Say No To Pot » denial

Drug Rehab – Part 4

admin — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 09:15:06 +0000

The first week at drug rehab consisted of this daily routine of going to meetings in small groups with counselors, as well as meeting with family members and drug counselors. In the evenings after these meetings with various drug counselors and possibly a short meeting with a psychiatrist earlier in the day, we attended AA meetings. We all had sign-off cards in which we were supposed to hand to the person chairing the meeting after that meeting was over. The chairperson would sign-off that we had attended that AA meeting. Everybody was instructed to go to at least one AA meeting every day while in rehab. However the treatment center was really unable to control what you did in the evenings. Some of us, (me included) decided that we didn’t need to go to an AA meeting every night. Again, this first week in rehab I was still just referring to myself as a marijuana addict. Truly, I was in denial that I was an alcoholic as well. One evening in particular I and my new found friend Jay decided that it would be fun if we went to a local bar and had just one beer and then attend a movie. We had made this decision while driving back from the local cigar shop where Jay bought some cigars.
For whatever reason, we needed to stop back by the halfway house before going out that night. Once we entered the halfway house some other addicts spotted me and Jay and insisted that we go with them to an AA meeting, because they knew neither one of us had been to a meeting in a few days. This was the first of what I would refer to as “strange events” that happened to me in early recovery. If it had not been for the other people in the halfway house that evening, Jay and I would have gone to the movies and would have relapsed. After attending the AA meeting that night I realized what a big mistake I almost made. Alcoholics and addicts must refrain from the using drugs and alcohol. Any use of alcohol or other drug typically will cause the craving effect to reoccur in that person. The craving phenomenon is so strong that an alcoholic/addict will usually migrate his way back to his drug of choice. This migration may take some time. In fact, you might be able to get away with drinking alcohol instead of smoking pot for a couple months. But sooner or later you will find yourself using your drug of choice again. The main problem I faced in early recovery was realizing that I was also an alcoholic and could not drink or use any drugs again. This “almost relapse” was caused by a denial. Denial is not believing that you have an alcohol or drug problem. Denial is something that you will find prevalent in almost every alcoholic or addict in the beginning of their recovery. Denial in itself is probably the worst part of the disease. Denial is probably the hardest and most difficult thing for the drug counselors, the family members, and the psychiatrist to arrest in the mind of the alcoholic and or addict. If it wasn’t for denial, alcoholism and drug addiction would be much easier to treat. At the treatment center, I learned that addiction itself had a specific goal. The goal of addiction “the disease” is to kill the individual in whatever possible way it can. The killing of the individual can be accomplished by the disease in so many ways. The disease might cause a person to overdose on drugs, the disease might cause the individual to get into a car wreck, the disease could even cause the person to even commit suicide.

The reason people have such a hard time stopping is because of denial. Once the addict or alcoholic can get past denial (and want to stop) he or she is on their way to recovery. For me, the denial was also very strong. The type of denial that I experienced felt like a war going on inside my head. To combat this war I used some of the early sayings that I’ve learned in AA meetings. The one I used the most was: “fake it until you make it”. I would continue to use “fake it until you make it” for quite some time (maybe 6 months) after leaving the treatment center.
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Drug Rehab – Part 5

admin — Sat, 16 May 2009 20:28:10 +0000

As I mentioned in my previous article, I was using “fake it until you make it” in the beginning of my recovery. The next day at the halfway house (after almost going out and drinking with Jay), I told Susan the halfway house manager that I’d almost drank the night before. The response I received from Susan was not what I had expected at all. She was pleased and responded with something like “You are telling on your disease”. Jay realized that Susan was pleased and immediately confessed the same thing to her. This incident in itself really ended my friendship with Jay. I guess Jay felt like I had betrayed him in some way by telling Susan about our little plan. Jay was pretty bad off because he was addicted to both coke and heroin. He told me that he did so much coke during the day that he needed the heroin to go to bed at night.

My daily life continued at the halfway house and I really had not shown any anger up until this point. One of the very common actions for an alcoholic or addict is to get very angry at the beginning of recovery. This anger is caused by resentments (things that happened to us in the past coming to the surface). In my case, I did not suffer from any psychical or mental abuse caused by family members. However; these types of events are very common with a lot of addicts. Unfortunately, I found that the counselors were forced to lump everyone into one group. This group or stereotype consisted of a broken home where other family members were drinking and/or using drugs, enabling or even abusing us. We were all also considered to be untrustworthy with all regards to drug and alcohol use. Addicts and alcoholics are known to lie about almost anything related to their drug use. (I used to think that I was not hurting anyone else, so it did not matter if I lied about how much pot I smoked). We were regularly drug tested because the counselors and doctors had a hard time telling if you were lying or not.

Even though I did not have very many family related issues, (primarily because my parents did not even know that I was smoking pot until about 2 weeks prior) I did have a lot of resentments toward other people. Some of these things consisted of events that had taken place in my childhood between me and other friends. More or less, I held grudges toward other people and I was not able to let go of them like a “normal person” would be able to do.

I noticed early on that the halfway house was a money based business. This made me mad in a lot of ways because people would “graduate from treatment” once the insurance company stopped paying. When I entered treatment I did not have any health insurance so my parents were paying cash for my treatment. I think they ended up paying in the range of about $30,000 (discounted for cash) for me to be there for a total of 30 days. With the amount of money being spent I was not happy that we were expected to be doing “chores” during our rehabilitation. Today of course, I realize that the chores were based on trying to get “most” alcoholics and addicts used to taking care of themselves. Unfortunately, this is where the “grouping of addicts” at a treatment center comes into play again. Honestly, I did not need to be doing these chores. I was a working and functioning alcoholic and addict when I arrived at treatment. These chores consisted of sweeping the floor in the lounge area, making up our beds, etc.

I was assigned two psychiatrists at Ridgeview and both of these psychiatrists were addictionologists (they specialized in treating alcohol and drug addiction). The Doctor that performed “my intervention” at Ridgeview was more or less my main psychiatrist. I believe his name was Dr. Margolis and I also remember that I didn’t like him.
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Drug Rehab – Part 6

admin — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:41:49 +0000

On the 10th day at Ridgeview I experienced anger. I remember the night before sitting in bed thinking about all of the money this place was charging and how we were expected to do those “chores”. Wasn’t this place supposed to be club med at $1000 a day? Why were the beds so hard that we slept in, and the pillows weren’t even soft? I know now that these were psychological tricks for all of the patients. Basically, they were trying to push our buttons to get us angry. The next morning I had my regular visit with my main psychiatrist. I told him that I had calculated how much money the treatment center was bringing in and it was ridiculous that our living conditions were so terrible. I also mentioned the doctor’s salaries and apparently pissed him off because it turned into more of an argument than a session. Soon after leaving his office I encountered Susan (the halfway house manager). Susan told me that since I failed to make up my bed that morning that I needed to write a paper on “Why it was important to make up your bed in the morning”. This was the final straw, I became absolutely furious. I got so mad that I gathered up all of my things put them in my suitcases and walked straight out the front door. The funny thing was on my way through the parking lot I encountered my second psychiatrist coming up the hill in his truck. I chatted with him as if nothing special was going on (with my suitcases in hand) for whatever reason he thought I was just doing laundry or something. After talking with him, I walked across the street went into the lobby of an elderly care facility and called a taxi. I had the taxi driver drive me home to my garage apartment (behind my parents’ house). I then convinced my parents that I could just continue going to AA meetings and save them a lot of money. However; later that evening Dr. Sommers (the psychiatrist that I ran into in the parking lot) called and convinced my parents that my chances of recovery were slim if I did not return to the treatment center.

My parents were smart enough to listen to the doctor. After staying home for two days (without relapsing) I returned to the treatment center. I noticed that when I came back to the facility that Susan actually treated me better than she did before. I think there were two reasons behind this, one I had finally gotten angry and two they knew what I did when I got angry (leave). Getting angry (or pissed off as hell), I found was part of the recovery process. So basically, the entire staff was intentionally doing things to try and aggravate me so that I would get angry. The place was rigged from the chores down to the hard bed and pillows. The anger did not come from the money being spent, or the paper that I was told to write, it was the direct result of all the grudges and resentments that I had been holding onto for years. Most addicts have a lot of resentments that need to be addressed. The 4th step in Alcoholics Anonymous helps to remove these resentments or grudges. This step helps you to see where you were wrong and how you actively participated and caused some of these problems. It also helps you to heal from bad events that were not your fault.

Now that I’d completed the anger part of the treatment center, what the heck was next? I sure know that the cravings were killing me. We were all completely obsessed with drugs and alcohol. Almost every conversation ended up with drugs and alcohol being mentioned. We had a conversation about what everyone would do if they were to relapse with $20,000. People made fun of me because l stated that I’d buy a pound of weed. They all thought I was nuts and couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t want to buy coke.

My second roommate was a professional football player who drove a two door BMW coupe. Jay said that there was so much coke in his car that he felt he could get a good bump off the powder between the seams in the leather seats. Of course we had people who were relapsing which gave us something even more exciting to talk about. There was a guy who disappeared for an entire weekend on a crack binge. He and some others were sent off to a place in Texas. Texas was not a good thing, I knew that for sure. It was stated that: “In Texas they didn’t just show you where the water was, but they also showed you how to drink it.” Whatever the heck that meant, I do not know, but I did not want to end-up on that 3 to 6 month trip. It was fun to laugh again, but it sucked craving for anything and everything. I was smoking two packs of cigarettes a day and going nuts. Thank god cigarettes were still cheap back then.
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This is my stopping point right now, but I will continue my story soon.

Parents Needing Help

admin — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:17:23 +0000

The parents need to beat this drug, of course! This isn’t meant to say quitting will be easy, or is the only necessary step. But quitting drugs is the first step and this step should be taken under the care of an addictionologist. A lot of regular doctors do not have the background skills to successfully treat alcoholics and addicts. Quitting is not easy, but with professional help it can make the process much easier. If you don’t try to quit for yourself, then at least try for your children. Remember that they are the ones suffering just as much as you are from this disease. In the long run you will have to ultimately want to stop for yourself, but any reason in the beginning is good enough. The old saying “Fake it until you make it” is really true in a lot of cases. Another thing to remember is not to “Think to much”. An addicts mind is a dangerous place in the beginning because of the strong obsession to use again and denial. Denial and substitution will be problematic for the parent trying to beat any drug. For instance, instead of smoking marijuana on a daily basis, a father or mother will resort to drinking more alcohol. They will deny having any problem, and then substitute one bad drug for another. This can be even more dangerous, as coming off any drug without some form of support outside the family is crucial.

The road back to reality does begin with the parent realizing the problem often isn’t a moral deficiency. Drug addiction can often be called a mental and physical disease, where you make one small mistake and it becomes a life damaging event. There is always hope for the children, and what children or teens grow up in perfect households? The fact is that in modern society drug abuse within any family is bound to occur. The answer is to ask for help.

Remember, the emotional damage to sons and daughters within the family cannot always be repaired, which makes both parents working together more important. There are meetings to help people with substance abuse problems, along with those who love the drug addict. Alcoholics Anonymous, a 12 step program of beating alcohol and drug abuse has meetings everywhere. Most people are shocked when they realize how many meetings are within their community. Meetings are held in local Churches and there are also some great club houses.

Friends and family should encourage an addicted person to attend these meetings. The support that is given freely by the members of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) is amazing. The program absolutely works and nothing else compares to it.