The Roy’s:Episode Twenty
May 16th, 2008
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Episode Twenty
… place to go if you’re lazy and trying to stay out of trouble. I hope this doesn’t offend any of those in treatment oriented positions, but you can’t be naive to the fact that people abuse your system. I’ll admit it, it was my only motivation. I knew I was in big trouble, so I pissed and moaned about how marijuana had ruined my life.
When white kids from middle class families speak, people listen.
I went back to the institutionalization that was slowly becoming more and more frequent. I told them how drugs had cleaned out my life, how the world had thrown me a rancid bowl filled with the marrow of pain and letdown. Hours were spent in group self analyzing while others gathered to whine about how terrible the world was around them.
What a crock.
Truth is I was just plain lazy. I didn’t want to work because I was too worried what the masses would think. Nothing was ever good enough for me. I expected great things, but never worked to get them, plain and simple. I refuse to use drugs as a crutch. You want to know what drug treatment is all about?
Excuses and false knowledge.
I should know, I have sat in eight of them.
They are about people complaining about how unmanageable their lives are, while other people who have been off the sauce a little longer give you advice. This is a great concept, but what they forget to tell you is that some of the advice givers are twice as crazy as you. It is an effort in futility treaded in an ocean of personality. Listen up self help groups, it’s simple, admit you screwed everything up and move on. Wallowing in it over and over again isn’t going to solve anything except cementing down your free Thursday night coffee for the next twenty years. Quit making excuses and put one foot in front of the other.
There’s twelve steps for you.
On the whole, the halfway house was nothing special. They are set up like a day care. You get up at a certain time, you eat at a certain time, and you have endless amounts of groups and counseling sessions. The rest of the time you smoke, drinks gobs of coffee, and play more cards than you could ever imagine. You always have a roommate. Hopefully, you get lucky and end up with someone that wants to go with the flow, instead of the insane schizophrenic whose brain is mush from breathing in enough Aqua Net to hook up your grandma for life. For the most part I had always gotten lucky. I have some fond memories of many a forgotten face and many a late night conversation. I think it appropriate to mention that four of my previous six or so treatment roommates are now dead.
Suicide.
Treatment is a sad, sad place.
Eventually, the Stevens Point police department caught up with me. I was charged with using a stolen credit card, sentenced to probation, and allowed to continue my stay in the halfway house thus avoiding what would have been an immediate incarceration. I gave it another go for awhile. My previous stint had been for over six months, and I was regarded as sort of a treatment poster child. Whenever institutionalized I flourished. I always had the best job, made the most progress, and impressed the right people. Despite that fact, sometime that month, I quit buying into the whole fake it till you make it routine. I can tell you exactly the day I changed my mind because two very dramatic events happened that evening.
Early that sundown a group of us guys had headed down to the local video store to pick up a movie. You have never been in a treatment facility this is usually the highlight of the entire week. As we exited the building, I looked up from the ground, and boom …
… right into the face of about ten police cars and an equal number of shotguns all pointed straight at my mug, artificially illuminated with the candle power the likes of which I had never seen.
Freeze.
I swear they brought the entire force to that video store that day. It was the most awing adrenaline rush of my life. Out of nowhere I was plucked from reality and placed right smack dab in the center of an episode of Cops. They ordered us to the ground, rushing in like the President had been shot. Then the strangest thing happened.
We all started laughing.
For perhaps the first time in our lives, we knew beyond any reason of a doubt that none of us had done anything wrong. We were in a secure treatment facility, two blocks down, completely clean and sober. Apparently, we had fit the description of a group that had robbed a gas station on the other side of town. It took us a good hour to convince them that they had the wrong cats. I guess I can’t blame them. Would you believe a stoner, and African American, and Indian, and a Mexican guy?
Got the picture yet?
They weren’t buying it at first either, but our story was air tight.
So they let us go.
The atmosphere was energized and cheery that evening. It isn’t often one has a story to share like ours, and we proudly told our tale to anyone who dared listen. Much like any other jovial moment in my life, this one would turn out to be short lived as well. I don’t even remember who called me that night. All I heard was the information.
The girl had a new boyfriend.
It was a moment of pure anguish. If it was possible to quit caring about anything, anymore than I already did, that would be the instant it happened. I immediately got on the phone and made a call. I packed up my stuff, waited until one o’clock in the morning and escaped out the second story window like a thief in the night.
Walking out the front door would have been easier.
The window was so much cooler though.
That single phone call I made, as far as fate is concerned, will ultimately become the most important one of this entire story. It was made to my former roommate Carmen and her husband Kris in Merrill. Without hesitation, Carmen hopped in her car, drove to Stevens Point and picked me up a few blocks away in the Burger King parking lot.
It is a good thing I didn’t chicken out, because back in Merrill I would run into two people who would …
(Tune tuned for Episode Twenty-One)
Windows » The Roy’s:Episode Twenty said:
[…] Insert Name wrote an interesting post today on The Royâ
May 17th, 2008 at 12:35 am #
bozz_2006 said:
that was a good one.
May 17th, 2008 at 6:16 pm #
Insert Name said:
Thanks, bozz.
May 17th, 2008 at 6:33 pm #
pack93z said:
Well I caught up on the reading and ran smack dab into this.. the rebound seems to be comming.. never ventured into a reb clinic.. AA once or twice, but no way I could continue to go.. the self pity parties of some were two much.. the people that really wanted to help and were really struggling.. I admired.. those that just wanted to either cry in their spilled milk or needed the attention.. not so much.. as in much of life, the spoiling of something pure by those that crave attention.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:50 am #
Anything Box » Blog Archive » The Roy’s:Episode Twenty said:
[…] The Roy’s:Episode Twenty It was made to my former roommate Carmen and her husband Kris in Merrill. Without hesitation, Carmen hopped in her car, drove to Stevens Point and picked me up a few blocks away in the Burger King parking lot. … […]
June 8th, 2008 at 1:36 am #