SearchI recently spent five days in a detoxification facility. I have been consuming way too much alcohol for many years and the time had come to put a stop to the situation, so I did the voluntary check-in through my doctor.
I was requested to present at the facility at 8 AM Monday morning, which I duly did, and then I waited for almost an hour before I was started through the processing and admission procedures. This involved a lot of questions, including why I had come to the facility – what had prompted me to go there – what I hoped to gain from my attendance, and what I saw as my direction after I completed my time there. I was required to undergo a breath test for blood/alcohol content, and was also asked when I had last consumed alcohol [last night, and the breath test was zero]. Following all of this – about 90 minutes worth of valuable time – I was shown my assigned room and given a brief tour of the place.
Essentially, there was an area outdoors, but fenced off, obviously not intended to be escape-proof as there was a gate in the fence that had a latch, but no visible lock on it. However, I would be prepared to bet that the gate is alarmed. There is also a television viewing area that doubles as a lounge and an area for “community meetings”, and a kitchen/dining area. Apart from the bedrooms, bathrooms, and laundry, there were also the administration, interview, examination, and observation rooms. All rooms and corridors except for the bedrooms and bathrooms [which includes the laundry] are under closed-circuit security observation, monitored 24/7 in the observation room.
There were three others in this facility, all left-over from the previous week, and all women. One, whose name eludes my memory, was just waiting for her husband to collect her, and she departed soon after I arrived and was introduced to these ladies. That left Vahree and Teigan.
I wandered into the kitchen area where these two were standing and talking to one another, and Vahree asked me “What’s your poison?”. I wondered whether she was offering to make me a coffee when she clarified her question; “What are you in here for? I’m in for alcohol, and Teigan’s in for just about everything.”
Not a bad ice-breaker, now that I reflect upon it.
Vahree had a bubbly personality, and is the sort of woman who would make friends anywhere she went. Teigan was much less inclined to talk, so I didn’t know exactly how to handle her. I decided to wait and see what she would reveal of her personality, if anything. Over the next three days, new people started arriving, and Vharee departed on Tuesday afternoon – seems that Teigan had attached to Vharee as a mentor, and staff had asked Vharee to stay on until another mentor figure checked in.
The unit has beds for twelve inmates, in any numerical combination of males and females, and there were five females and seven males there when I was there. They were:
Teigan, about one-eighth portion aboriginal, 26 years of age
Michelle, about 35 to 40 years, became Teigan’s new mentor, in for drug use
Amie, maybe 30 years, turned out to be in the early stages of pregnancy, drug use
Marie, perhaps 50 years, don’t know her problem, she was mostly either in her bed or in the television room in pyjamas and dressing gown, accompanied by her doona wherever she happened to be
Rose, in her 40s, alcohol
Damian, about 35, in for alcohol, but he had a dark secret which came out in less than 24 hours
Mic [probably for “Michael”], a violent alcoholic when intoxicated, in by court order
John, a full-blood aboriginal, maybe 50, self-admitted for alcohol problems
Tom, at least sixty-five years, alcohol, he left early and was not replaced
Two others [I’ll explain later]
Me, alcohol
There had been another male in with us, but he broke one of the rules and was ejected from the program, his place being taken by John.
Teigan, about one-eighth portion aboriginal, 26 years of age
Michelle, about 35 to 40 years, became Teigan’s new mentor, in for drug use
Amie, maybe 30 years, turned out to be in the early stages of pregnancy, drug use
Marie, perhaps 50 years, don’t know her problem, she was mostly either in her bed or in the television room in pyjamas and dressing gown, accompanied by her doona wherever she happened to be
Rose, in her 40s, alcohol
Damian, about 35, in for alcohol, but he had a dark secret which came out in less than 24 hours
Mic [probably for “Michael”], a violent alcoholic when intoxicated, in by court order
John, a full-blood aboriginal, maybe 50, self-admitted for alcohol problems
Tom, at least sixty-five years, alcohol, he left early and was not replaced
Two others [I’ll explain later]
Me, alcohol
There had been another male in with us, but he broke one of the rules and was ejected from the program, his place being taken by John.
So there’s our little coven.
I had no idea of what to expect, so I waited to see what would happen. I waited a long time and not a lot happened. I wandered the three main areas for the inmates, and eventually, a meeting was assembled in the lounge area. The purpose was to ensure that those of us who were there were aware of the rules and the penalties. Penalties were either a warning or ejection from the program. For those there because they had been ordered to attend by a court, ejection from the program meant imprisonment, no appeals.
Rules include:
Absolutely no smoking
No refusing checks – blood samples, urine samples, breath alcohol test
No contraband [tobacco, alcohol, drugs of any kind, etc], and that includes cigarette lighters
No exiting the facility without permission and staff supervision
No electronic devices of any kind, including phones
No CDs, DVDs, computer diskettes
No direct contact with people outside the facility
No visitors
No sexual liaisons or intimate behaviour
Probably plenty more that I can’t remember, like settling at night at a reasonable time, etc.
Absolutely no smoking
No refusing checks – blood samples, urine samples, breath alcohol test
No contraband [tobacco, alcohol, drugs of any kind, etc], and that includes cigarette lighters
No exiting the facility without permission and staff supervision
No electronic devices of any kind, including phones
No CDs, DVDs, computer diskettes
No direct contact with people outside the facility
No visitors
No sexual liaisons or intimate behaviour
Probably plenty more that I can’t remember, like settling at night at a reasonable time, etc.
The worst of these rules for most of the inmates was the no-smoking rule; I was one of the two non-smokers in our group, so I had no problems with it. At the change of the nursing staff shift in the morning, the smokers were lined up, even fighting for position in the wait for the hand-out of the nicotine replacement patches and gum. Amie always got the first patch without having to wait in line. I thought of this queue as the “cattle-crush”. About thirty minutes after this event, the right drugs were coursing through the blood of the nicotine addicts, and they would appear in the dining area for their breakfasts. There was quite a choice, but it was all self-served by the inmates; cereals, fruit, toast, yoghurt, etc.
Entertainment was light on the ground. There is the TV, but there can only be one channel watched at a time, and that has to be a consensus decision. Mostly, the consensus was not what I would watch, so I stayed away from the TV. There was an old computer sitting in one corner of the dining room, and it had the standard Windows 2000 suite of games plus another card game called euchre. That’s OK for a short period of interest but that interest soon wanes with the mindlessness of it all. Then, of course, there were the books, all donated. Donated because they were all very ordinary and uninteresting. In fact, the breakfast selection was better than the book selection. However, on the Tuesday, Tom left a book there which I pounced upon the moment I saw him place it in the “library”.
It was “The Bear and the Dragon” by Tom Clancy. The book itself is a hardcover edition and appears to be a first edition.
I have long been a fan of the writings of Tom Clancy; he writes excellent stories, some of which have made it to the big screen.
Unfortunately, I have to limit the time that I read because of my need to have my eyes re-examined by the eye doc. I’ll almost certainly need a new script. If I read too long, I get headaches.
.....
Michelle had brought in some entertainment for herself in the form of one of the glossy gossip-and-picture magazines, and this happened to have a puzzle contest in it. For those who have never seen this, there are about 25 different puzzles in the puzzle section, and on the back page of that section is a place to write something that you get from solving each of the puzzles. When the back page is complete, you tear it out, fill in the coupon with your name and address, and send it away. Prizes vary from a car to a variety of amounts of cash to a set of coloured pencils. Michelle lamented that she could never complete the solutions page, and that didn’t surprise me at all, but I bravely told her that I was capable of completing them all, no matter their level of difficulty. “No shit?” was her reply. I assured her that I was speaking truthfully. She handed the magazine to me and told me to do my worst – or words to that effect. What the hell, it’s a mental diversion and a challenge, I thought to myself. I saw the opportunity to chase away the ennui that pervades that place, at least for a few hours. That was about 3 PM on Tuesday.
I had solved all but one of the puzzles by about 5 PM, and was looking at a Sudoku, a type of puzzle that I had never attempted before. Fortunately, the rules are simple, even if there is a bit of complexity in the solving of the puzzle. I now know how to solve Sudoku. I went to bed that night with a feeling of satisfaction mixed with relief – satisfied that I had solved all of the puzzles, and relieved that I would not have to recant my assertion that I could solve them all.
I presented the magazine to Michelle the following morning as she arrived for breakfast, and she forgot all about eating, suddenly feeling the urge to pester the staff for an envelope and stamps. She stated that she had never before, in all of her life, seen one of these puzzle answer pages completed. I thought that it would possibly be the last one that she would ever see, but didn’t share my observation. I hope she wins something with what I gave her.
Tuesday morning, the blood-lady presented, and I was one of the inmates scheduled for a blood sample/test. The other guy who was supposed to supply blood refused to allow the lady to take a sample of his blood, and for that, he got ejected. He was there on a court order, so he would have gone straight to prison without passing GO and without collecting $200.
I hate getting the spike in my arm; I was in hospital about 4 years ago and they wanted to put in a cannula. The nurse had 6 tries and then called for the nurse who was really good at inserting cannulae, and she got it right on her second shot. My arms and wrists are not good places for me to give blood, so I told her to take the blood from my foot. She did, and everyone was happy.
I don’t think it possible to overstate just how boring this place is for an inmate. The computer games don’t hold my interest very long, and after about 15 minutes, I have to get up and walk away. Little on the TV interests me both at home and in this facility. There was only Tom’s book.
Rose has been an alcoholic for a long time, and had been using Antabuse, which causes the body to react violently to contact with alcohol. This drug is persistent for at least a week after the user stops taking it, sometimes persisting for up to 3 weeks, so Rose must have planned to fall off the wagon, and she ended right back at the start of the cleaning-out process; rehabilitation. She is a somewhat quiet lady, but seemed very pleasant.
Damian had been arrested for drink-driving and had gone on a few weeks bender after that happened. When his case was heard, the magistrate ordered that he attend alcohol detoxification. The stupid thing about that is that alcohol was not Damian’s peccadillo. His drink-drive and subsequent bender was an aberration, a once-only event, but he was ordered into this facility for alcohol abuse. Staff discovered soon after his admission that he was not an alcoholic, he was addicted to heroin. I don’t know what meds he was being given, but he slept about 22 hours per day, arising in the evening for a few hours and feeding himself, talking with other inmates, then shuffling off to the examination rooms to get his meds, and then back to his bed.
During one of his times of awakening, comment was made about his girlfriend phoning every day to check on his condition, and passing on words of encouragement. I don’t recall how the conversation got turned this way, but Damian claimed that this was his first girlfriend ever. Michelle found that a hard one to swallow, but in a truly believable explanation, Damian explained that he had been too much in love with his heroin addiction to even consider having a woman in his life until he had met this woman. She must be truly remarkable.
Mic, while he was in for alcohol, admitted to me that he used recreational drugs, hinting that he knew a lot about most illegal drugs and where they were to be found. The day that he arrived, there was a major police operation on drug producers/distributors. While I was at the computer, Mic and the two others were sitting at the dining table right next to me discussing this. They all seemed to think that the crooked cops were going to be an unhappy lot, and started to speculate about where the new drug distribution points were going to be located. As their conversation went on, they used terms that I did not understand, and it became a foreign language to me. I abandoned the computer and went in search of something to capture and hold my interest a bit better.
One of the two others managed to smuggle in some cigarettes and a lighter, and lit up in the outdoor enclosure. He was spotted on the CCTV, and earned himself a warning; one more breach and he would have been out. The contraband was confiscated.
Never a dull moment!
.....
I have read “The Bear and the Dragon” before, that’s how I know that it is such a terrific piece of wordsmanship, but despite this, I was prepared to read it again. The hardback edition is 1028 pages, so I was never going to cover it in a week with my eyes being the limiting factor, so I took it with me when I departed the facility.
On Thursday evening, I decided that I wanted out, no matter what I had to do to get out. Staff had given me a list of options, but I knew, deep within my consciousness, that I could not trust myself to abstain from alcohol. In all probability, I would pour myself a drink the moment I got to the refrigerator in my house. If I did that, I would need to do the time in detox all over again, and that was the last thing that I wanted – another five days of incredible boredom. I just can’t sufficiently describe the mindless boredom of that place.
The following day, I made it known to the nursing staff that I wanted to talk to someone about my options, and I was promised a hearing. I also met Fred, a male nurse.
Fred calls a spade a spade. He is a man who takes no nonsense from anyone, and he called a meeting of the community to make sure that everyone was aware of his attitudes and what they could expect from him. He considered most breaches of the rules to be an excuse for him to eject the offender[s]. He stated that he would be taking people on a walk that morning and another that afternoon. Anyone was welcome to go on the walk, but they were to stay within his sight, and should not use the walk as an opportunity to collect cigarette butts from the ground for later use. I walked; it was a way of escaping the “house of boredom”, even if it was only a temporary escape. I missed the afternoon walk as I was expecting the consulting doctor to attend to my discharge from this place of my sorrow. The doctor arrived a little after 3 PM, and we talked.
I explained to him my lack of trust in myself, and asked him for Antabuse, noting that if I knew that it would make me violently ill, I would be able to refrain from the consumption of alcohol. I also commented that if I was tempted to stop taking the medication, its persistence would give me about a week to come to my senses and return to the medication. The doctor agreed with my thinking, wrote the script, and authorised my discharge.
Two days after my discharge, I returned to the facility with a heap of books. Books more suitable for the place; books that were small enough to be read in a few days, and had good stories. Call it a repayment for the book that I took, just more suitable currency.
I sat down with one of the nurses and we discussed my situation. I would truly be happier if I could return to my old ways, but I have certain responsibilities that I must face, and I can’t continue to drink and take care of those responsibilities.
I’ll stay away from the alcohol, but I don’t have to like it.
But I must thank the two Toms. Tom Clancy for his writings, and Tom, my fellow inmate for a few days, for leaving the book for me to read and helping me keep my sanity.
Thanks, Tom.
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July 5, 2009, 20:17
I also did the rehab thing back in the 80's. It was mostly a brain wash consisting of 10 hours of group therapy every day for 2 months. I got out and started using again as all the others that i knew did. I admire what AA can do for some, but, it did not work for me. I stopped using cocaine on august 1st 1989. I had to do it by myself. I still drink and smoke on occasion. I think that a person needs to go cold turkey for at least 2 years. Then, if you want to drink again it might be possible, but you have to control yourself diligently. I think a 2 year abstinence is a minimum. Good luck to you. From the way you write, I think you have the intelligence and the will to do it.