Hey y'all!
It’s no secret that I’ve been to rehab. What some might not know is that I’ve been five times. And I worked as a tech for one of the facilities I went through. I’ve been through Florida, Tennessee, and Nevada. Some were great, others were absolutely horrible.
At one point in my life, I had five years clean. At the start of that five years, I had the opportunity to go to rehab, but two people who I thought were my friends guilted me into not going, saying I was being selfish and was going to make it difficult on other people. This was way back in 2012. I had gotten a scholarship to go where I had planned on going, but that went down the drain because I let those “friends” make me feel guilty for trying to get help for my addiction issues. I wish I would have known then what I knew then. I would have stood up for myself. But it is what it is.
Later on in life, I relapsed right after I hit that five-year mark. I had no tools to use because I didn’t attend meetings; I really didn’t know that was an option back then. I knew little of recovery and the recovery community. I was white knuckling it. So when I relapsed, this was the first time I went to rehab. I was scared to death. I thought it was going to be full of criminals and deadbeats. I was going anyways because I knew I had to do something. This one was in Florida in a music therapy-based treatment facility. I would end up going here three separate times.
When I got there, I was terrified because I didn’t know what was coming. I didn’t know if I was going to be holed up in a room, or undergoing strong therapy, or a number of other fears. The fact that I’m gay was also scary for me because I didn’t know if I would be accepted by the other residents or had put myself in harm’s way. All of those feelings were quickly debunked when I got there. This was a high-end treatment facility. It uses music-based therapy to help people. And I loved music, so it felt like a good fit. The residents were there for the same reasons as me, to get better.
I did spend my first day crying because I was so scared and so embarrassed. Not scared of people, more so of what was to come through the treatment program. The first few days there, I was drugged up to help with my comedown. I came in with a high BAC, so I was put on meds that knocked me out the first few days I was there. But when I woke up and started participating, it was so different than what I thought it would be. There were therapy sessions, jam sessions, activities, and much more. I started to learn what recovery was all about.
I stayed for the full 29 days. I took so much home with me. I had learned to reach out, participate, and be productive in my recovery. But I wasn’t ready yet. I relapsed about six months later. I was going through a breakup, and I didn’t handle it very well. I attempted to unalive myself, which I’ve tried several times in my past. I lashed out at everyone because I had started drinking. It was so bad; I was drinking at work. After I relapsed, I called the same facility to see if I could come back, and they let me.
Now I’m on my second time in rehab. The difference this time is I AMAed two weeks in. I kept thinking about my life outside of treatment and how much I was losing and lots of other things. I lasted about another six months before relapsing again. There’s the pattern: an inability to cope and navigate the world without drugs. At the end of that stay in rehab, I decided to move back home. Things were going good for a while until I met a couple and started a relationship with them. It was toxic beyond all belief. It was very abusive, manipulative, and psychologically damaging to me.
So, I relapsed again after about six months. I reached back out again to the same treatment facility, and they said they couldn’t take me back to the same place and offered me a stay at their facility in Nashville, where I’m from and live in. I was determined for this to be my last time in treatment. I was going to put in all the work and make sure my recovery came first.
I really took to heart all I learned that time and had three years of continuous recovery. I was going to meetings, making friends in recovery, working with a sponsor, and I even moved into a halfway house to start my own life. I put so much work in that I was able to work for that same treatment facility