Getting the Treatment

You may be asking yourself why I didn't mention going to any kind of treatment. Oh, I went to treatment, treatment, treatment and more treatment. I actually went to 4 treatment centers. The first was a hospital detox program for 1 week.

I got there after an intervention of sorts by my mother. She picked me up from work where I had taken the last 3 pills I had. By the time I was checked in and went upstairs to wait for my room, those last pills were starting to wear off. I noticed the girl that came in before me was already being taken to her room. After about 45 minutes they came to get me after more than an hour of pacing back and forth in the hallway, already hurting and needing another pill. I was brought into the room with the girl who got there before me. When I walked in the girl was snoring louder than anyone I had ever heard in my life. I told the nurse that either she was going to have to move me or give me exactly what she had given her! I got my meds as soon as I was unpacked, and yes, they were the same detox meds my roommate had received and, yes, I am sure I was snoring as loudly as she was within the next few minutes.  It was 8:00 and I slept for 14 hours.

Several months earlier the supplier I had used for 35 years stopped carrying the bags I had used. I was wearing a new type of appliance that was not as large and by the time I woke up the next morning I was completely soaked! Welcome to my world! I quickly changed myself and my sheets.

Detoxing for a week with no real treatment is a bit like taking off the cast of someone with a broken leg after one week. I was using again within 24 hours after I was released. Three months later, I overdosed on Soma, a potent muscle relaxer.  Blake called an ambulance and I was rushed to a hospital where my stomach was pumped.  That was one of the most barbaric treatments I had ever experienced, I went to a treatment center right outside of Clarksdale, MS. I was there for 3 months.

Before I left for treatment I signed temporary guardianship of Robert over to my mother and my friends I had the falling out with about leaving a load of towels drying when I cleaned their house, remember them? We had long since let by gones be by gones. Her brother's second child, a baby girl, died from SIDS. Of course I reached out to her and it was as if nothing ever happened between us. They agreed to let Robert live with them most of the time, visiting my mom frequently and seeing Blake every once in a while. He was not necessarily the greatest father material but Robert did have a certain affection for him so he spent some time with him and Blake's parents who felt Robert was their one and only grandchild, which he in fact was.

Treatment in Clarksdale was very, very different than a week in a detox center. It was not a hospital-based facility so they sent you to a doctor in town for detox medications, any anti-depressants you might be on already or that he felt were needed and also, in my case, a non-narcotic sleep aid, Trazodone. It worked well.

They kept us very busy. Breakfast at 6:00, cleaning room at 6:30, exercise at 7:15, mediation at 7:30 where we would read inspirational AA/NA literature, lecture on the physical aspects of addiction at 9:00, 10:00 free time, 11:00 Big Book lecture, 12:00 Noon lunch, 12:30 free time, 1:30 group, 2:00 women's group, 5:30 dinner, 6:30 study, free time, etc., lights out at 10:00. Full day!

Graduation day came! I felt I was ready to take on the world as a sober person. My husband and in-laws came to my graduation and then took me home. This is when the real test was to begin.