[Charlemagne In Sweatpants]

TL;DR: Struggling booze-bag can't take it anymore. Goes to rehab. Pukes and shits his way to sobriety. It works.


*Audience*

Anyone who logically understands that they need to stop drinking, but can't. Anyone who has meditated deeply on the subject, has written out countless lists of all the pros of quitting, the cons of using. Anyone who comes to the stark realization that objectively, life will be better without drinking, and then immediately heads to the corner store to buy a half-fifth of shitty vodka in a plastic bottle. Anyone who reads this Beyond Borders post and a lightbulb goes off when you realize that "[this] really does boil down to addiction. We don't even have to emote about it to admit that's what it is. They're already going back and forth in their own head, questioning their decision, doubting themselves, wondering why they 'can't just be like everyone else.'" And especially, this is for those who have had a period of sustained sobriety, have lived through and acknowledged all the benefits that come with it, and still return to the bottle, beaten down, on their knees. Those who suspect there is a biological, medical factor at play. Something they can't control on their own. Addiction as a disease.

I write this not as an advertisement for rehab - it's certainly not for everyone. I just want to share what I went through, as I was fortunate enough to hear someone else's story when I really needed to hear it.


*Preface/Background*

There's no need to rehash my past drinking. I've spend enough time doing that, and this datasheet will be focused on recovery rather than reliving war stories. I collapsed in alleys behind bars. I woke up on park benches, lawns, ex-girlfriends' doorsteps. I drove heroic distances across state lines while completely blacked out. There were some fun times no doubt, but you can only wake up so many times spooning a freckly blob, your hand over her slimy bird's nest of a pussy. I was just stumbling along, barely skirting serious legal trouble and injury, This lasted for well over a decade. A family intervention in my early 30's led to 16 months off the sauce. Some of that experience is documented in the Wagon Thread. Despite being able to objectively acknowledge and understand the good things that were happening in my life during this sober spell, I still obsessed over alcohol. Craved it. No matter how many Lizard of Oz posts I read, or how many AA meetings I went to, or how often I meditated on the positives, or how many lists I drew up and goals I made, I could not tune out the compulsive thoughts. DRINK! You may stop me here and say "WTF Charlemagne? You're a man. You should get over it and control these base desires. This is what women do when they can't stop stuffing their faces with gourmet cupcakes. Get it together bruh." For some men, that may be all they need to hear to straighten out. Not me. I needed more. There was something physically wrong with me. Something biological I had to address.


Charlemagne on a leisurely stroll through Wholefoods.

Eventually my well of willpower dried up, and I picked up the bottle again. The relapse lasted about a year. Everything started to unravel. Health, fitness, employment, relationships with friends and family. I began isolating. I would get caught up in this vicious cycle of drinking, feeling terrible about drinking, and then drinking to chase away the crippling guilt. It was fucked up, but for two hours or so, the booze worked. Chased the tension from my shoulders. Cleared my head. Every time. Towards the end, my days consisted of waking up on my couch hungover, barely able to dress myself, looking like a goddamn disaster. Complexion gin-blossomed. Eyes swollen. Body atrophying. I would spend all day at work thinking about when I could get home and start drinking again. When I finally lurched through the door of my squalid bachelor pad, clutching a fifth of Tito's vodka like a crucifix, it was the only relief I would feel all day. I'd pour a huge pull of vodka into my shitty Target brand glassware. Add in just enough lukewarm Gatorade to make the drink palatable. Drink it as fast as I could. I would spend the next several hours drinking, obsessively rewatching the Last Waltz, or Stop Making Sense, or live performances of Radiohead's "Identikit". Text friends nonsense. Smoke cigs on the balcony. Things would slowly go black until I was jerked awake by my alarm clock, gasping. I did this everyday. Weekends were worse.

One of my favorite drinking videos. I would watch this over and over. I love the image of Robbie Robertson grimacing while they close out the song, even though he is a douche.

My final bender was 5 straight days of alternating between sleeping and drinking, although at many points I was too weak to even lift a glass. The nadir. I'd come to accept that I was no longer living, but rather just passing time until I drank myself to death. Would it take a few decades, years, months? I had a terrible pain in my side, I couldn't see straight, I was hallucinating spiders, and on one desperate Tuesday morning I called my parents and told them I needed help. This was a call they had expected for months, and it set into motion a cosmic chain of events that led me rehab. This was in September of last year.


*Brief Treatment Overview*

Upon discharge, I signed a media relations form which prohibits me from "refer[ing] to [the] facility in any media interviews, news articles, websites, social media sites, blogs or the like." I'm no lawyer, but I think a public forum falls under that umbrella. If you want the facility name, just PM me. The treatment center is one of a kind, and should be very easy to find if you Google some of the terms below. For the purposes of this datasheet, I will refer to the facility as SSH.


Majestic scenery.

Hospital Location
Pacific Northwest, USA

Founded
1935 (the same year as Alcoholics Anonymous)

Substances Treated
Alcohol, Marijuana, Cocaine, Meth, Opiates

Length of Treatment
10 days, not including detox. Many people intentionally get fucked up before arriving at SSH, and detox after they're admitted. I even heard stories of people coming straight from the trap house to rehab. Detox for booze is typically 3 days. The longest detox is required for opiates, which can be up to 10 days. I detoxed at a hospital in Chicago, which was the worst 72 hours of my life. Even the parade of sexy nurses and the constant dose of valium couldn't make that experience tolerable. The bottom line is that you have to detox before you can begin treatment in earnest. After the initial 10 days, you have two overnight recaps at the facility (these are included in the cost). One after 30 days, one after 90 days. I flew back out for both.

Cost
$20 grand and change, not including detox. In my case, 80% was covered by insurance. I had little trouble with processing, even though my insurance was out of state.

Facility
Think of a summer camp for booze bags. Accommodations trended towards the shabby side, but it's important to remember that SSH is rehab, not vacation. Sure, there are huge, gorgeous facilities in Malibu that cater to B-list celebrities and their reckless children, the kind of place where you can golf with Matthew Perry between counseling sessions. SSH is not like that. You'll probably have a roommate, and the two of you will share a bathroom with two other guys. The place was generally clean and comfortable, but as I understand it, staff is where the money goes. The nurses, doctors, counselors were all incredible. Everyone was polite and friendly and seemed to take their jobs very seriously. They treated me like a king. So what if the "workout room" was a treadmill and deflated exercise ball. You're not there to get your goddamn swell on, big homie.


*Treatment Method*


Your humble narrator getting ready for a real horrorshow treatment session, O my brothers.

Aversion Therapy or Counter Conditioning
If you read that and immediately thought of A Clockwork Orange, then you have a good idea of what's in store. From the website: "[Counter Conditioning] eliminates addiction at the root: in the neurological and physiological processes of the brain. Research findings and decades of experience demonstrate that transforming the way the brain processes drug and alcohol stimuli provides the strongest way for patients to battle addiction.

By eliminating the cravings that frequently lead to relapse, [SSH] treatment helps patients create recovery plans that are far more permanent and more likely to succeed in the long term. By treating addiction as a medical condition—not a moral failure—we allow patients their dignity while providing the tools to rebuild their lives."

There are two types of aversion therapy offered by SSH - Chemical Counter Conditioning and Faradic Counter Conditioning. Chemical Counter Conditioning sessions, commonly called "Duffies", involve pairing feelings of extreme unpleasantness and sickness with your drug of choice. They are fucking gnarly (much, much more on this later). Faradic Counter Conditioning is generally offered to patients whose health would be jeopardized by Duffy sessions. Faradics involve pairing a form of mild shock therapy with your drug of choice. There are benefits/drawbacks to each. The Duffies (which I was treated with) are much more dramatic and can create a unique bonding experience among patients. They can also take a serious toll on your body, and the recovery period is long. Faradic sessions are more nuanced, and can address the entire scope of your addiction (you are coached to envision walking to the liquor store, reaching for your favorite bottle, paying for it with your maxed out Southwest Rapid Rewards Card, etc). Faradics have a shorter recovery period, but the counter conditioning is not driven home with quite as much authority as it is with a Duffy. SSH maintains that both are equally effective, although personally I am dubious.

Patients are scheduled for 5 counter conditioning sessions during the initial 10-day stay, plus 1 on the 30-day recap and 1 on the 90-day recap. They are administered every other day, which are informally called "Treatment Days."

Sedation Interviews
This will sound like some Scientology shit, but bear with me. During a sedation interview, the patient is lightly sedated with a "truth serum." In the past, SSH used sodium pentothal, but I believe they now use propofol (yeah yeah, it's the stuff that killed MJ). While you are under the influence of the truth serum, you are asked questions about your addiction history and the status of your treatment. The idea is to get honest responses from your subconscious about what personal factors contributed to your addiction, and more importantly, they gauge the effectiveness of the treatment. A transcript of the sleepy session is recorded for review with your counselor.

Patients are scheduled for 4 sedation interviews (called "Sleepies") during the intial 10-day stay, plus 1 on the 30-day recap and 1 on the 90-day recap. They are administered on the days you do not have treatment, which are informally called "Sleepy Days."

One-on-One Counseling
Patients meet with addiction specialists for one-on-one counseling on "Sleepy Days". The initial counseling session focuses on your addiction history. In later ones, patients go over the typed transcript of their most recent sedation interview, and discuss their results. As the treatment progresses, discussions are aimed more towards constructing an after-care plan, and how to maintain sobriety post-treatment. Homework is also reviewed.

My counselor was a very animated, love-him-or-hate-him guy. The dude had at least five different voices that he would rotate through when lecturing. He was far more engaging and helpful than any shrink or AA sponsor I've ever worked with, and he was kind enough to let me schedule an off-the-books counseling session for me and my parents.

Group Counseling
Group counseling sessions happen 3-4 times a day, and can range from 12-step-style group meetings, to guest speakers, to counselor-led lectures and discussions about homework topics and readings. Some were just an informal group chat. About half of the sessions focused on the science of addiction as a disease, and half were dedicated to the social factors that contribute to addiction and how they can be addressed post-treatment. We also spent a lot of time learning about PAWS (Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome), which can affect a recovering addict many months after completing treatment (I had researched PAWS previously, as I went through it the first time I got sober).

My favorite group sessions were those that allowed us to tell our stories. A particularly memorable session involved writing a farewell letter to our drug of choice. The idea may sound hokey, but patients were really into it. I framed mine as an "it's not you, it's me" love letter. Then we read them aloud. That was the most emotional room I've ever been in, and shit that some people go through...goddamn. It really put some things into perspective for me. I've never lost a close friend. Never buried a child. Never fought in a war. Never fucked a stranger for heroin. Never questioned my sexual orientation. Never was abused. Never had chronic knee and back pain. Never served as an enforcer for a drug cartel. Never killed a man. I'm a dopey, middle-class, white guy. I grew up in a stable environment, with loving parents who did everything they could to give me a better life. I have good friends, good job, look good naked. I have no obvious personal reason for chugging clear liquor like 1980 John Bonham. But I have this way of thinking...this cycle...it just creates a feedback loop of crippling guilt. I'm fortunate to have these nice things and a nice life. And so, how have I become such a shameless drunk? I gotta drink to blur these thoughts out. The group counseling sessions helped me to understand that the addiction was something beyond my control. Something I was predisposed to, something I did not ask for, and yet it was something I fed, carelessly.


*Clientele*

When I was at SSH, there were about 25 patients in treatment at any given time. Patients were constantly cycling in and out, including those who were returning for the 30 and 90 day recaps.

I met all sorts of people. Alaskan meth-heads. Bored, pill-popping housewives. Tech moguls from SF who sold successful companies in their 20's and then partied for two decades. Men sent by their wives. Strippers sent by their boyfriends. Junkies with ankle monitors and blow and go cars. Quiet, mousy girls with warrants out for their arrest. Gays. Lesbians. Retirees. Teenagers. Blacks. Asians. Dorky white guys from Chicago.

The bonding aspect of rehab was one of my favorite parts. The comradery that developed, especially among the three or four patients that started treatment on the same day as me, was incredible. Unlike AA, you're all coming in at a similar time in your recovery - at the bottom. You're vulnerable and scared and looking for someone to relate to. Plus, you're spending 10 straight days with each other.

Over the decades, the place has developed its own culture, lexicon, minutiae and you pick up more of it each day. And there is also no modesty at SSH. No one had a filter. Nothing was off-limits for discussion.

And just like in real life, the male/female ratio was garbage.


*General Itinerary*

Here's what a typical day was like for me at SSH.

5:45 am - Wake up and have vitals taken. Don't even bother to conceal raging morning wood from the bubble-assed nurse with the lip ring.
6:10 am - Shuffle out of bed and take a shower.
6:45 am to 7:45 am - First group counseling session in the auditorium, also called the Breakfast of Champions. There is a lot of fasting that happens on both Treatment Days and Duffy Days, so no one actually has breakfast during the Breakfast of Champions.
7:45 am - Smoke break.
8:00 am to 9:00 am - Second group counseling session in the auditorium.
9:00 am to 1:00 pm - This is the time block when patients generally had their treatment or sedation interview.
1:00 pm to 2:00 pm - Afternoon group counseling session, usually a movie like "The Secret" or "Pleasure Unwoven." Half of the patients skip this because they are in treatment, or recovering from treatment. I would usually grab lunch around this time.
2:00 pm to 5:00 pm - Free. I typically used this time to journal, read the forum, or listen to music. On Sleepy Days, I'd have a one-on-one counseling session scheduled somewhere in here.
5:00 pm to 6:00 pm - Dinner.
6:00 pm to 7:00 pm - Free.
7:00 pm to 8:00 pm - Evening group counseling session.
8:00 pm to 9:00 pm - Fuck around on the smoking patio and trade stories, share wisdom, bum cigarettes. The best part of the day.
9:00 pm to 11:00 pm - Hang out in the patients lounge.
11:00 pm - Lights out.

It's important to note that there is a lot of free time, which is atypical of rehab programs, as they often have a lot of structure and routine (for good reason, but more on this later).

A high-level treatment schedule would look something like this

Day 1.) Orientation
Day 2.) Treatment 1
Day 3.) Sleepy 1
Day 4.) Treatment 2
Day 5.) Sleepy 2
Day 6.) Treatment 3
Day 7.) Sleepy 3
Day 8.) Treatment 4
Day 9.) Sleepy 4
Day 10.) Treatment 5

30-Day Recap
Day 11.) Sleepy 5
Day 12.) Treatment 6

90-Day Recap
Day 13.) Sleepy 6
Day 14.) Treatment 7


*What is a Duffy, exactly?*


Say when.

If SSH is the movie Tombstone, then the Duffy is like Doc Holliday. Ruthless, sickly, drinking, coughing up blood, and the most memorable part of that goddamn movie. This whole procedure will seem crazy, barbaric, extreme. That's because it is. The Duffy is a serious kick in the ass - physically, mentally, emotionally. It was exactly what I needed. Some of this shit will sound unbelievable. Everything I tell you is true.

On orientation day, one of the treatment nurses will go over a list with you. Not just any list. A list of booze. Shit you used to drink, shit you love to drink, and shit you can't drink. My drinking roster is below. Fuck you if you don't think it's clever.

Legacy Team
Budweiser
Private Stock
Montezuma Tequila
Shitty hipster beer in a tallboy can

All-Stars
Tito's Vodka
Jim Beam
Lagunitas Little Sumpin' Sumpin' IPA
Jameson
Midrange Cabernet

Cut List
Coconut Rum
Scotch

You'll be seeing all these again very soon.

The night before a Treatment Day, the Duffy schedule will be posted, including a time and Duffy nurse. You'll get something like "9:30 am, Mimi." Oooo Mimi. She's tough. No-nonsense. Not one for conversation. When you wake up on a Treatment Day, you can't have anything to eat at least 6 hours before treatment. So you wake up hungry and will have to stay hungry until it's all over. You are allowed to drink, however. And you'll have to drink. A lot. At least two 32 oz pitchers of liquid to be exact. Any liquid that can't be confused with blood if you were to puke it up. No coffee, nothing red. Pro Tip: go with lukewarm water that you left out overnight. The 2 pitchers are very important, because you will need a sizable buffer of liquid in your stomach. During the morning group sessions, those with Treatment Days will be carrying pitchers and pouring water/blue Powerade/whatever into cups and chugging them. The sound of water being poured nervously into a paper cup will be forever etched into your brain.

When you're called into the treatment area, you're already a wreck. Whether it's your first, or third, or fifth. Mimi beckons you in with her Ethiopian accent. She escorts you into a small room that looks like a hotel bathroom. You sit at a counter with an inlaid stainless steel basin in front of you. Just beyond the basin is a big mirror so you can watch this whole shitshow go down. To your right is all the alcohol you specified in your cleverly categorized list. If this is not your first Duffy, you wince at the site of the bottles. Mimi administers a shot of vasodilator into your shoulder with a needle like a Therizinosaurus claw. Gah. Then you wait. The vasodilator begins to give you flu-like symptoms. You start getting feverish, sweaty. Dark green pools form below your armpits. Your clavicle is slick, shiny, sweat beading down your chest. Your hastily combed hair is matted to your forehead. Your ruddy cheeks grow even redder, making you look like a line cook at Shake Shack. Then the spitting starts. So much saliva. You spit and drool, thick streams of saliva lashing the bowl in front of you. Fuuck this sucks. The flooding saliva hints at a weird gagging sensation, stretching all the way down your esophagus. You try to ignore it by making small-talk with Mimi. Mimi, you ever been to DC? Great Ethiopian food. But it comes out more like Mmmmmmimmee (spit) deeeeseeee (spit) eeeeethfloooooo (spit) because there is so much goddamn saliva. Mimi looks at you and determines you are sufficiently miserable. She asks you to rate your current aversion to alcohol. -5 no aversion. 5 strong aversion. You say 2. She takes your pulse before handing you a glass with 125 ml of South American ipecac (the good shit) diluted in water. It smells like liquified dirt. "Drink it." You chug it down. Tastes just like it smells. Those unfamiliar with ipecac should review these two educational films...

While you wait for the ipecac to wreak havoc on your stomach, Mimi assumes her role as a twisted bartender nurse. "What are you drinking today?" Tito's (spit). Ahh...Lagunitas beer and the cabernet too (spit). She fills three glasses with about 3 oz of vodka each, diluting the third with some warm water. The glasses remind you of the weirdly undersized ones in your college cafeteria. You'd have to fill four up with chocolate milk just to get a decent amount of dairy. "Smell, swish and spit." You take the first, give it a cursory sniff. Gross. Rubbing alcohol. Sip it, swish, and spit. Not so bad. "How do you feel?" Been better (spit). "Good. Drink the next two." You pound the first in one gulp. Your stomach tightens and you cough. It stays down. The warm water makes the next drink particularly gross, but you keep it down. Barely. Your stomach knots itself further and bellows "Ipecaaaac." Mimi pours two more drinks. 3 oz vodka, 3 oz vodka diluted. "Drink." The first takes two gulps. You're halfway through the second gulp and it begins. You lurch forward, vodka and water and ipecac at the back of your throat. It's taking all your effort to keep it down. Your sweaty toes curl. "C'mon. All of it." The thought of finishing the rest of the glass makes you cough. Involuntary. And then it happens. Mmmmimi, I....BLAAAAAHHHERGGGGGGGG!!! The elevator doors of the Overlook Hotel open, and you puke a deluge of acidic vodka and water into the bowl, hacking loudly through the last heaves. Gurgling, drooling all over yourself. "Next one. C'mon." Goddammit, Mimi. You fight to regain composure, and chug the diluted vodka, puking immediately after you swallow. Hacking for a good 30 seconds. Fuuuck. You slump forward, resting your shoulders against the counter, spitting and wheezing into the bowl. You raise your head briefly to look at the burst blood vessels in your eyes, your runny nose, wondering how the fuck you ended up in this place. You look to your right, and Mimi has your next drinks ready to go, this time they're two 6 oz glasses of Lagunitas IPA. Just the sight of them, amber and bubbly and shitty and terrible, forces another 16 oz of your water buffer into the bowl, which is suddenly a quarter full. Deep down, every cell in your body is telling you to stop. But you can't. You have to submit to treatment. And you do. You will take your punishment like a man.

On your first Duffy, you will have 4 drinks. The second, 8 drinks. The third, 12 drinks. The fourth, 16 drinks. On the fifth Duffy, you will have 20 motherfucking drinks. If at any point during your Duffy you keep down four consecutive drinks, you will have to induce vomiting with an oversized popsicle stick dipped in booze. It sucks, but you can't risk catching a buzz. Around session four and five, I started plowing through my liquid buffer before we were done, so I was allowed to rest for a minute and drink a small glass of water, lest I start dry-heaving and rip a stomach muscle. The buffer is crucial.

The first Duffy will last about 20 minutes. The final will last about 45. At the end of each, Mimi will take your blood pressure, ask you for your aversion level. 5. Fuck this shit, Mimi. Then she'll take a rag and pour random liquors on it. Tequila and red wine is her favorite combo. This will be coming back to your room with you, along with an empty bottle of Lagunitas. It's Duffy recovery time!

Duffy recovery time is the fucking worst. You are escorted, burbling and delirious, back to your room. Your bed has already been stripped and you're given a plastic basin, just in case things get messy. Oh yes, they will get messy. You're instructed to lay in bed, and reflect. No TV. No books. No laptop. No phone. No eating. No jerking off. No sleeping. If your roommate isn't an asshole, he'll be long gone. No conversing. Just sit and think about what your life with alcohol was like, what it will be like without it. You will do this for three hours. Three hours. That's like the goddamn running time of Titanic. Shit will get very weird over these three hours. During the first, a nurse will come in every 15 minutes to take your pulse and make sure you're not fucking around. She will ask you your level of nausea (1 mildly shitty, 3 deathbed). On the second visit, she will bring you something called a booster. A booster is warm beer mixed with ipecac. More fucking ipecac. You will have to drink this in front of her. You're also instructed to keep the smelly, boozy rag by your face, and the empty bottle in front of you. Look at the bottle. Lagunitas Little Sumpin' Sumpin'. There's a dope little pinup girl on that bottle. Tits teed up in a corset. Coquettish smile. Knee raised. High socks. In your delirium you fantasize about fucking her. She's prone on her back. Limbs lithe, not taut and sinewy like a fitness chick. Just feminine, soft. Her tits oscillate rhythmically in the corset, causing a tiny pink nipple to pop out. Her legs pull you in deeper, soft socks rubbing against your backside. She's close. Hips moving faster, she lowers her eyes to watch your penetrating dick. Faster. Harder. She grimaces, and hooks a finger between her teeth. She's there. Cums with her eyes closed, squealing. And then a nurse knocks, yanking you from Lagunitas girl's spasming body. It's been 15 minutes. "What's your nausea level, Charlemagne?" 2. "Okay, your second booster will be coming in 15." Fuuuck. You'll have to drink another mixture of warm beer and ipecac. Then the real fun will begin.


I may or may not have tried to have sex with this bottle.

If the boosters do their thing, then you'll alternate between puking and dry heaving for the next 2.5 hours. Sometimes more. Nurses will be around to check on you every 30 minutes. If you somehow manage to keep the boosters down, the ipecac will fight it's way out the other end. You'll be laying on your bed, staring into space, trying to meditate on how life will be better without the booze, and then suddenly...HOLY SHIT. Your previously lifeless body jerks out of bed and bounds towards the bathroom like a gazelle. You lock both doors (remember, you're sharing the shitter with an adjacent room) and fumble with the knotted drawstring on your scrubs. Fuuuuck. The split-second your bare ass cheeks touch porcelain, your butthole erupts with a stream of cloudy, brownish liquid. The sound - good god - it's like someone is blasting a firehouse into the bowl. You are literally pissing out of your own butthole. For a good 30 seconds. Sometimes the stream is so fierce that it CHANGES ANGLES and hits the BACK of the goddamn bowl. Each one of these shitstorms leaves you exhausted and dehydrated. You sneak some faucet water. You'll be relaying between the bed and the bathroom for hours, and feeling echoes in your bowels for DAYS. Every fart will be an adventure. Patients are offered adult diapers on Treatment Days. Many are thankful.

Once the three hours are up, your bowels and stomach voided, a nurse will take away your basin and remake your bed. You are encouraged to try eating something light, like crackers or a granola bar, but you're surprisingly ravenous, so you limp down to the cafeteria, your butthole chafed, and you order two bacon cheeseburgers. You inhale them with little regard for decorum. Hunching over your meal like Gollum. Eyes wide. Greasy chunks of beef and cheese tumbling from your mouth.

As mentioned, you'll do this five times (and twice more during recaps). Their purpose should be obvious - you're pairing your drug of choice with physical feelings of extreme misery. You're training your body to actively repel the stuff. When I was on my fourth Duffy, something happened to me. I didn't even want to go into the room. I had zero desire for Tito's to touch my lips. I was close to heaving before I even got the vasodilator. I immediately puked up each one of those 16 drinks the second I swallowed. In the middle of the session, I started to feel like I was "breaking." Things started moving in slow motion. My extremities were pleasantly tingly. All the guilt and regret and shame I had built up over the years was purged into that stainless steel bowl, floating in a smelly mosaic of foam and bile and wine and booze. I wanted to cry. I've never claimed to be a spiritual person. I've never had a white light moment. I've never felt the overwhelming presence of a higher power in nature. But something happened to me in that room. It was the closest I've ever felt to God. When I got back to my room, I meditated for 3 hours, face slack, staring at the paper collar of the Tito's bottle that I had brought back as a memento, occasionally puking ipecac and warm beer into my basin. When it was over, I slept. For hours. To this day, things have not been the same. I struggle to describe it, but it feels like a huge chunk of my brain, the part obsessed with thinking about booze - when I could drink, what I would drink, how shitty I would feel when I wasn't drinking - was just...bulldozed. The tract was cleared, and I was free to repurpose the land as I saw fit. Work, wisdom, girls, friends, travel, style, "the subtle pleasures and boredoms of my everyday life." I think back to that day often, and the feeling still returns to me, even if I can't articulate exactly what it is.

Anyway. I have no idea why they are called Duffies. Everyone gave me a different answer.


*What is a Sleepy, exactly?*

Sleepy Days are decidedly less-eventful than Duffy Days. The worst part is the fasting. You're not allowed to have anything to eat or drink starting at midnight the night before. Realistically, that stretch will be from about 10:30 pm to 10:30 am. 12 hours of no sustenance. By the time you're called to the nurses' station for your Sleepy, you are parched and grumpy. But relief is coming soon, my friend. Very soon. You're guided into a room that looks like a dentists' office. You relax in an oversized reclining chair, while a freckly biracial nurse swaddles you in a blanket. You agre greeted by an anesthesiologist and a counselor. The anesthesiologist will recline the chair and prep you for sedation, and the counselor will collect the blue sheet that you meticulously folded into the chest pocket of your scrubs. On the blue sheet you've written out a list of several personal affirmations, some of which are inspired by neomasculine principles. Below those are two questions that you wish to ask your subconscious. It's kind of an eerie concept, but you spent some time coming up with good questions to ask.

The anesthesiologist will start a saline drip. It flows steady and cool up your arm and goddamn that shit is good. You're ready for sedation. The counselor will repeat your affirmations one by one, and you'll repeat each one back to her. The last one has a lot of commas, and your memory is starting to feel a little sluggish, so you kinda struggle to repeat it and holy shit you're suddenly in a different room and have no idea what time it is. You briefly panic, but there is no sign of forcible rape or alien abduction. Your kidneys are both intact. The freckly nurse heard you stirring. "Look who's awake. You're almost done with your second IV. 10 more minutes." Freckles, how long have I been in here? "About 20 minutes." Hmmm...I guess that makes sense. You relax, fold your hands over your belly, and close your eyes. You feel rested, like you've been asleep for hours. The nurse returns shortly, moves you to a wheelchair, and wheels you back down the hall to your room. Still a little loopy, you give the mousy felon chick a highfive as you're pushed by. Yeaaaaa Sleepy. At the snack station you ask the nurse to grab you an iced tea, a breakfast sandwich, and some Cinnamon Toast Crunch, because that shit is the BEST, big homie. She chuckles and wheels you into your room with a lap full of food. You're instructed to relax in the room for an hour while the lingering traces of sedation wear off. You listen to Big Grams "Put It On Her" and inhale breakfast. Then you nap with a smile on your face.

Later in the afternoon, you'll meet one-on-one with a counselor and go over the transcript of your Sleepy. I was always one of those kids that was excited to get test results back, so I couldn't wait to get my hands on that transcript. During early sedation interviews, you're generally asked questions about your usage history, when you started, how has it impacted your life, do you want to change it. As treatment progresses, questions focus more on your treatment and what you plan to do for aftercare once you leave SSH. The first and last question of every Sleepy is "What is your current aversion level to alcohol?"

Personally, I didn't get as much out of the sleepies as I had hoped. My answers were usually very clipped, short - sometimes only three words or so. Sometimes they were rambling, but nonsensical. Sometimes I fell asleep in the middle of an answer. The glaring exception to this is the Sleepy I had after Duffy #4 (described above). My subconscious was much more lucid, hopeful, inspired after that. Patients take all their Sleepy transcripts with them when they leave. I still read that fourth one occasionally.

Concerning the two personal questions you can ask yourself, I really got into it. During the first sleepy I asked myself "Why do you evaluate a situation rationally, come to an objective conclusion, and completely ignore your own advice?" My answer was that I romanticize things like self-destruction, self-deprecation, self-loathing. Kinda heavy, but okay, I can work with that. Throughout the rest of treatment, I would ask myself to expand on these thoughts. In the next session: "Why do you romanticize these things?" Because I have an identity with them. I think I read too much Bukowski. Because it's easy. Because I'm selfish. I would give myself weird, circular answers. I spent a lot of time in counseling going over these thoughts, and ultimately came to the conclusion that indulging in things like self-deprecation can be okay if they're deployed as a small part of a greater good. Look at Delicious Tacos. His writing is blighted with hilarious passages about self-loathing. But I think these exist to do a few things: 1.) they keep him grounded, and remind him how hard this journey has been for him 2.) they keep his writing extremely readable 3.) they are parts of a greater effort to stay sober, to understand God, to improve himself and his body and relationships with slutty Latinas. Relating to someone through self-deprecation is easy. When you're constantly beating yourself up, those bad experience and troubling times are more vivid. More impactful. You remember failures in greater detail than triumphs. Relating to someone through self-improvement is more difficult. No one wants to come across as a braggart, and you've long celebrated those dark aspects of life as somehow being deeper. You indulge in them like a guilty pleasure. A few weeks after the 10-day treatment, I still didn't have much clarity on the subject. But as I was perusing the Wagon Thread one afternoon, I saw this entry from from richler, and the following passage...

I drew elegant portraits of the night people and the weirdoes and the freaks and their demimondes and challenged people close to me to first accept me as essentially this sort of person, and to secondly accept that this sort of person is very valuable and is in strange ways superior to people who are not excessive in this area. These portraits were decorated with scenes from films, lines from novels, and my favourite songs. There is a lot of material celebrating this general idea in our culture, and a lot of it is very compelling. But it is more compelling to realize when you are making yourself unhappy, and I am.

Holy shit. To me this was staggering. It was exactly how I felt, but I could never have framed it as accurately and beautifully as this man did; never have expressed the subtle feelings of superiority that had been poisoning me for over a decade. When I went back for my 30-day recap, this passage came up in my Sleepy transcript several times. How I need to resist the draw of being one of the "night people." How I was never any good at being one to begin with. How I need to reassure myself that a life in the daylight can be just as mysterious and romantic and deep and compelling and weird.


*Venues*

The Smoking Patio aka The Table of Wisdom
The main floor patio of SSH is the beating heart of the hospital's social life. Chainsmoke a few Parliaments among the bucolic Douglas firs; sit at the table of wisdom and talk about girls with a local crackhead; huddle under the space heater with the Asian stripper and try to figure out if her tits are fake (they are); read Storm of Swords for the third time in the afternoon sun; coax the jovial tweaker from Arkansas to play something on the guitar; listen to your roommate talk about how he used to score perc thirties across the street. Almost all of the patients smoke, so people are constantly cycling in and out of the patio. It's a great place to learn about others and swap stories. After the evening group meeting, the patio was often so packed you couldn't find a seat.


Lose the haircut, and we'll talk.

Nurses station
This is where you'll pick up any creature comforts like toothpaste and sleeping pills. Shoot the shit with the Ukrainian dimepiece nurse, and really impress her by requesting an antidiarrheal and two adult diapers. You have a chance, bruh. If you get a care package from an on-again-off-again girl back home, you'll have to open the box at the nurses station and declare each item. Let's see here. Starbucks instant coffee. Toblerone. Cookies. Pink lace panties.

Cafeteria
The cuisine at SSH is in between hospital and college cafeteria quality. Taco tuesday. Grilled cheese. Bacon cheeseburgers. Bacon cheeseburgers disguised as patty melts. Bacon cheeseburgers disguised as meatloaf. They always had blue cheese dressing at the salad bar. The cooks make snarky remarks when you order peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. "Do you need me to cut the crusts off, junior?" "Let me slice a heart into the bread for you, just like your mommy. Sorry we're out of Capri Sun, by the way." I must've gone through 12 cookies a day because newly-sober booze bags fiend for sugar. They wheeled a snack cart up to the main floor after the evening meeting, which had brownies or fudge or sticky buns. They knew their audience.

Patient Lounge
Here's where you can relax and watch some Tivo. As long as the weird bearded guy hasn't claimed the lounge as his de facto bedroom. In that case, you'll be stuck watching nothing but Velocity Channel and a show about tattoo coverups. Chuy got the large "FUCK LOVE" written on his chest transformed into a mariachi band. Impressive. When I went through, there was an Alaskan dude with every non-Apple tech gadget known to man. He pirated movies and pay-per-view fights for us to watch after the evening patio sessions. We watched Black Mass while it was still in theaters, with perfect HD and Japanese subtitles. He was the man.


*Attire*

First and foremost, SSH is a medical facility. You'll be wearing scrubs, hospital footies, and a robe for the duration of your stay. Those in detox wear grey scrubs ("The Greys"). Those in treatment wear green scrubs ("The Greens"). This is done to easily identify patients, as Greys are restricted to the main floor of the hospital. You can leave the rolled-hem pocket squares and double monk straps at home. All you should bring are comfortable moccassins and about 14 pairs of underwear. You'll need extras. Trust me.


*Post Mortem*

It's been about 4.5 months since my last drink. I can say without hesitation that my life has been markedly better since I stepped through that shabby hospital lobby. The undeniable compulsion to drink, the obsession with alcohol, the unstoppable booze feedback loop, all of that shit is gone. The morning after I flew home, I walked to the market to grab lunch and happened to pass by my old, divey haunt. The smell of stale Old Style and piss - a smell I had strangely welcomed for over a decade - almost made me hurl on the curb. The aversion therapy was no joke. When I returned to work, I was so focused and motivated that I completely overhauled a project I had spent the previous 9 drunk months wading through. It took me less than 2 weeks to finish. Coworkers looked at me with raised eyebrows. Who is the fuck is this guy?

I immediately started looking for a new apartment, both to get out of my squalid bachelor pad and to treat myself to some new scenery. I also wanted to leave Chicago's main party neighborhood, and set up in a more quiet, industrial enclave. By December, I was living in an old-school loft and beginning the process of furnishing the place with some tasteful shit.

Because I had been so malnourished when I entered rehab, I gained close to 15 pounds once I got back to a regular eating and gym schedule. Some of that weight is muscle and some of it's not, and that's just fine with me

It would be foolish to say that I don't think about drinking from time to time. I'm sure I will for the rest of my life. But they're fleeting thoughts, requiring no more brain power or emotional dedication than the remembrance of an old lover. There will always be a part of me that wishes I was "normal" - that I could have a few whiskeys with coworkers during a happy hour, that I could share a bottle of wine with a date, that I could sip a Narragansett Lager if my alma mater wins the NCAA tournament. That I could do these things without springboarding into a bender, ending up in an alley somewhere with no pants. Instead I get mental clarity. Sanity. Friends and family who have my back. The pursuit of truth and self improvement. A functioning dick. In the grand scheme of things, that's not a terrible tradeoff.

I was talking with greekgod at the meetup on Saturday night. I rarely bring up why I don't drink unprompted, but if someone is curious about it, I'm happy to talk their ear off for as long as they'll let me. He asked me if being at the bar was difficult. To be honest, the "alcohol" component of the meetup hardly registered with me. 6 months ago, the booze hamster would have justified the whole experience as a legit reason to go out and get shitfaced in public - the presence of the tribal group was ancillary. Instead, I was focused on networking and talking with like-minded guys, catching up with forum members, eyeing the local talent, listening to vinman talk shit, rehashing the events of the past week. The fact that I was surrounded by booze wasn't important. I didn't care, and it was a good feeling.

I'll end this meandering shitshow with the following. Before my 90-day recap I reread and rewatched A Clockwork Orange. Aside from the obvious comparison to the Duffy room, I wanted to address some "deep and hard questions" brought up by Burgess. The prison chaplain considers the Ludovico technique: "What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some ways better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?" If my body physically won't let me drink, then have I truly done the work to get sober and live peacefully in sobriety? I'm still working to figure that out. By choosing treatment and completely embracing the experience, I'd like to think that my intentions were good. I wasn't desperate for a shortcut out of prison, so I could return to a life of crasting and tolchocks. Furthermore, Alex was conditioned against fighting and fucking - things that can be vital to a man's survival if called upon. I was conditioned against boozing myself to death. As long as I don't have to out-drink Marion Ravenwood for the headpiece of the Staff of Ra, I'll be in good shape.

I should also note that patients can (and have) pushed through the aversion. You're not going to collapse into a belching heap like Alex if you're around Tito's. Which brings me to my final point: rehab makes the disease of addiction manageable, but it's still up to you to learn how to live in sobriety, to actively embrace it, to reflect on and share what you've learned so far. Writing this was a way for me to do just that.

Many thanks for reading. Any questions, just ask.