Rehab

Max: I'm too nostalgic.  I'll admit it. 

Skippy: We graduated four months ago.  What can you possibly be nostalgic for? 

Max: I'm nostalgic for conversations I had yesterday.  I've begun reminiscing events before they even occur.  I'm reminiscing this right now.  I can't go to the bar because I've already looked back on it in my memory...and I didn't have a good time. 

                                                                           From Kicking and Screaming, 1995

*

I miss rehab.

It's hard to explain, unless you've been, what I'd miss about it.  From the outside, it probably doesn't seem like all that much fun.  For one, you're locked down, as in "can't leave unless someone let's you out."  You bunk in these cramped little rooms, like extra small dormitories at a really shitty school with smelly carpeting.  The food stinks.  The company ain't so hot.  Unless you consider being surrounded by twitching junkies, rummy alkies, and blister-lipped crackheads the In Crowd. You're treated like a child; you have to ask permission to do most everything.  Each morning you get woken up at 5 a.m. to have your vitals taken.  There are timers on the showers.  You spend 10 hours a day in groups about proper nutrition and relapse prevention, as if the Hobo Grille takes reservations and your chances of success are better than 1 in a 100 (they don't, and they're not).  Yet, I really miss it sometimes.

It'd be nice not to have to do anything again, y'know?  Just wake up, hit the smoking porch, mack on the pretty girls.  No future.  No worries.  Lighting up cigarette after cigarette, watching time methodically evaporate with the carcinogenic fumes...

*

It's strange the things we can get nostalgic for.  I was running with Rich on Saturday, talking about when we lived with George Murphy in this dumpy little apartment on Fair Oaks back in 19aught92.  Rich said, "We didn't know how good we had it."  And there was something to being 23 and free; being able to do whatever the fuck you wanted, no mortgage, no divorces, no time-sucking jobs or relationships, no nagging age-related issues like swelling prostates, hair in unwanted places, or busted hips.  Never mind that nothing much ever happened; that George and I hated each other; that Rich was stuck working a shit job at Guitar Center; that no one was getting laid with any regularity except me, and the girl I was sleeping with was an ex from hell who wouldn't go away, like a case of the herpes or a particularly stubborn foot fungus.  Forget that I was drinking too much, doing too many drugs, lost in a big city, lacking any semblance of direction.  It was a good time.  Because it wasn't now, and "not now" somehow always manages to produce favorable review.

How can it not?  In addiction they call it "euphoric recall."  Which is the way an addict mollies the unpleasant parts.  A dangerous proposition for anyone trying to get straight.  Hence the reason relapse rates are so high.  Sitting in a church basement, nursing tepid, stale coffee with powdered creamer that won't sink no matter how hard you push, you don't remember what it actually felt like having the cops pick you up or the time your baby girl saw you led out in handcuffs in the middle of the night; you don't remember fishing the cigarette butts from the bottom of the beer bottles in the morning or shitting yourself trying to make it back up the hill for your wake-up fix or any of the other dehumanizing, disgusting, despicable, deplorable alliterative actions.  Or maybe you remember the bad parts.  You just can't feel them.  And so when they roll around your head, they tumble out, lighter and less significant than the rest, those "good times," which your conscious gloms onto like sticky sweet candy, because, hey, everyone likes to feel good.  So you're back out the door running.

Working on resending this memoir, I've been rereading it (obviously), and the parts about rehab stand out.  There's a fondness there, a warm, summer-y nostalgia. Christ, spent enough time in them.  20 at last count.

In a lot of ways, rehab is like Club Med.  Minus the goofy synchronized dance numbers.  You have to appreciate where I was coming from, the life I was leaving behind (temporarily).  Yeah, the food stinks in rehab--compared to what I'm eating today (freshly grilled hanger steak on my indoor BBQ)--but back then, I was eating from vats of oatmeal at the soup kitchen, the soupy bits of discarded gutter burrito bottoms.  And those were on the good days.  Plenty of meals were skipped.  You're not walking across town just to eat.  You'll walk 87 blocks in the snow for dope. But food?  Meh.*  

(* A good analogy I once heard about the lengths required to get clean.  

Counselor: "You know how you'll trudge for six hours, through three towns, in the middle of a monsoon, without shoes, sick, hungry, tired, to get your dope?

Group: [Nodding enthusiastically]

Counselor: "Well, you have to be willing to go to those same lengths for your sobriety."

Group: [Staring silently]

Fat Bob: "What the fuck is he talking about?")

Rehab was a safe haven, a respite, a time out from the daily grief.  It was never intended to be a permanent solution (at least not in the beginning).  You went from freezing your ass off during rainy season, fishing through the garbage for a piece of pie crust, to being indoors, warm and having a fresh pair of socks.  You had your own room and access to a shower (albeit timed to discourage suicide and/or incessant masturbation), a TV, friends who weren't going to jump you in the middle of the night and steal your stash (at least most of the rehabs I was in; the ones in Boston got pretty rough).  It was almost worth the trade-off.

Almost.  

It was a big fucking trade-off.  Namely, not having any drugs.  I shouldn't say "any," because most--though not all--rehabs usually gave you a little something to take the edge off.  Methadone.  Buprenorphine.  Something.  

Some places, however, were hard-asses.  Withdrawing from alcohol can kill you, so they'll always make sure you're medicated.  You won't die from withdrawing from opiates.  You just wish you would.

Rehab was a vacation from your real life.  Like addiction itself, it created strange bedfellows (often quite literally).  You spend most of your days on the inside in groups.  And you make fun of them on the smoking porch, the touchy feely-ness of it all (yet another run-through of the food pyramid and the importance of whole grains and fiber in your diet!), because being a goofball, mocking the sincerity of others is always an easy mark.  Like the smart ass in high school biology staging fake fights with the dissected frogs.  The burnouts sit in the back and make fun of anyone taking it seriously; it's what they do.  But it's all a process.  

Each time I returned, I sat closer to the front.  Each time I went back, I learned better the jokers to avoid, to take it a little more to heart.  I can see now that each trip was a vital step toward getting well, how they were helping me before I even knew it, finding a way to penetrate this thick skull of mine, getting me to this place I am today.  Even in the beginning when I was treating it like a joke, there was that little part of me, the part that was still good, honest, decent, that saw a light, a way out. And later, when I dug in my heels, it was still without real-world consequence.  A state of suspension.  Just 24 hours a day where you got to work on...you.  When else do you get months, uninterrupted, to do that?   

Then again, I sometimes think I even miss high school, even though I know for a fact that it sucked balls.  Maybe I could just look up some former rehab mates on Facebook, rehash the past, post some goofy videos.

  

None of which would change anything.  Like any reminiscing, it isn't the moment you really miss; it's the time, a longing to get back and visit that younger you. Which is never possible.  Thankfully.  Since there is no way reality could stand up the to recollection.

They Don't Know Nothing about Recovery

When I was in Miami, I had a band, briefly.  We never got around to even naming the damn thing, that's how short we were together.  But we didn't sound half bad.  It was my first band since climbing on that wagon.  This was one of the songs we covered.

It's a pretty standard take on the classic junkie tale, but it has a catchy beat and clever lyrics, and I love the energy and pop/punkish qualities.  I especially like the chorus:

                       They don't know nothing about redemption /
                       They don't know nothing about recovery...

I really hate the term "recovery" (recovering from what?  Cancer?  Being a dumbass?  From having dug yourself a hole and climbing out?).  But here, for whatever reason, I embrace it.  Maybe it's singer Tom Gabel's impassioned delivery, the way he makes it seem like he owns the word, like there's some real urgency behind it.  Usually, the word feels like a wet noodle, an all-encompassing, perfunctory catchphrase for a new healthy and positive club that's replaced the old unhealthy and negative one.  I never felt part of that club.  I have certainly used the expression, but I always feel like a phony when I do, like a devout atheist attending Midnight Mass to make his new mother-in-law happy, or wearing vintage '80s T-shirts with ironical facial hair.

The Litquake festival http://www.litquake.org/ is underway in San Francisco, 8 whole days where it truly feels like books and writing matter.  My reading series, Lip Service West, will be part of the Lit Crawl this Saturday.  I'm sure I will be bombarding you all with more details in the coming days.

It's hard to get out to readings these days.  Finding babysitting for my own gig (and, yes, I will be reading at the LSW event, though I still don't have any idea what) was tough enough.  With Justine in grad school and working extra shows as a faerie, finding a babysitter to buy a couple hours so I can go to someone else's reading is too much work.  But I wanted to go to tonight's event.

Tom Pitts, ex-junkie and former running partner (who will also be reading this Saturday night for LSW), called me the other day and asked me if I wanted to go. I don't leave the house for many people; I'll leave it for Tom.  "Re Write: An Evening of Prose from Writers in Recovery" did seem pretty apropos.  Plus, the night was being sponsored by several publishers who specialize in the field of the junkie memoir.  I figured I'd...schmooze.

And of course I didn't schmooze.  Because I am a social retard.  The world of addiction and recovery is pretty incestuous; everyone knows everyone, especially when a lot of the smarter addicts and drunks who kick the habit turn to writing about it.  I am friends, or at least acquainted, with many of the readers who read last night.  Like Wendy Merrill, who has read for Lip Service West in the past, and the always hilarious Bucky Sinister, who I've met a half dozen times, but who like Jim Hall, still has no idea who I am (http://tinyurl.com/43hxr6u).  Tim Elhaji also read.  I never met him, but Tim recently published one of Tom's stories.  Unfortunately, I missed his reading, which I hear was excellent, because Holden wouldn't let me pass him off to the babysitter, clinging to me, little tears filling his eyes, crying Da Da...  What kind of heartless bastard isn't melting over that?  Cutest goddamn thing the way he'll hold onto you when he wants you (conversely, there are many times when Mama is holding him when he'll just push me away).

There were a few more readers I didn't know, but the evening closed with my friend Alan Kaufman (who may not have recognized me either.  I think I need to get out more).  Alan's new memoir Drunken Angel comes out in November.  Alan is one of the most gracious writers I know, and was kind enough to blurb my memoir, Junkie Love.  The guy has repeatedly gone out of his way to help my career, and if something ever breaks for me, I will owe him a great deal.  The very least I can do is plug his first memoir Jew Boy and his remarkable (fictional) account of his days in the Israeli Army, Matches.  The mutherfucker can flat out write.

The memoir--my memoir--was why I was there, in part.  I mean, I wanted to hear Alan, and it was nice to actually go out at night with a friend, even if it was just to a reading.  But I, too, have a memoir, and a career I want, and I was hoping to meet...someone.

But the shit really depressed the fuck out of me.  And I didn't have the heart to schmooze.

And I think it's that goddamn word.  Recovery.

All the writers drew heavily on AA rhetoric and dogma in their respective pieces. There was a time when I would bash AA any chance I could, mocking their reliance on a Higher Power, their subjection to the group/mob mentality.  It took me 18 rehabs before I got clean; and every time Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob were shoved down my throat, I revolted like this Bruce Springsteen song.

When they said sit down, I stood up.  (Which actually makes controlling me exceptionally easy.)

Every time I'd come back through those hospital doors, a little older, more beat up and ragged, missing shoes, no jacket in the dead of winter, a new court case hanging over my head, some new girl driving me nuts, blisters lining my lips, giant sores on my face that I tried covering up with pancake makeup, they'd say, I told you so.

"When are you going to realize, Joe, you can't beat this thing through will power alone?  When are you going to realize there is only one way out and that you can't do it on your own?"

Except I did do it on my own.  Took a fucklot of time.  But I dug in my heels and I did it...

I was very proud of that.  I saw it as I somehow had fought the good fight and won. Except no one had ever been fighting back.  All these counselors and 12-Steppers were just trying to help an addict who needed guidance (and a firm hand), and say what you want, but AA (NA) fucking works.  I was an idiot to fight it the way I did, especially when you consider that my biggest sticking point was my refusal to believe in God (and all that Higher Power stuff is nice; but it's a Christian program. You close meetings with the Lord's Prayer, it's a Christian program).  But I ended up backing off that claim, returning to the faith of my youth.  We were married at St. Marks.  My son was baptized there.  I write for the church newsletter.  And these days I actively practice much of the AA philosophy.  I just don't go to meetings, or have a sponsor, but I draw heavily on all those slogans I used to mock as trite before.

In the end, what does it matter?  I got here, too, regardless of the crooked path I took.  And despite knowing how foolishly I acted in rejecting AA, my tenacity of having to fall and fail on my own, there is still some satisfaction I glean from knowing I did it like Frank and the Boss.  But I also probably missed out on a lot too.  Not the least of which, I am still saddled with just a few "character defaults" that AA might've helped me get rid of.

I always thought of AA as brainwashing ("Well, maybe your brain could use a little washing...").  Of course it's not.  There is a great deal of breaking down to build back up, because your best thinking got you there, you can't be trusted as an authority on your own life, which is why I kept failing.  I do envy the look I see in the eyes of AA graduates, the peace and growth I know I lack.  But I am also still 100% me, and AAers will say that's the problem.  Admittedly, I am a miserable, angry bastard.  I can be petty, trite, violent, and temperamental.  And I can get sick of myself (like Jerry says on Seinfeld, "Just once I'd love to go somewhere without me...")  But who doesn't?  At least once in a while.

This is the path I chose.  I know there are people who may get tired of hearing about the drug stuff (believe me, I get tired writing about it).  But two events define my life: the addiction and the accident.  The one thing they have in common (besides my being incredibly stupid to have landed in the mess in the first place) is I powered my way out through hardheadedness and sheer will.  And I am glad I still have me--stubborn, ornery, donkey souled--to help me out.  'Cause I don't think the fight ends simply because you put down the bottle or spike.  It goes on and on and on...

And this guy can be a neurotic mess at times, especially when the heat is on, and he can act like an impetuous child when things don't go his way, but I can't think of any guy I'd rather have by my side when the chips are down.  Or rather when those walls spring up.  Because they will.  And it takes a certain kind of guy--call it stupidity or determination--who will bang his head hard enough and long enough to pave/carve/get his way.  Or he'll die trying.