Long Island
After 8 days in the hospital, 3 days in a coma, 8 broken ribs, 2 collapsed lungs, lacerated liver, internal bleeding, 4 herniated discs, nerve damage and a traumatic brain injury—I was on the plane back to Long Island. My memory from this period is very poor but one of the few moments that shine through strongly, my dad was fucking terrified when I woke up from the coma, so much pain and fear in his face. I can’t read minds, but I try to imagine part of it: after years of watching his son fucked up on drugs, kid went out to Minneapolis, finally started getting his life together, things seem like they might be okay now, maybe even a sliver of hope, then he gets a call in the middle of the night, flies halfway across the country and spends the next three and a half days praying that his child just wakes up.
I was pretty lost in a heavy mental fog, I was miserable, numb, empty—it was bad. I keep hearing “I’m so lucky,” “blessed,” “a miracle.” You can take your miracle and fuck right off. That’s literally the last thing I wanted to hear. I was pissed. I felt like I was cursed, I couldn’t understand why god wouldn’t just let me go. 4 stories onto concrete should have worked. The next 2-3 months consisted of little more than physical therapy for the nerve damage in my arm and speech therapy. From the TBI my speech was not good- Broca’s aphasia, characterized by hesitant and fragmented speech with little grammatical structure—translation: I sound like a fucking idiot. My memory was not good, especially my short term. If I was trying to have a conversation with you—I’d be able to get a sentence or two in, then I’d stuttering choking on my words and fumbling, I’d get focused on trying to get the next word out I’d forget the rest of what I was going to say, I’d try to find it then I’d forget what you said, then I’d stand there try not to cry and walk away or ask to start over.
My neurologist told me it probably be another 9 months to work as a nurse. I did my best to make time fast forward—unsuccessfully—longest freaking days of my life, time melted by. Nothing was happening in my life. I went back to the same doctor, got back on the same drugs, got on the darkweb. I spent the better part of a year getting high in my parents basement alone feeling sorry for myself.
A year after waking up from the coma I’d crashed my life into the ground, again. Fired from three jobs in 3 months, tore apart my friend’s family, didn’t have a dollar to my name, tanked mentally/emotionally. After spending close to a week in bed, I agreed to go back to rehab, again, for the third time. I didn’t see any other options and I needed to buy myself some time and get back in my family’s good graces. I sat through all the lectures, I didn’t say much, I had little desire to be there, I was a body in a chair counting days. You have to realize, none of this was my fault. It’s my mental health, it’s my PTSD, it’s my TBI, my family didn’t support me the right way, my job fucked me over—life did me wrong. If the stars would just align, if everyone around me would just cooperate, everything would be fine.
Luckily when I was treatment I figured out what went wrong. See I’ve known I was an addict for a long time, and I accepted that, but I was going to make it work, I managed to become a nurse so obviously I’m doing something right. Benzos and meth and coke were the problem. If I stick to oxys and addys I’ll be straight.
I managed to have a pretty long run. I spent the year working as the charge nurse of a methadone clinic- that’s like sitcom level irony. I was good at my job, but my coworkers fucking hated me, everyone knew what was up, and I knew they knew. I sucked to work with, day to day very unstable: exploded on people; went to the bathroom a lot; called out on the regular. Once I spent three days out sick after I got my doctor (same one who writes all my narcotics) to write me a note saying I crashed mountain biking and my back is messed up, I don’t even own a bike. Also that year I started using “alternative” identities to get scripts, which was a blessing and a curse. It kept me from messing with the pressed fentanyl pills that are everywhere now, but it also gave me a ridiculous supply of drugs.
I was at the methadone clinic 10 months, shockingly I ended up getting fired. I can’t believe I managed to hang around that long. Once that happened I really started to spiral and fall apart. I didn’t have anything to fall back on. No friends or meaningful relationships. No hobbies. No routine. Nothing else to hold onto in my life. I decided I was going to take a week to “regroup.” That week turned into two, which turned into a month.
Even as I type this it sounds like it should have been a really good time in my life: I had pretty much all the pills I could want, I didn’t have to work, cashed that unemployment check every week, had an emotionally unavailable Spanish girl with a coke problem. It just was not doing it for me though. The days felt so empty. when I tried to imagine the future it’s like all I could see was black. Numb except for the few times a day I’d get debilitated with panic attacks- I’d spend a lot of time sitting on the side of the road for 30-45 mins just gasping for air, could barely see, hands shaking like crazy, and nonstop tears running down my face (I wasn’t crying… I swear *joke*). I was going nowhere, I knew it. It was the same pattern I’d been living for the past 4-5 years of my life. I’m going to make something really good happen, it’s all going to come together, great plans… but I can’t do it today, I just have to [insert bullshit] first, tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow. I thought I wanted to be different, that I wanted my life to be different—but really I just wanted all the bad things to go away. If the last 4-5 years of experience taught me anything, it’s that bad things don’t go away and good things don’t happen for me. I knew it was going to be a wrap within the next couple days, so I started drafting up a suicide note. Ironically a day later my family intervened on me.
I was fucking salty when I got to detox. I hate treatment, but once I was in front of everyone at the intervention, the idea of refusing to go to treatment and fucking up their intervention and killing myself a few days later just seemed like a real dick move, that would be a lifetime of guilt for them. It wasn’t until a few days into detox I started to look at the bigger picture. Four years before IVC a week in psych failed suicide overdose, two years before a week in the ICU failed suicide jumped off building, then the intervention happening when it did- I wasn’t looking at it like ‘god keeps giving me more chances I must have a higher purpose let me get my life together’. It was ‘obviously god isn’t going to fucking let me die, so I might as well figure out a way to manage my life effectively’. That’s it. I didn’t want to become any type of saint or good guy, I was just tired and bitter and wanted things to be simpler.
I made a point to share in every group, it almost exclusively negative pessimistic and jaded, but I was actually participating for once. I did extra work outside of groups (highly recommend the smart recovery workbook, spoiler alert: their meetings suck), I wasn’t trying to make friends or kick it. I was a dick to most of the people I was there with. I cursed out a quite a few of them. I read a book (mans search for meaning) that said (I’m heavily paraphrasing here) trying to be happy is a waste of time, do something purposeful/meaningful in your life. So I ran with that, I’m still running with that. I wasn’t happy when I was using so it really doesn’t matter if I’m happy sober, I just don’t want my life to be a complete disaster, I want to be a functional adult, and I don’t want to kill myself.
It was recommended that I should go to residential PHP, in some bumblefuck mountain town in North Carolina. My first thought was absolutely not, I fucking hate being in treatment, and I’m not going to live in some backwood Appalachia shithole with a bunch of hicks. I was learning that my first thought is not always my best. I hate recovery cliches—but nothing changes if nothing changes, so I did some mental gymnastics and a day later I came back with: I have no job to go back to, no friends, no relationship, no apartment—how often am I going to have absolutely no strings tying me down in my life, to just pick up and start over, so I might as well take the opportunity. someone had told me to build up as much easy time as I could, and I didn’t have anything else going on in my life so I stayed in PHP for as long as I could (2 more months, I kept the fire under my ass going, continued to share and participate, outside of daily programming I worked a lot on DBT and coping skills, I didn’t read a single page of NA or AA. That whole happiness is a farce thing worked in my favor and I did the same thing mental gymnastics going into sober living, and by that point I’d planned on staying there until I had a year.
I really like knowing everything and being right, and it’s not easy for me to give that up, but I had to concede that when it comes to recovery I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing or talking about. Even though I thought meetings and steps were stupid, I went solely for a place to meet people, do something, and vent. I didn’t do 90 in 90. But when I went, and when I shared, I felt better… to this day I don’t try to talk a bunch of good shit, I can’t quote the big book, I don’t know what page anything is on- I talk about what I know, which is me and my experience. I got linked up with a sponsor who didn’t try to act like my dad- which works for me, because if you tell me I have to call you every day at 5:02 pm, it’s not going to happen. But we do step work every week, I keep in touch with him, we have a good relationship. I kept begrudgingly doing things that I thought were nonsense, I stayed open minded, I gave it a fair chance, when I was told/asked to do something I did a good job, I just tried.
It stopped being nonsense and I started believing in the program after I did my fifth step, which I thought was going to be dumb, but I was incorrect. It was really helpful and insightful, my sponsor pointed out to me a bunch ways I created a lot of the problems and chaos throughout my life, it was a big time ‘huh, wow’ kind of experience, because if I do those things or act that way, my life can be less fucked up. Side note: I think people who gas it up talking about they were reborn after doing their fifth step, and bore their soul, are tripping, you didn’t climb Mt. Everest, you didn’t even actually do anything yet, you talked about some stuff with a guy and he told you some stuff and now you know some new stuff. It’s good stuff to know though.
My feeling on working a program has changed, if you haven’t noticed I think a lot of people get out of hand and hype it up too much, but if you have a drug problem, I’d recommend it. It doesn’t take up all that much time, at most 10 hours of my week, and in return I get a lot. I’m not going to sit here and preach about the program, but I’ve seen a difference in my life for the better. I feel bad about lying now. I can’t bring myself to shoplift anymore (which I used to love). My family talks to me. My dad visited me and cried a happy tear when we were at breakfast. I’m starting to be able to show some vulnerability and connect with people. I have a couple of friends I can lean on and who can lean on me. I’m reliable. I have goals that aren’t grandiose plans that will never come to fruition. I don’t feel like a piece of shit. I have fun sometimes. I’m even happy sometimes.
It’s been six months—have I become Bill W.? Absolutely not. I’ve come to realize that’s not the goal. I’m still cynical, judgmental, relatively snobby, selfish, jaded and a bunch of other things, that’s okay though. One of the best things I’ve heard, “life isn’t all rainbows and unicorns just because you stop using drugs.” Life is simpler though. I enjoy some of my days. I’m not living my dream life but my life is so much better than it was before the intervention. I’m peaceful. When I try to picture my future now, I can see something besides black.