Crisis Among the Corncobs- Installment #2

They kept me on the detox unit for two weeks, twitching like a rabbit in withdrawl. It was awful. Besides dealing with my own physical and psychological issues, we were housed dormitory style, so I shared a room with four other women. One was a teenager named Mandy. We all got along well enough-especially for having to share one bathroom. But one evening an ambulance arrives with a newbie. The flashing lights and stretcher aren't a good sign. They manage to wheel a chair out for the patient because she's loudly insisting she be allowed to smoke a cigarette before she checks in.

Naturally, I went out to see what was going on. Actually, I think one of the nurses asked if I had a lighter the woman could use and that was the only excuse I needed to snoop around and get the low down on who she was and where she was coming in from. The info everyone wants when a new person walks in the door is pretty much: who are you? What'd you do? What are you on? Are you really here to get sober? Who sent you in here? That kind of stuff...

This lady was in her fifties and lit up like a Christmas tree. She was slurring her words and she almost lit the wrong end of the cig, and then she almost set her wild head of hair on fire. She looked real crazy, like you could place a bet on her socks not matching and her underwear being on inside out. That hair hadn't seen a brush in days. I'm surprised she didn't explode when she flicked the lighter on because the fumes coming off of her were powerful. After she was done smoking, the nurses wheeled her in to detox. That's when things really became interesting.

They always go through your luggage and purse to see if you're holding and boy, was she! At least a dozen prescription bottles came jingling out and some loose pills clattered from pockets onto the table and floor. "Oh, dear" said Susan, the nice blonde nurse. "Now, Jackie, do you have any other medications or drugs we need to know about?" Jackie lunged for the bottles they were removing from the table and putting in a Ziplock baggie. She grunted and moaned, making animal-like noises. "What's that, Jackie, honey?" Susan was trying to communicate with her. Jackie had on these enormous plastic peach framed glasses, with lenses so thick, when she turned sideways, her eyeballs warped and then she'd face you and they loomed larger than life. The engulfing eyeballs.

After the difficult intake interview, the fetching Jackie was brought into our room. I really didn't care, as long as she was quiet and went to sleep. She seemed to do just that. For a little while. I woke up in the middle of the night to a strange, unearthly moaning. The hairs on my neck stood up, even though I was lying down. I opened my eyes and listened. It was that freaky Jackie and she started banging her head against the wall. The nurses heard it, too, and they came in to intervene and help settle her down. It seemed to work. For a little while. Then I woke up to a naked figure running back and forth across the room moaning, "Hot, hot, hot." Even in the dim light, it wasn't pretty and frankly, it gave me the willies. I turned my head ever so slightly to look at one of my roommates, to see what their reaction was. No one else was in the room but me...and Jackie. They'd gotten the hell out earlier in the night and I'd been in there with the possessed woman by myself. I waited til she was at the far end of the room and made a run for it. All my roomies were in the next dorm sound asleep.

Something that goes on at every rehab that you don't hear too much about is romancing. A lot of people fall madly in love before they are even out of detox. With pasty white, sweaty faces and blood shot eyes, they hold shaky hands and confess, "I love you"..."No, I love you more." You might catch them screwing in the chapel or some other handy place folks don't go too often. It all goes along swimmingly until visiting day, when his wife shows up with the four toddlers. Then it goes south in a shrieking, diabolically disturbing, scenes in the cafeteria way. In other words, it's fantastic.

In group therapy, 8 people who hate group therapy sit around in a circle. The counselor comes in and takes these insipid file cards, on which a "feeling" is written and places them in the center of the group on the floor. Each card has a feeling a four year old could identify, like, sad, happy, mad, scared. I think that was the full extent of the choices. Angry Genius Junkie Boy was in my group, of course, and he hated my guts. We all had to take turns picking one of these moronic cards off the floor and then, if we "could", talk about that feeling. Well, granted, many people have a tremendously difficult time expressing themselves, especially about their emotions. Even I felt somewhat apprehensive because Angry Genius Junkie Boy was just waiting to attack me, and that's not very condusive to a therapeutic environment. To make matters worse, the counselor was as effective as a limp noodle. He secretly felt intimidated by Junkie Boy so, he set no boundaries. But to cover his own ineptitude, he blamed those who "allowed" themselves to fall victim to Junkie Boy's aggressive and sometimes brutal verbal abuse. Group therapy was fun!

Anyhoo, I took issue with the pathetic "emotion" cards. I mean, come on. What if I'm feeling mawkish and somewhat demoralised? None of those cards will cover that. Quite frankly, I thought we needed some new cards for Junkie Boy especially. Like, "odious", "noisome" and "fetid". So, one day he's actually standing on his chair, screaming at the group and I was way past fearing he'd go for my jugular. I was also sickened to observe that the counselor seemed to be almost admiring Junkie Boy- and everyone was so beaten down. It was horrible. And we were paying for this! So, I simply asked the ranting baby tyrant a few pointed questions. It was nothing clever or brilliant or courageous. It was just me wanting to know why. And he freaked. He started jumping around like Mick Jagger singing, "Sympathy for the Devil." And then his skinny butt scuttled out of the room like I'd held a gun to his head. He hid in his room like a little baby for two days. When he came out, he was all human and shit.

I told my individual counselor about it later. I'd been telling her what a flake our group counselor was but she seemed to not take my words to heart. After this incident, Noodle Man was apparently called on the carpet for being an ether therapist. As in non-existant. Why are there so many of those, I wonder?

Tune in next time for mashed potatos and smuggled dope!