The person in charge of the halfway house at RidgeView was Susan. Susan was a very strong individual and very commanding. She definitely had the halfway house under control for me and the other participants. One of the things that I notice early on was they wanted you to do chores while you were in the halfway house. The thinking behind having us perform chores was that they felt most alcoholics and addicts were being taken care of by another individual. This enabling of an alcoholic/addict was something that the treatment center wanted to eradicate as quickly as possible. One of the problems that I noticed with drug rehab is the fact that everybody was categorized into one big group. Unfortunately, there is probably no other way to run a treatment center than to use this method. The main problem with using this of course is that everyone is different. Since everyone is different it makes treating alcoholism and drug addiction that much harder.
Most of the people in the treatment center that I encountered had bad personal relationships with their family members and possibly their siblings. The alcoholic/addict was responsible for these bad relationships 9 times out of 10. However; the individual that the alcoholic or addict married or was an relationship with was also typically making the problem worse. Again, this problem was made worse by the enabling that was taking place by the people surrounding the alcoholic/addict (family members, friends, siblings, etc.). Enabling is when you provide money or some sort of assistance to the alcoholic/addict to allow him or her to easily continue using drugs/drinking alcohol. This enabling is prevalent in most alcoholic and addict lifestyles. Because my drug of choice was marijuana, enabling really wasn’t an issue with me. Marijuana is relatively cheap and the type of job that I had at the time allowed me to pay for my habit without placing a financial burden on me or someone else. This may or may not be the case with other marijuana users. If you find yourself in a rehab facility like I found myself, just keep in mind that it’s impossible for the doctors and counselors to run the rehab without putting everyone into one group and labeling everyone in a certain way.
During the first week in the halfway house my parents were brought in for meetings with me and the other counselors. They were told about how they could possibly be enabling me to continue using drugs and drinking alcohol. Again to this day, I really don’t feel that I was being enabled. If I was being enabled it was not to a great degree. However; given the circumstances my parents were eager to listen to what the counselors had to say as far as their possible enabling part was concerned. So to summarize; part of the first week in the halfway house consisted of meetings with the drug counselors individually and some meetings where my parents attended. The other thing that was taking place during my stay at the halfway house was a very organized daily curriculum. This curriculum consisted of waking up at 7:30AM drinking a cup of coffee, smoking as many cigarettes as I possibly could and going to my first class by 8:00AM. The class starting at 8:00AM and most of the other classes throughout the day consisted of small group conversations between me and five are six other individuals (other addicts) and a given drug counselor. I quickly realized during the short meetings with various drug counselors (in these small classrooms) that the other individuals at the rehab facility had problems with relationships that I had not experienced. Again, I really feel that this goes back to my age of 26 and the fact that I didn’t have a wife or any children.
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