid from an intact upper-middle class family, "He'll probably die soon."

Job, a brooding guitarist, started using OxyContin at age 13. He's now 25 and has been to rehab seven times. He has also been to prison for five months on drug convictions. Job has spent all of his adult life in rehabs for heroin.

During his Catalina graduation gathering Job mentioned he wouldn't go back to prison; if he relapsed, he would keep going until he died. Job didn't sound committed to being sober. My guess is that he was planning to use heroin again before he left here.

I played guitar with Job a few times while he was here, and we talked about his life and addiction. He had some good stories.

"How did you end up in prison?" I asked, over escalating pentatonic scales.

One night at a friend's house Job, Eli, and Eli's mother, Ellen, were all together getting high. In a surreal scene, Ellen's ex-boyfriend, Henry, kicked in the door, stood in the doorway drunk and pissed himself. They all busted out laughing infuriating Henry, who was both drunk and on PCP. Henry went into the kitchen and picked up a 12-inch chef's knife, threatened to kill himself. No one took the threat seriously, so Henry took everyone hostage at knifepoint sending the three rushing to lock themselves in a back bedroom. Henry stabbed the walls and the door of the room where they were hiding.

Job was able to call 911 in the chaos, police cars arrived in hordes and surrounded the house. After a 6-hour stand-off, Job escaped through a window, mistaken for the assailant he found himself encircled by a SWAT team with laser sights touching all parts of his body. Job was questioned and searched, face down in the dirt, a foot in the middle of his back. He was holding heroin and marijuana, with his record and probation he landed in prison for five months. Henry was also detained and charged with three counts of attempted murder, kidnapping, and some other shit. _He's under the jail._

This evening, I was surprised at check-in, when our lodge leader gave me Raymond's Band, an award for being a role model in sobriety. I was moved by the gesture—he said he was a big fan of my recovery work—I don't know if I am much of a role model. _I'm a fake._ I'm hopeful this time around, but I know _I'm like Job._

I finished my last rehab with honors ready to face the world, but I lacked humility in the face of the disease. I thought I was cured even though I'd been instructed it wasn't possible. I never built a support system, a group of resources to fall back on if I struggled in my sobriety.

A support system may include a therapist, a psychiatrist, people from AA meetings, a good sponsor, family, and friends that will support sobriety without judgment and not be a negative influence. I want to surround myself with people who are how I want to be. For most people, that means going up to someone at the end of an AA meeting, someone who's been sober for a while and say, "I want what you have."

For me, it means surrounding myself with people who have never considered drinking, never had a problem. Those people are the ones that have what I want. I've never relapsed surrounded by individuals who don't like to drink—alcoholics, no matter how long sober, have a tendency to go back out.

Of all alcoholics, 24% seek help, but only 5% of those make it. That means only 1% of all alcoholics stop drinking for good. Those are shitty odds.

# Carry the Water

In my first week of treatment, I was in a group discussion about honesty. We were asked to share what we would do, to be honest in our sobriety. It seemed like a simple enough question; as the answers circulated it was eventually my turn, and I had no answer. I had no idea if I was honest with myself. My veil of _ego_ had become so impenetrable; I couldn't see through it to truth. This recognition led to a crisis of confidence, a breakdown in the middle of my group. I had no grounding, and it scared the shit out of me. That's when I understood that I needed to come to terms with the concept of a higher power. I committed to everyone in the room that day I would find a spiritual set of principles I could uphold.

The religion I grew up understanding was not for me. The rigid, dogmatic teachings made little sense. I could not believe in a God who causes suffering. If I believe in a God, it will be a loving God who is above dogma, institutions, and rules. My God will help those suffering from the choices of their will, not enforce his own will.

In AA they say, "Religion is for people who are afraid of hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there." I am the later.

After my public revelation, I received books from thoughtful therapists and patients around campus. Many people reached out and helped on my journey; not one preached. I received books about philosophy, Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism, and Hinduism. I spent nights in my room, pouring through literature, writing ideas as they presented themselves. The windows, mirrors, and whiteboard in my room were filled with quotes and ideas about spirituality and philosophy from Einstein, Buddha, Jesus, Leonard Cohen, and Nietzsche.

Somewhere near the end of the week, I'd had my _Sargent York on the mountain_ moment. I'd formulated _my plan_ for spirituality, a way to relate to myself, other people, and the universe. I felt a sense of calm come over my body and wondered why I spent my whole life in anguish over the thought of being alone in the universe.

Buddhism and Christianity have similar ideals, but Buddhism taught me to look into myself for truth rather than to a deity. Buddhism searches for the truth of reality, _not salvation_. I learned to accept _impermanence_ as a reason to love, not fear and came to understand that like everything, suffering is impermanent. It will change whether I believe it will or not.

I discovered that the five precepts of Buddhism give me everything I need to live a healthy, happy life in lovingkindness by abstaining from harming living beings, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and intoxication. These precepts are taught in the universal moral law of The Dharma, my higher power.

# Expectations

Today is my last full day here. The sun rises over _impermanent_ mountains, and I sit alone in my atonement. I don't know what there is out there and don't pretend to. I came here spiritually dead, only capable of drawing fractured hearts and black holes. In my time, I've rediscovered myself by allowing emotions, crying and laughing and connecting with new friends. I feel a spirituality.

I've try not to think of my family, it's too painful, but I receive an email from Mia, and it is cold. She writes,

"What are your expectations when you leave Catalina Recovery?"

That word, "expectations," is a terrible sign.

"My primary therapist told me to minimize contact outside of family week," I write, trying to avoid the question.

"If we work on the relationship, we have issues I think we need to work out together," I write, "If we decide not to work on the relationship, I will move to a sober living house in Austin for a few months." My words are robotic. I don't want to show my hand. I ask,

"Where do you stand with our relationship right now?"

I really just want to go home. I want to be with her and my kids again in our house. I can make it right; I can make it this time. I just need one more chance to prove I've changed.

"I don't think our marriage would allow us to heal," she responds, "I've reached the limit of my pain threshold."

Mia wants to end our marriage of 11 years.

My first reaction is anger—then the world drops out from under me. I sag against the desk, my stomach spins, my head is swimming, I can hear conversations around me—they are a million miles away—television commercials in a dream.

If you clean with Absolut, you can never get your life back! You should have been prepared for this! You've created quite the mess, you sad bastard! Everything in your life changes with Absolut! Your house, your contact with your kids, your office, even your dog—everything wiped away forever thanks to Absolut!

If it weren't for the kids, I would not go back at all, but I need to see them. My mind races, vacillating between anger and guilt, hurt and fear... I see the feelings come and go, I know what they are, trying not to take them personally. They look like the bubbles in my eyes on a bright day, floaters, clumps of the vitreous gel that fills my eyeballs—clumps floating by.

I catch my breath, slow it down—in 4, out 6—belly breaths. I calm enough to go to meditation, late, then back to the lodge to ask for a Residential Therapist to process with. I get Helmetta _fail_ , none the less I talk, and she listens. She said I handled it well, used my tools. It didn't feel like it.

I share the events of the day in process group, I'm happy to have them. Everyone can relate, I need not explain. I close out my final group with hugs and tearful goodbyes, receiving a lot of compliments for my contributions. Even Dr. Myron comments on helping others with my insight and experience. He gives me his card so I can follow up, and let him know how I am doing. I'll never use it.

# A Way Home

Today, I'm leaving Catalina Recovery with my mind, body, and soul in sync, connected to the Earth, content to be a cloud of dust floating along the surface. I've worked through trauma, recognized my spirituality and faced my demons head on.

As I walk through the doors of Catalina Recovery out into the bright, chilly winter of the Arizona desert, I feel whole and strong, in a place to maintain my sobriety with the knowledge to back it up. I spent 30 days surrounded by Catalina mountains in one of the finest rehab facilities in the United States and have been an A-plus student. I'm confident I have all the tools needed for recovery with nothing to stand in my way.

Sophia picks me up and drives me to a tattoo parlor, where I get my ceremonial _rehab release_ tattoo. This time, I get a reminder of my core feelings, "Fear & Love," with hash marks for each completed trip to treatment.

I intentionally don't leave any space for more hashes. After the tattoo, Sophia and I  238have lunch, and she drops me at a golf resort in Tucson where I spend my first night of freedom.

Checking into my room, I'm passed by an acquaintance from treatment, a patient who also got out today. He is noticeably drunk and won't look me in the eyes. This is a theme; few people make it on the outside. Some don't make it a day. No matter how much money or time they spend, their probability of relapse is high.

I reach my suite, it's remarkable—1000 thread count. I have a view of the other side of the mountain, across from where I used to enjoy breakfast with the recidivists. Ian rings my room late that night, asking if I want to hit the bar. I hang up.

The Next morning, I take a cab to the airport. It's crowded and noisy. I'm not comfortable around strange people anymore. Everyone is focused on a device. After a long angst-ridden flight, I hit the ground at Austin Bergstrom Airport around 4:00 pm. Kevin, my brother, is waiting to pick me up. He will drive me to my hometown to visit Mia and the kids. No one knows what I'll be doing next. One of the few conversations I've had with Mia had her commenting,

"I don't think our marriage can overcome the pain you've caused. I've reached my end."

The house is dark when we arrive. Mia is away on a business trip I didn't know about. My children are there with a banner that my mom helped them make.

It reads, "Welcome home Daddy." I read it with tears and visualize a question mark at the end.

"Welcome home Daddy?"

We spend the night cuddling and trading stories. April and Ethan both made the honor roll and were in the newspaper. Owen has _faster_ shoes he needs to _show and tell_ for me. They've all gotten nice gifts for Christmas—too nice—intended to make up for the sadness caused by my absence. There is a somber tone to the conversation and hugs. I feel terrible for having been gone for so long.

I only plan to stay home for three days. After all of my preparation in treatment, I am resentful of my wife, and it's my way of getting back at her. I will gather my few bags and head to Austin for sober living at the end of that time.

I plan to make a, _however long it takes,_ commitment to sober living. It feels wonderful to be back in my home in my element with the attention of my children for these days. They are noticeably clingy and won't let me leave the house without an explanation of where I am going and if I will be back. My children are all relatively young at 5, 9, and 11 years old. Owen, my youngest, carried around a pretend phone and called me every day while I was away. I hear the story, imagine Owen walking around the house talking to me in his temporary little voice—it breaks my heart.

My daughter April is 9, she's still Daddy's girl, but just barely. She is turning into a young lady too quickly. She missed me but seems to take it better than the other two.

She yells, "Daddy!" and gives me a big hug.

My oldest Ethan is reluctant to embrace and keeps his distance throughout the visit. On my third day home my wife arrives cool but friendly. We don't talk about anything in detail even though inside I have a million things to say.

# Relapse Autopsy

The next day I drive to Bridgelife sober living in the Bouldin Creek neighborhood of Austin. Bridgelife promises upscale living in a protected environment with other sober people. Their holistic approach sounds similar to Catalina Recovery, but it quickly proves to be a shitty apartment full of heroin addicts hanging on by a thread. There is no bridge, no life, and no recovery to be had. After two days, I move out, and in with a friend in East Austin near downtown. _This is my emotional relapse._

My new house is smack in the middle of the hippest party district in Austin. The neighborhood that was formerly traditional Mexican had been gentrified to make room for hipsters and their money. Naturally, I tell no one of my move. Everyone who matters in my life still thinks I am in sober living.

I call my new roommate Rizzo. He is 35, divorced with 2 kids, works in advertising, an alcoholic—a lot like me. It so happens, one of his clients is Tito's Vodka, they like to offset advertising expenses with barters. My new roommate harbors a full case of 1 liter Tito's Vodka bottles in the kitchen. I tell myself that I am strong enough to not be bothered by the vodka bottles down the hall but in the back of my mind, I know they might come in handy soon. _This is my mental relapse._

For the next few weeks, I live a clean and disciplined life. I ride my bike to work, to a lunchtime AA meeting and back home every day by 6:00 pm. I'm focused at work and talk about how much treatment has changed me this time. I have a renewed commitment to sobriety. My mind is active with ideas; new things I can do. I'm going to start a new interactive marketing agency that is anti-advertising and call it "H8TE Advertising." It's brilliant. I have a million of these ideas, they keep me awake at night. My mind is flush and fast with them.

On a Tuesday, I receive a call from Mia. She wants to set boundaries.

"I need to talk to you about something important," she says.

"Okay?" I'm dubious.

"I have filed for divorce," she says. "I think we should talk about it."

"I have to go, we can talk later," I say quickly and hang up.

At that moment all coping mechanisms fly out the window. I am drinking in my head before I get off the call. I hang up and walk down the hall to crack open my first bottle of Tito's. _This is my physical relapse._

My first sip of vodka after a break is like fire in my mouth, burning down my throat, lighting up my stomach. It burns in such a good way that before any alcohol hits my blood, I feel my body explode with adrenaline. My brain fires off dopamine like I smoked a hit of meth. Alcohol is a depressant, not a stimulant. My body is so attracted to alcohol I first feel a blast of pleasure-rage, and then the soothing depressant effect kicks in, my shoulders drop, all of the muscles relax, my brain quiets, and the fear goes away. _I'm okay again._

The days and the bottles pass. I'm locked in my room, feeding myself with delusional humor only I can understand. Ian showed up a few times to check on me, bring me vodka, and laugh with me. For more than ten days there is no communication with the outside world, save for drunken social media rants. I stop shaving and showering. I have no use for bowel movements because my body isn't interested in solid food. There's flora in my mouth so thick I stop drinking water; I taste mold in every sip. I rinse my mouth with vodka. Cans of Progresso broth from Amazon keep me alive.

In the lowest part of my bottom, when delusion and reality were the same, Ian appeared again. _I focused and saw he was shaken. He was not scared; his face was grave. This side of him, it came up from time to time since Iraq—it was not what I wanted to wake up to._

" _My sister was raped tonight," he said._

" _What? Who..." I stammered still drunk-sleep._

" _A guy she knew. He was at her house, he forced in," Ian paused._

" _Who was it," I asked._

" _I don't know," he said. "I went to her house, and I could hear her screaming. I tried to open the door, I kicked it_ in, _and someone hit the wall." Ian took a deep pull from his cigarette, sobbing._

" _Fuck man... she was_ naked _and beat-up."_

" _When I stepped in the house, this guy came at me."_

Shit.

" _I jabbed him in the throat, ground and pound, I guillotined him."_

" _Fuck, Ian, you just got out..." I said and focused on a pair of headlights getting nearer outside. I was more lucid and worried about cops now. I started on the vodka again._

" _Alright man, you did the right thing," I said. "Is she going to be okay?" Ian didn't answer. He was fucked, heading back to prison—the guy was probably dead. The cops were there by now. They would find him at our house in no time._

" _She didn't want to call the police," Ian said. "She kept saying she wanted him dead."_

Then he stopped talking and looked over at me.

" _We have to get out town for a while," he said._

_I was afraid to ask, but the words came out of my mouth anyway,_ _238_ _"Why, Ian?"_

He lowered his head, his forearms on his knees, and squeezed his hands into fists.

" _He's in the trunk," he said._

Every functioning organ in my body imploded.

" _In my driveway!? I panicked, "Is he dead?"_

" _I don't know!" he hit the chair arm_ with a hammerfist, _"can you just STOP asking me questions?"_

_Ian drove a beat-up white sedan, a decommissioned police cruiser that still had the driver's side spotlight._ He _picked it up at auction and claimed it still had life left in it._

_We drove for hours, South past San Antonio, South past the dots of lost towns on the deserted hi-way to Mexico. There was nothing on the road but moonlight as he flew past endless shrubland. I wondered how many Mexicans were out there trying to make it to San Antonio, through thorns. We turned on a dirt road about 50 miles north of the border. I knew where we were. The deer lease where we'd been feral hog hunting is a 30-thousand-acre sprawl of covered badlands. It belongs to Ian's uncle Bunny. I'd heard rumors that Bunny's friends used it to hunt illegal immigrants, trespassing, making the night run from the border. The poor souls were left for the hogs_ tha _t have overtaken South Texas, moving through massive ranches, eating everything in sight—they are a plague._

We stopped driving deep in the network of trails rarely traveled. Ian spotlighted the area, checking for cover. We both got out of the car without speaking, I could feel the adrenaline surging, my hands were shaking when we opened the trunk. He was conscious and bound, alive. Part of me wished he was dead. If he knew better, he would have wished the same.

Feral hogs travel in packs. They don't often attack, but it's been known to happen when cornered by dogs or an occasional human. They are scavengers, seekers of opportunity.

_We used two rolls of_ duct _to wrap around his mouth, wrists, and legs. We taped him to a live oak in sitting position. I guzzled vodka as we worked. I was barely keeping it together, but Ian was stable. I can say, when we left him, he was still alive. I don't know for how long. Likely the heat killed him in a day or two, and the_ hogs _finished him. No one would find leftovers with hogs. There is a possibility they got to him before the heat. I hope not._

I opened my eyes, and Ian was gone.

By the 14th day, I have to sit down to pee, I can't stand up on my own. I know I will vomit up half of everything, so I drink twice as much. My roommate notices I've almost finished his case of vodka and asks me about it. I tell him I'll buy him another case or give him cash. He opts for the money.

# Phoebe

On Friday, I am not well, vomiting occasional blood. There is a knock at my door. It is Phoebe, my friend, and business partner. Phoebe is an Ivy League feminist, a fantasy nerd, a genius by most standards and I'm still not sure why she's stuck with me this long. We started a technology company together eight years ago when I was still managing my disease, but it hasn't been that way for some time. She has been carrying me.

Phoebe is worried about me, especially when my wife called her to ask if I'm still alive. I feel another dark rush of the shame I've been drinking to avoid. I ask how she found me because I didn't give out my address. I mentioned Cesar Chavez Street in one of the conversations I don't remember having. She drove up and down all the cross streets and alleys near Cesar Chavez until she found my car. Shame floods me again.

Phoebe makes me get dressed and go to lunch with her even though I can barely walk. I put my hand over her shoulder to crutch myself as we limp through the parking lot. I watch her eat a $12 bologna and brioche sandwich at hipster butcher shop Salt and Thyme. I don't eat, but I drink two double vodka tonics. We talk about me, we talk about her, and we conclude—I need to go back to rehab right away. She has an urgency that doesn't faze me; that day she finds a treatment center in Texas. I make the call and get through the admissions interview while finishing off my last liter of vodka. I tell myself it's the last one.

It takes a few days of failed attempts to sober up enough to pack my things. I haven't spoken to my kids in weeks, I need to stop home before I go off on another 30-day stint. I just need to be sober enough to drive.

After a slow, dangerous drive from Austin, I spend the next day at home explaining to my kids where I've been and where I am going, filled with sadness knowing I have to look at their faces, into their young, tearful eyes, as I leave once again.

My mom is worried about me driving and stops by several times to check in on me. I pull it together enough to convince her that I'm okay to drive. I am ashamed of what I've done to my mom. She made it so far in life in one piece, and I am the one who finally broke her.

Mia is guarded and out of words; she doesn't make eye contact with me anymore—done with our relationship. I don't blame her.

# A Leonard Cohen Afterworld

On a Wednesday, I drive through farm country, small towns and windmills—fading, sweating, wrenching, withdrawing through the slow hours. I take four Klonopin from a full bottle hidden under the seat; they don't do much. My ears are ringing; chest is shooting down my arm. Food comes right back up and out. I need a pint to take this pain, maybe stop the shaking. _I'm almost there, I can do this._

Two miles from Dove Ranch, I stop at a liquor store and buy a fifth of Smirnoff red and a Diet Coke. I gulp the entire 750ml of vodka, crunch a handful of Klonopin and sip the Diet Coke.

An hour later, I swerve through a shrub into the parking lot of Dove Ranch Treatment Center—in the middle of a sorghum field. _Did I sideswipe those cars? I felt something slow me down_ —going in and out of consciousness.

My limbs are cold and swollen. I open the door, flop out on dead weight and collapse to the ground. I'm hit with the stench of manure, feedlot country. It makes me heave, but it's the last of my vodka—so, I swallow it again _and..._ _I can smell_ country- _vomit and stars... there are so many stars..._

_The lights are all still on in the Dove Ranch_ Lodge _. Music coming from inside is muffled, a Leonard Cohen song, "Famous Blue Raincoat," I walk_ to _the heavy wooden doors and knock loudly, no one answers—singing along, I pull with everything I have. My head is woozy from the effort. I am, at last, ready to surrender my body to be fixed; it is of no use to me anymore. I have to give myself over to serenity._

The lobby is blinding of bright white light. I can make out a silhouetted woman in a close-fitting black dress, gradually coming into focus. She is holding a glass of red wine against the angle of her slender torso. I lock on to her slowing sexy gaze, and she touches my arm. I'm floating.

" _You look beautiful in that dress," I say._

She says nothing.

" _Why are you here Mia?" I can barely hear myself._

_She smiles and takes my hand—we walk past the patients and therapists clinking their vodka tonics. I wave to Ian—_ th _e life of the party. We walk through the birth of our children, falling from the waterfall, running through plate glass, my death on a white beach, the stories are flowing in and out across time, and she is there to experience them with me._ She is back.

 A brain zap is a jolt of energy that makes me jump up like someone attached jumper cables to my ears.

 It was really day six that I stopped crapping my pants.

 A rehab that you go to every night, but you don't sleep there. This place his great. I don't really hate them.

 I was positive this was a heart attack. Panic attacks are brutal.

 Kill. I probably didn't need this endnote.

 My favorite book.

 Art of Shaving razors are the best.

 This is more common than you would imagine.

 _Dry_ by Augusten Burroughs. He is my drunken literary hero. It was a struggle not to bite any of his stuff for this book. Any similarities are just because that's what rehab is really like. He did talk about cologne and belts; it's common and obvious. Only Bukowski is more of a drunken hero.

 Calories 360, Carbs 22gm, Fat 52gm, Saturated Fat 16gm, Sodium, 860mg.

 Brand name for Alazopram. Good stuff.

 I use italics incessantly, for emphasis, parenthesis, quotes, no reason. Deal.

 She really yawns, but I like to say hiccups, because it pisses her off.

 Total Fat 22 g, Saturated fat 8 g, Cholesterol 98 mg, Sodium 993 m.

 Personality disorder manifesting itself in antisocial attitudes and a lack of conscience.

 Showtime series about a serial killer.

 Comes from the Kiowan language.

 Very high-end treatment center in Malibu.

 Dead Man.

 Adhesions are internal scars that form because of surgery, second only to cancer as a cause of potentially fatal bowel obstructions.

 Calories 301, Carbs 15gm, Fat 2gm, Saturated Fat 1gm, Sodium, 106mg.

 A Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that was developed to treat chronically suicidal individuals with borderline personality disorder.

 Source: Rising Strong by Brené Brown

 Anti-seizure medication.

 Where the girls smoke.

 Mental note: Google "Carly Skinemax."

 If this sounds familiar, it's cause Gigi Cestone said it the "He Has Risen" episode of The Sopranos. I'm gonna watch some Sopranos right now. RIP Tony.

 Something that promotes the urge to relapse.

 Calories 630, Carbs 54gm, Fat 32gm, Saturated Fat 12gm, Sodium, 457mg.

 Opioid that can treat severe pain. High risk for addiction and dependence.

 Cost for a drug screening. You pee in a plastic cup that costs $10 at CVS.

 I'm not sure if I already said this, but "newbs" are patients fresh out of the tank. Fuck off if I already did.

 Vince Neil of Mötley Crüe went to the same Arizona rehab I did. As did Aerosmith.

 http://tinyurl.com/classicvan79

 The cruddy end bits of a large bag of weed.

 Anything banned from the facility.

 Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World by Christopher McDougall. I have enough free time to read one book every two days in rehab. In eight visits, that's like half the Western literary canon.

 Goofy British comedian from The Office series and bad movies.

 Her real name is Tanya Harper. She lives on 1723 East Barrow Street in Houston, TX.

 The costs of a DWI conviction in Texas can range from $5,000 to $24,000 for a first-time offense.

 Sophia is back with her husband and children in Mexico. She and her husband are working on their relationship.

 High on something.

 A cymbal.

 She shits in his mouth.

 Necessary Fight Club reference.

 Scrub search is a search of clothes, whereas a skin search is a search of the skin.

 This unsupervised nonsense would never fly in a luxury treatment facility like Catalina Recovery. The client to staff ratio in Dallas is 12 to 1, at Catalina Recovery the ratio is 2 to 1. Two staff members for every one patient—we pay for more attention from staff members.

 Heroin is an opioid.

 I'm shocked women don't run away. Some of them buy this crap, but then, they are in rehab for good reason.

 Malcolm's wife left him, he went back out—using IV meth.

 Crack

 Yayo is Scarface for Cocaine.

 A type of biofeedback that uses real-time displays of brain activity.

 I'm not sure if I was cheating.

 A car bomb is whiskey poured over Irish cream in a shot glass, the shot glass dropped into a glass of Guinness and drunk quickly as the cream will cause it to curdle within a short time.

 A sailboat purchased with my friend Ian.

 I found my dog and a wife.

 A paradoxical anecdote or riddle, from Zen Buddhism.

 Angel dust.

 Same thing for back taxes.

 Southwestern meth.

 Sikhs are the disciples of God who follow the writings and teachings of the Ten Sikh Gurus.

 Turban.

 The one from _Apocalypse Now_.

 Mata is floating in a breeze somewhere across the Southwest.

 A book by S.E. Hinton and movie starring the brat pack about teen gang in rural Oklahoma, the Greasers are perpetually at odds with the Socials, a rival group.

 Ponyboy stayed gold and Morgan is a Sports Illustrated model.

 A prayer often recited at the end or beginning of an AA meeting. Witten by Reinhold Niebuhr.

 People in early recovery crave candy to replace all the calories they were getting from alcohol.

 It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.

 Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a mental health condition triggered by experiencing or seeing a terrifying event.

 I would not be the moron who sneaks up on a panicking Army Ranger, with combat experience, in the middle of the night.

 1967 American prison film directed by Stuart Rosenberg, starring Paul Newman and featuring George Kennedy.

 I use it to write the second half of my book.

 He's an actor who has been in a lot of movies and currently has a network TV series, here under an assumed name. I knew him from some of my favorite movies, he just looked different in rehab.

 His choice not mine.

 I didn't.

 The nearest Mexican town. Three-and-a-half-hour dive from Austin.

 Blind Willie went to prison for shooting at someone on "his property."

 I liked to play _Lover You Should've Come Over_ by Jeff Buckley, until it was ruined by Natalie Maines.

 Co-Dependents Anonymous. Codependency is funny, there are a million jokes to be had there.

 In Buddhism, Dharma means "cosmic law and order," but is also applied to the teachings of the Buddha. I like Buddha because he is not a God, he was just a man, like Ghandi, like Jesus (before organized religion got a hold of his story.)

 It turns out the bartender was right; it was Gene Hackman in The French Connection.

 EMDR uses bilateral stimulation to simulate REM sleep—seems to have a direct effect on how the brain processes information. After a successful EMDR treatment program, a person no longer relives the images, sounds, and feelings related to the traumatic event. A patient can still remember what happened, but it's less upsetting. Did I already say this? My medication gives me the memory of a goldfish.

 Go watch, _When a Man Loves a Woman._ It's a little slow, but familiar, not like that crap fest _28 days._

 The women are _all_ vulnerable.

 Bree is now clean and living with her... No wait, this is MY book. Bree got hit by a train.

 If you don't know this quote, _you are an asshole._

 He was here. Sex Addict...shhhh.

 Erik is currently in a treatment center in California, smoking Kush. Sup Erik!

 This may be my favorite line in this book.

 Sober living homes are group homes for people who are recovering from addiction issues. People who live in sober homes have to follow certain rules and contribute to the home by doing chores. Most importantly, residents must stay sober throughout their stay in the home. Source: rehabs.com

 The Bradley Method teaches natural childbirth and views birth as a natural process. It is our belief that most women with proper education, preparation, and the help of a loving and supportive coach can be taught to give birth naturally. Source: bradleybirth.com

 Erik Estrada, only the coolest man that has ever lived.

 Seriously? If you had to look at this footnote you are sad. GODFATHER!

 She is asking me a question I can't help her with. 'Why did I do it?' That question has ruined a lot of lives in this place.

 I may have made up these statistics.

 Catholic

 Einstein explained: "The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It will have to transcend a personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Encompassing both the natural and the spiritual, it will have to be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, considered as a meaningful unity. . .. Buddhism answers this description..."

 Man Men

 Calories 75, Carbs 6gm, Fat 0gm, Saturated Fat 0gm, Sodium, 250mg.

# Afterword

My eyes crack to slits. It's bright. I'm alone.

I see modern furniture with a window on one side spanning the entire width of the room. The blinds are all the way up, letting in sunny day. In front of the window sits a square couch, blue leather with orange and white throw pillows. There's a white end table with an arrangement of tulips tucked into a blue urn. Near the bed sits a black leather recliner—cabinets are everywhere, wood paneled, laminated, but with proper lamination—the kind that looks like real wood. This room is too nice for a rehab.

I'm reclined in a bed with bars on the sides and a control near my right hand to make adjustments. There's an Aeron office chair in front of a computer workstation with medical devices surrounding. A flat screen TV mounted on the wall in front of me has ESPN turned on with the volume muted. _I read the news scroll; I missed the NCAA national championship game, but my team won._

A woman enters the room wearing pink scrubs and orange Crocs—the rubber shoes chefs wear. Her sandy blonde hair is pulled back into a ponytail that makes her young at heart, with a bundle of hair ties around the wrist. She has a warm smile, an aura of kindness.

My body hurts, my legs are stiff, the corner of my mouth is cracked and sore. There's an IV running into my arm from a hanging bag that reads _0.9% Sodium Chloride_. I don't feel up to moving, but I'm alive.

"There you are, we thought we'd lost you last night," she says. "You're going to be a little sore. We had to perform gastric suction on you."

"Huh?"

"We pumped your stomach," she says. "You are going to feel some soreness in your esophagus today. My name is Nurse Hellen." She speaks her name slowly as she writes it on a whiteboard in pink marker. She draws a smiley face above her name and dots it with orange eyes. I'm comforted by the grade school reminiscent moment.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Someone found you in the parking lot at Dove Ranch last night. You were barely responsive when the ambulance brought you in. Your blood alcohol was .21, and your labs showed a high level of benzodiazepine. You are lucky they found you when they did."

I stare at the television, listening, processing.

"You were not having it last night," Nurse Hellen laughs, "you called the doctor 'RA Jon' and said you wanted to kill his dog. Do you remember that?"

I shake my head no, I didn't remember. I only remember a liquor store and Mia in that black dress.

"Your family is waiting to see you," she smiles again, "you think you're ready for visitors?

"Who's out there?" I ask.

"I believe it's your wife, and kids and maybe your parents?"

My eyes well up. "Yes."

Worth

An employee found me in the parking lot and called an ambulance. Dove Ranch phoned Mia, who flew in that morning with my parents and the children. They were all at the hospital. I was overwhelmed.

Released from the hospital after three days, I started treatment at Dove Ranch. This time, I _failed_ my psychological evaluation, because I was honest. For the first time, I could see Ian for what he really was; it was time to let go of him for good. Ian and I exchanged goodbyes. I thanked him for being there when I thought I needed him and explained that our friendship was killing me.

I wrote Mia and the kids on a daily basis while at Dove Ranch—letters, not emails. My focus was on making a spiritual connection and letting go of control—the weight was finally lifted when I accepted that I didn't have to do it on my own. Near the end of my treatment, Mia came back to Dove Ranch for family week. That's when our relationship started to change.

We went through three days of counseling together and began to open up to each other. By the end of the weekend, we were considering the possibility of a future together. After 45 days, I completed my treatment at Dove Ranch and moved back home with my family.

Nothing is easy; it never will be. I'm not fixed. When I become complacent in my addiction, I've already begun to emotionally relapse. I'll always be an alcoholic. My addiction will progress whether I'm active in it or not; and, if I relapse, Ian will be there waiting for me, in the next room doing push-ups, stronger than ever. I have to stay vigilant to avoid another relapse—go to my meetings, maintain spirituality, and work the 12 steps. I have to process my resentments and my fears on a daily basis, so they don't take control again. I'm currently not active in any organized religion, but I've found spirituality in myself, my relationships, and the universe. Each morning, I meditate to set my intentions for the day. Each night before bed, I review my day to process new resentments and my role in them. This is part of my spiritual maintenance. I've finally figured out how to start letting go of suffering.

I strive each day to act without judgment, observing my emotions, recognizing the impermanence of everything to experience each moment with my full attention. There are many people with whom I must make amends, but I am ready. I must work to live lovingkindness in every aspect of my life—I owe it to my family and to myself. Somebody thought I was worth saving.

The flowers know not of ugliness or beauty, they simply are.

Somebody said this... or they should have.

