After a three month absence, I went to my favorite NA meeting tonight. It was good to see all the guys there. Why is this important? It marks nine months since I used alcohol, marijuana or tobacco and I really needed a new key chain.
Don't get me wrong, I haven't gone three months without working on my recovery. Hardly, I've been going to AA meetings (some where down the line I may try to explain the difference between NA and AA), Out Patient & doing volunteer work. If you think recovery is just a matter of willpower, forcing yourself not to use or drink, you could not be more mistaken. Recovery is hard work and you don't get to stop - ever. Because if you stop, you use or you drink. If you continue to use and/or drink there are three possible outcomes - jails, institutions or death.
Don't believe it's very hard to get and stay sober? Try this little exercise. Think of the worst thing you have ever done in your life. Review it over and over. Write it down on a piece of paper. That's correct, I said write it down. Not just the singular event but how you remember feeling at the time. List out who you hurt both directly and indirectly. Be specific and brutally honest. Pour your heart out. Really dig deep. Then spend a day or two mulling it over in your head. Break it down, think of every angle. Was it really an "accident" like you care to remember it or did you do it on purpose? Did you do it out of spite because you were hurt? Why were you hurt? Come on, go deeper. You know you can. Don't forget to put it all on paper. Now that you have written it all down and you think you really understand the entire situation, tell another human being. Yeah, that's what I said. Find someone you trust enough to tell your deepest darkest secret and spill it. What? Can't do that? Good thing you're not an addict because that's only one item in Step 4 - Make a searching and fearless written moral inventory of yourself and Step 5 - Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Seriously, do you have the balls to make a searching and fearless written moral inventory of yourself let alone admit to God, to yourself, and to another human being the exact nature of your wrongs? All your wrongs over the entire span of your life? How about doing the other 10 Steps? Ready to be a little less condescending towards people working a program?
Anyway, where was I. Oh yeah, the hospital. Let's see. Once I convinced the nurse I no longer had the will to live, she escorted me and my wife to a small, completely empty room. Well, almost empty. There was a platform with a thin pad and a blanket. After she took my shoes so I couldn't hang myself, she left my wife and I alone. That's was it. I got to the hospital at 11:30 PM, escorted to the room around 12:30 AM the next day. No consultation with a Dr, no instructions, just dumped in a room.
Neither my wife or I slept at all that night. We just sat there flatly discussing all the things I needed to take care of before checking into a rehab facility. Naively, we assumed we would receive some type of consultation on where to go or who to call. Surprisingly, at least to us, at 6:00 AM the nurse walked in and announced it was time to leave. That was it. You made it through the night, good luck.
"Look you don't understand." I stated flatly. "If I don't go to rehab, I'm not going home. I'm going to Vegas. Period."
Yeah, sounds unbelievable, right? But it's not. I can't really describe to you how or why you completely check out. It is absolutely truth when I tell you, I was at the point where I literally could not go another step forward in my life unless I went to a treatment facility.
I will give credit to the nurse, she believed me. Maybe it was all her years of experience or maybe she was just empathetic enough. Either way, she left and minutes later returned to inform me that although they couldn't allow me to stay there, they could send me to the County Detox Sobering Unit until my wife could find a bed for me.
Want to read more of this story? Part 1