I was pretty nervous the first time I had to do a “search.” It was AJ, and he wasn’t feeling much better.
White guy, 5-11, 220, bearded and balding, looks a little like the actor Paul Giamatti. Even has something of a corner-of-the-mouth delivery. Funny, upbeat guy.
Now.
First day in he was nervous, sweating and even crying – I had to go through his bags, and what set him on a crying jag were pictures his kids painted. Instead of saying “It’s all right” or something, I just focused on going through his stuff and acted like I didn’t see him crying. He apologized, and I told him no worries, it’s all part of the process or something similarly dumb.
A day or two later, I heard him share at a group that he was ashamed of himself for getting mad at his wife over his guitar not showing up in the mail yet. Then, when it finally showed up, he would strum away on it during just about any break. That, and playing Xbox.
His Step 1 he shared at group had at its center a horrible van crash on an icy road. He was worried he had killed his wife, but she was all right.
They were on the road, following a band and selling T-shirts, figuring they would make a huge amount of money. But they barely sold enough for food, hotels – and drugs.
He had started with Ecstasy, also sold it. Then moved on to cocaine, which he said he blew tens of thousands of dollars on, maybe three hundred grand in the last couple years. He has a successful garage door business, “then I started stealing money from the business; then I started stealing money from the customers.”
He had done something he told himself he would never do, heroin, and quickly got hooked. It scared him, so he got a doc to give him suboxone to taper off it; and he’s been on subox for years.
He and his wife had been following a favorite and cross country multiple times, and she partied with him. Then she got pregnant, and quit everything. He did too, “But I couldn’t wait for her to have the baby so I could do coke again.” The next time she got pregnant, he didn’t quit anything. “I’m so ashamed when she was having the baby I was in the bathroom snorting heroin.”
He stayed at RR a long time, weeks – long after most would have demanded a discharge. His family was footing the bill for his stay, probably around $30,000; all were supposed to be treated equally, but “private pays” sometimes had first-class preference, as opposed to the cabin.
AJ had settled into the routine, taken up residence in the huge master bedroom, stayed on during the constant change of new guys coming in, then stepping down to PHP or discharging or AMA-ing.
At a Closing group, when a newer resident said he was upset because he called home and his wife was being unsupportive and his daughter wouldn’t even talk to him, AJ shared he was trying not to call home much because his wife was angry at him for his using behavior, and he wanted to focus on why he was here.
But, sooner or later, he’ll go home and face the music. When his wife complains about all the horrible stuff he’d done, and business stress lands on his shoulders, compounded by all the guilt – I hope he finds a new song to play, instead of Eric Clapton’s:
Don’t forget this fact, you can’t get it back.
Cocaine.
In his autobiography, Clapton writes about kicking heroin – using alcohol and cocaine to get off it. After years, he finally went to treatment, then started his own treatment center, Crossroads.
We all know about the celebs who become drug addicts; I guess cocaine makes people like AJ feel like a rockstar.
By the end of his stay, AJ was showing signs that, for all the money his family was investing in him, maybe he wasn’t entirely sold on “the process”…
Notes from the Shitshow 