When I took a drug/alcohol rehab job as an entry-level Behavioral Health Technician (better known as “Tech”) , I expected screaming, brawling, freak outs and – what scared me most – throwing up. The projectile vomiting, thankfully, never came (although I narrowly missed “The Screamer” becoming “The Pisser”). There was no trading of fists, although snide comments were known to fly.
Social outcasts as they were, here in rehab their abnormalities were normal, with a non-addict like myself as the outlier. Being able to drink socially without going to excess, having smoked weed and even tried, cocaine, but able to walk away from it, I’m what the addicts call a “normie.”
I learned that, while addicts and alcoholics stripped of their drugs and booze look a lot like us and sound a lot like us, they will never be normal. Their minds work in stupefyingly different ways, and they will be on guard every moment of every day, lest a “trigger” send them back into the hell of slamming poison into their veins, or drinking all day/every day.
Thank you, God, for not making me an addict! When using or drinking, many of them will say and do horrible things, spewing lies both outward and inward, betraying loved ones, stealing, prostituting, pimping, spending days and nights scheming like a maze-rat. The best summary of it came from a fellow Tech who, like many in “the industry” was in recovery, himself: The shitshow.
While the lucky few will learn to tame the beast on the very-first time, most – after showing their loved ones a glimpse of their “real” selves – will “slip” and go back to their bad ways – and, if they don’t end up in prison or a grave, a return to rehab is inevitable.
I met some folks who had gone to rehab two, three, four times – a year. And insurance keeps paying … Before passing judgment, keep in mind that addition is defined by the healthcare system as a disease – and you wouldn’t want your insurance company to pay for your cancer treatment, then cut you off if the cancer returned, would you?
Over about four months, I met scores of alcoholics and addicts beginning the road to recovery, from naive first-timers to grizzled rehab vets, ranging from late-teens to mid-50s.
They had some great stories to tell, about their shitshow lives …
Notes from the Shitshow 