I had one goal when I was in my last throes of addiction. I wanted to make it to Christmas Day and spend it with my family. Alas, it was not meant to be. I woke without excitement on Christmas morning 9 years ago staring at the walls of my room in rehab. “How did I get here?” I thought lying on top of a made bed. I never thought I would be in this place for Holidays.
Let me back up a little bit.
How I got here
A little more than a week after a miserable Thanksgiving, I called a treatment center. I wasn’t an alcoholic you understand; I just needed a break from life and a chance to prove that my drinking was normal. With the help of my youngest sister, I had narrowed the possible choices of treatment to two places. The one I called had private bedrooms, and I was sure it would be packed and impossible to go.
I would be able to throw my hands up I the air in mock frustration and decry the world for shitting on me once again. The friendly voice over the phone had other plans. After a series of questions, which I am sure I lied repeatedly in answering, I found that I could have a bed that day. Fear gripped me and I began back pedaling like a soon-to-be, horror-movie victim. Not so much running, instead, falling all over myself trying to explain that I would need more time.
For weeks, anyone that came within 10 feet of me could instantly smell the desperation—a mix of alcohol, cigarette smoke, body odor and approaching death. I could no longer do anything other than drink. I frequently thought that each day would be the day I didn’t wake up. Secretly, I wished for it. Still, I was certain I was not an alcoholic. I was dying of some form of stomach cancer that was only soothed by booze. With a bottle or two of wine in me, I could fight back my anxiety and the pain in my belly long enough to think I was presentable. I just needed a few more days to think my way out of this problem.
A few days later, I was still drunk, desperate, and back on the line with the same friendly voice. The bed was still waiting for me, and this time I assured him I would be there–tomorrow. I am sure I made some grand declaration about how sorry I was that I would not be at our family’s home for Christmas, especially to my older sister who would be traveling from overseas to visit with the family for the first time in over a year. I am equally sure that my family was relieved the drunken sot that resembled the youngest member would be somewhere safe from his own destruction.
Ready to Stay Home
My alcohol-fueled, delusional brain had convinced me that I would be in and out of treatment within a few days, and my packing list that included no winter clothes in December proved it. Thankfully, I have always been self-conscious about my chicken legs so I packed blue jeans to wear, but aside from a wadded bunch of free t-shirts and a carton of cigarettes, there was little planning involved in what I threw in my suitcase.
Soon enough, my mom drove the three-hour trip to drop my 43-year-old ass at a treatment center. I still have a small resentment about passing several convenience stores and three liquor stores on the way there without stopping. If I had not still been trying to pass as “normal,” I may have asked to stop for one last bottle. At the time, I was secure in the knowledge that I could stop on the way back home in a few days. Plus, I was not sure if the booze I had in the middle of the night would wear off before I had the chance to look sober at intake.
My Arrival in Treatment
My intake was a blur; despite a sign that stated the main door was always locked for security reasons, when I arrived it was partly open. I signed a few documents that I barely read, took a drug test, sure that I would pass, and had an Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book and The Twelves Steps and Twelve Traditions thrust into my hands. I said goodbye to my mom and was led away to a hospital-like room where I was gently, strip-searched, then taken away to be weighed and answer more questions.
Other than the kind mental-health tech, who assured me everything would be fine as he guided me from room-to-room, the building seemed to be vacant. My guide mentioned that he had been in the same place as me two years ago. He didn’t mention that he had rummaged through my suitcase when he dropped me off with a nurse to get my blood pressure checked.
My wallet, cellphone, and anti-anxiety medication were all gone. The rest of the patients in the facility would soon return from a day trip.
I sat on a hospital bed in a bare room wondering what to do next, and decided the quickest way home was to read through the books I had been given. (I am that kind of nerd.) Before I could get started, the nurse came in and told me to lie down on the bed and pull my pants down far enough to show my butt cheeks because she needed to give me a few injections.
Two Silver Bullets
“I am grown. Shots don’t bother me,” I protested. I clearly did not see what the fuss was about.
“You’ll want to listen to me about this,” she chuckled as she left the room to get the syringes. She was not wrong. I couldn’t figure out a way to sit normally after those shots.
Over the next seven days (yes, I had planned to leave in three) a pattern developed. We would have rice with every meal for lunch, my tremors would shake the rice off my fork, and I would end up on my stomach waiting for another shot.
Along with the routine, I had daily doctor visits, group counseling sessions, individual counselor visits and an off-site visit to a specialist. Slowly, it dawned on me that I wasn’t getting set free anytime soon. What I did find surprised me.
I found myself actually enjoying the routine, and the fast friendships I made. Everyone I met was in recovery or a patient starting the journey. My idea of a bunch of crazy people roaming sterile hallways in hospital gowns was smashed. Every patient there was crazy, but they were my kind of crazy and I was in heaven. It was a whole new world and I was drinking in every moment.
On Christmas Eve, not long after the detox meds ran out and just before the pink cloud swept me up, there was a huge party of sorts.
Everyone associated with the treatment center descended from various half-way houses and we were all treated to entertainment that included Christmas Carols that were rewritten to include rehab lingo and a strange beauty pageant involving guys in dresses, one of them was the guy I met on my first day. Even before we were all given a calendar as a Christmas present and sent off to our rooms, I felt totally out of place and lonely.
Christmas Morning
That brings me back to the made bed, in my room. I slept on top of the bed, when I could actually sleep. At this treatment center, we had one responsibility. Make your bed. I still couldn’t do it, so I came up with an alternative.
I finally rolled out of the bed and walked out of my room. There beside my door was a gift. A small, single box. I looked down the hallway and saw mounds of gifts beside the other doors. I quickly scooped mine up and put in on the desk in my room. I walked down to the kitchen/common room area and made some hot tea. I really wanted coffee but my rehab cold and the lack of medication led to a hot tea, cough drop and lemon combo that makes me gag to this day when I think about it.
I plopped on to a chair and wondered what my family would be doing when they woke this morning. I wondered if my sons were excited about the prospect of Christmas or if the joy had faded as I had. Partly, I felt I deserved to be shunned, locked away and perhaps never return. My failures began to build on my shoulders and sink me further into the chair.
I could remember Christmas days filled with the excitement of opening gifts as a child. Later, that joy was replaced with the surprised faces of loved ones when they opened gifts I had bought. As my alcohol intake increased, even the bright lights of the Christmas tree faded to gray. Nothing seemed worth doing. Each Christmas right up until the last one seemed to be a routine I filled with fake smiles waiting for the chance to pour a drink.
At that moment, sitting in that chair in a treatment center, I wished with all my heart that I could be a part of the paper-ripping, noisy chaos that I had shunned before. I wanted to hear the excited voices of my family and my sons sharing quick stories around the breakfast table before being interrupted by even more deafening laughter from a different story told to someone across the table. Because phone calls were strictly prohibited, I only had a couple of Christmas cards and a few short sentences as a reminder that I would be missed.
Filled to the forehead with self-pity, I trudged back to my room and picked up the “gift” that had been left beside the door. I opened the paper slowly, and saw that it was a black coffee mug. The Serenity Prayer was inscribed on one side of the cup, and I wasn’t impressed. I imagined that someone lining up all of the presents for the other patients, saw my bare door and felt sorry for me. Then, he or she fished a cup out of some leftover gift box from long ago, and left it for me to find.
A Moment of Clarity
Sitting on the edge of the made bed, in a posh rehab, I was working my way up to a good self-pitying cry. Then, I looked at the corkboard glued to the inside of the door to the room. Several former patients had scrawled initials and dates on the board. In faded, shaky handwriting someone had written, “Thank you for saving my life-12-08.”
Any tears that could have come in self-pity and anger seeped back into my eyes. The simple statement in handwriting that seemed to be rattled by detox tremors melted my selfish pride. I wasn’t a prisoner locked away from the joys of Christmas, I was a patient, who desperately needed help and was the last one to see it.
The friendly voice on the phone, the bearded, mental health tech participating in a cross-dressing beauty pageant, the nurse who seemed to love giving me shots, were on a mission. Everyone I encountered was deathly serious about saving my life and the lives of all the other patients. They had been in rooms like the one I sat in and thoroughly knew the road and struggles ahead. They took time from their duties to share their personal stories of recovery. Each person I met was full of encouragement, and each had a joy that I had never found despite all of my attempts searching for it in bottles.
For 28 years, I used my drinking as a symbol of my freedom and toughness. I was free to drink as much as I wanted and I was one of the tough guys who could hold large amounts of liquor. The very thing I thought set me free from worry was slowly building a permanent prison. The truth was that I was sick. I needed help, and no one really knew how to help me. Not that my family was at fault in any way. I can’t really imagine how things felt from their end; see Annie’s Story for an example of the frustration my family must have felt back then.
Still, somehow, though the fog of addiction I had found my way to this moment holding the Serenity Prayer in one hand, staring at gratitude scrawled on a door, and waiting for Christmas sunrise. For that moment, I felt the same as that patient who had left the message. I was thankful that someone loved me enough to save my life. These people saw value in me when all I could see was worthlessness.
That moment of gratefulness lifted me out of the Christmas blues. By the time the rest of the patients were awake and finding morning coffee, I could be truly happy for them as they opened their gifts from home. The feelings of loneliness and jealousy had faded. I had become a part of an even bigger family.
Later that day, I was even further amazed. The rehab I had chosen was founded by a pair of alcoholics who spent their lives in recovery saving as many people as possible. By the time I arrived in treatment, the couple had died, but their children were still carrying the torch. They came to the treatment center to share Christmas dinner with all of the patients. They served the meal, and took time to speak with each one of us. They didn’t have to do any of it. They could have simply stayed home. I will never forget their kindness and generosity on Christmas Day. They are the kind of people I strive to become.
There were rough days waiting for me beyond that Christmas in treatment and even more when I began learning to live without alcohol. With each challenge, I always think back to that first sober Christmas and the love an understanding I felt from each person I met.
I will never truly know who placed the coffee cup by my door or the motivation he or she felt. But, that gift pulled me back to the understanding that I was right where I needed to be. It reminded me that no matter what I am going through, there are people who will help me if I will drop my pride long enough to ask. And, from that day, I have a coffee cup to remind me that I never have to go through anything alone.
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