There are certain moments that, for some reason or other, leave a lasting impression. Sometimes, when they are happening, you just know, this moment is going to change you forever. Other times, you aren't paying a second notice to the moment- but years down the line, you think back to that time with an odd quality and a smile and find a poignancy that eluded you before.
I was just thinking about, the other day, about the second rehab I went to in Bryan, Texas. This rehab was for homeless people, and was a lot smaller than the other one that I happened to go the other two times I went to rehab here in the Hill Country. I was in that rehab three years ago, when I was 19 years old from November 12th to January 8th. I spent Christmas and New Years in there. It was a small, non- profit rehab, on the fourth floor of a building in the outskirts of the poor district of Bryan, and because of the holidays, the staff decided to keep the group in there together until after New Years. In fact, I "graduated" that rehab with about half the people in there. So, everyone was in there for a quite a long time, and we got to be quite close, and needless to say, that rehab left quite a lasting impression on me.
Still, on my part, I was not really ready to recover (in fact, I wouldn't be ready to really recover until just recently- by that I mean actually talk about all of my problems instead of some of them). I was coming off of a quick, and intense relapse off of my first rehab where I hit a strong 2 month heroin binge, that sent me into a highly intense detox. I don't really remember much of my detox, actually- most of what I know is from what other people have relayed to me. What I do remember is medications, sleepless nights in agony, pain, hallucinations, shakes, shivers, cold sweats, and all the good stuff. I was in detox for about a month, and because of my mental disorder and suicidal tendencies, I was shipped off to a psych ward. It took a month for them to get me ready to go to a psych ward because they couldn't stablize my blood pressure, but I remember that day, waiting for my father to pick me up. I love my father to death, and to this day, the biggest guilt I feel is for all the pain I caused him. I am his only child, he is a divorcee, and we're from Brazil- the rest of our family lives there, this has not been easy for him, but our family is no exception. But I remember waiting for my father, brimming with excitment, on a sunny day, imagining him showing up, me smiling, going up to him, hugging him and showing how well I was doing. I imagined the conversation we would have on the ride. It was a good fiction. And then, he walked through the door of the detox, and as soon as I threw my arms around him, I broke down harder then I ever have in my life until that point.
By the time I came back from the psych ward (and, I think it is funny how similar my experience was when I as 19 was when I was 22 when I went to rehab this last time, it was just me who took it differently), I was broken down and vulnerable. Going through the holidays and so on took quite a toll on my emotions and so forth. Anyway, the event that really changed me took place in the middle of my time there. I just wanted to get my mindset described.
There was this man that showed up to the rehab about my third day back from the psych ward that I ended up becoming close too. He was this large man, and when I say large, I mean scary muscular large white man that scared the shit out of me at first. But, in all truth he was a nice guy... overall. He just got out of doing an eleven year stint in the pen, and was a crack head. This is the man in question.
So, in the middle of my tenure at this rehab, we did this exercise. We sat in this classroom, and we dimmed the lights until a bare minimum. Then, all of us sat in a circle around two chairs that faced each other. The point of the excercise was this: someone would sit in one of these chairs and face the other chair with no one in it. The person in the chair in the middle of the circle would then pretend that there was someone else in the chair in front of them and they would let loose their frustration and anger on them. For instance- I sat on that chair and let loose on my mother for back then what I thought were crimes she committed against me during my parents' divorce when I was 14 and the "Great Depression."
So, this large man sat in the chair, and he went off as usual against people in the pen, gangsters and so on, and then, he got to his father, and this man started bawling. "You never loved me!" he cried. "I just wanted you to hold me, but you never did. Why couldn't you hold me?" I sat there, not breathing, staring incredulously at this man, screaming at this chair, with tears rushing down his face, torn apart about his father not holding him as a child. I was shocked.
Why was I shocked? Maybe because I was suprised to find a humanity within this man. But let's pause right here for a moment and let's jump ahead for a little bit.
Recently, I just went through about a four day depression of a pretty managmous propensity. This curious to me because not did it hit me so immediately (I just woke up feeling depressed), but because I could not really pinpoint why I was so depressed. I have several theories. First, I thought my bipolar disorder had something to do with it. The intensity of my bipolar disorder has scared people so much before that sometimes it makes me laugh- but people at, for instance, at my last rehab put me on suicide watch the whole time I was in there. I am aware of the degree of my disorder, and I am aware that medication needs to be tweaked and so on and so forth, but my cognition told me that this wasn't the answer- but I didn't rule it out.
The other theory I had was that maybe I was having a hard time finding a job. The real, and direct relation to that, would really be that I was losing faith with my God.
This depression I went through, made me a vegetable. I locked myself up at my house, I stopped talking to people and working a program of recovery. I stopped trying to work with addicts in recovery, I stopped praying. And then, I heard something yesterday from a smart man named Robert Park. He said, "If I'm not helpless, then God is helpless." And all of a sudden, I became happy again. Because I realized something grand. I was doing everything wrong, and that's why I was feeling depressed. Sure, the disorder doesn't help, but the program of recovery teaches me a few things. I need to put faith in a higher power.
It is so easy to see God in a graduation, a wedding, or when I pick some girl up at a bar, but when I'm having a hard time in life, it's harder to see him there. But he is there. I've said that before- why can't I listen to what I say? If I give myself up to him, he will take care of me. What is his will? "There is no greater love than to lay down your life for another person." I know what my God is. I don't care who yours is, essentially- but whether it is Buddha, Allah, Vishnu, we can all agree that love is the ultimate mantra of God. So, by working with others, with unselfish motives, then I am doing God's will. I have to, on a daily basis, be a vessel in his service, and give my love to those that need it, because I can see God's love, and there are those that can't. And guess, yesterday, I gave myself to God, today I got a job. I don't believe that to be a coincidence. Someone once asked me, in my alcoholism, why I couldn't put down the bottle, and I told them that it wasn't that I couldn't put down the bottle, it was that I couldn't put up with myself. Now, I have in essence forgiven myself because I know God forgave me before I ever did, and I need to spread that news to the addict that suffers for me to continue to be clean. That is my life as an addict in recovery that does not want to use ever again.
So, I have to remember my friend that never had a father that held him and remember my father that came and picked me up and held me as I broke down in that detox room. I always have to remember, now and forever.