I miss rehab.

I don’t talk all that much about my dealings with mental health and/or substance abuse. I write about it even less.

But I’m going to change that, because the topics, insights, and stories that have come from such subject matter is some of the better stuff I have to offer. Here goes:

Sometimes I really miss rehab.

I rarely miss the drugs that brought me there, and I certainly don’t miss the state my life was in around the times I went, but I do miss rehab itself.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to go back, and it’s certainly no walk in the park. Going to rehab has been just about the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do every time that I’ve done it.

But I still miss it. 

Rehab can be absolute hell at first, but there’s always a glimmer of hope. You are  at least doing something, and so you’ve  gotten yourself unstuck from the monotony of what your life has become. And even the worst of withdrawals are much better than having [insert your substance(s)/issue(s) of choice} completely control your life.

I miss how easy the days are. There aren’t a lot of choices to make. Some of the most difficult I can remember were whether I wanted to go to relapse prevention or play kickball for the evening activity.

I miss not missing my phone.

I miss not having to deal with the “real world”.

I miss the groups.

And I miss the people in the groups most.

I’ve heard other people say that the relationships and deep connection we feel with others in rehab is “artificial”. They say this because most individuals tend to lose touch with one another after their time is up, but that doesn’t make those relationships artificial.

Time is a very, very loose corollary with impact. Think about your very best friends, chances are you spend more time with many acquaintances than you do with them. Does that make you any less close? 

I would even argue in the other direction. Given that we only had so much time together, we really made it count.

There is a deep, deep connection that can form when people are going through some of their most difficult moments together. That bond becomes even deeper when it’s with that small subset of individuals who make you feel seen and understood.They know all of the things you were too ashamed to tell anyone else, and they’ve extended that vulnerability to you as well.

After months, years, or even a lifetimes of feeling like a completely fucked up disaster of a human during active addiction. You get this opportunity to be undeniably valuable to others. The community around you can give you the truest sense of worth and worthiness, and they are there to remind you when you forget.

That sort of impact doesn’t leave just because you’re not having 5am institutionalized breakfast together.

And it doesn’t change anything about what you had when so many of them relapse and die. 

People go to rehab for all sorts of reasons, but at my last (and planning on final) stint at sobriety camp, the majority of the population was there for a combo of methamphetamines and fentanyl, with the next largest group being alcoholics.

Alcohol isn’t any lesser of an addiction than the other two. In fact, alcoholics are given a few days in detox when they first arrive at rehab. Amphetamine abuse will get you no days in detox, regardless of the severity.

The logic behind this is that sudden alcohol cessation can actually kill you, whereas sudden amphetamine cessation will only make you wish you were dead.

Many of the individuals I met had died and been brought back more times than they could remember. If that’s not a testament to the stranglehold drugs can have on people, and to the inability for humans to entertain their own demise, I don't know what is.

Addictions aren’t logical.

“So this literally killed you, several times now… and you’re doing it again?”

The, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result” attributed to Einstein gets thrown around a lot. It’s fitting.

Despite the insanity, or maybe because of it, this group of people gave more to me than I know how to articulate.

I’m a firm believer that everything is relative, and we all deal with what’s on our plate. I didn’t need to minimize my own struggles to be humbled by the weight of theirs.

Truthfully, these were some of the most caring, talented, and kind individuals I have ever met.

There is a poem that I first read at the San Diego Zen Center years ago that often come to mind. It starts with,

And my goodness, these individuals, had certainly lost things. Including people. Relationships ruined, and a lot, a lot of death. Parents, siblings, spouses, even children.

Some of them even had to confront the fact that the deaths of people they loved the most, were at their own hand.

Can you imagine having the love of your life die in your arms because you shot them up with what you thought was a small dose? Curtis won’t be imagining when he remembers those moments for the rest of his life.

How about coming back from your own overdose to learn that the dope you had purchased for you and your husband killed him? Lauren has that memory for the rest of her life, and it will be sometime before her young children can fully understand how their father died.

What about watching the news to find out that your infant daughter had been trampled to death by her mother, your estranged spouse?

These aren’t my stories to tell, so I won’t. But the lives most of these people led were riddled with trauma and abuse from the very beginning.

As I got to know more and more of their backgrounds, I was often left wondering “How the fuck could you NOT do drugs?!”

And again, these were NOT bad people. Quite the opposite. They had done bad things, and even worse things had happened to them. Those stories are part of their pasts, but they don’t define them.
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I have so much admiration for people who still attempt to play the shitty hand they’ve been dealt. And even more for the ones I just mentioned, because of the impact they had and continue to have on me.

I often wish that I could trade places with someone, just momentarily, so they could see and feel the way I do about them. And I can’t remember wishing that as much as I did during my times at rehab.

These were some truly amazing individuals that had difficult times overshadow their better sides.

But what we do is not who we are, and whatever life throws at you - you get to make the meaning out of it.

And that’s what we we[re doing during the 1-3month intensive substance abuse pseudo summer camp for sobriety. And we didn’t just get sober. We became better people.

So sometimes I really do miss rehab, but not enough to go back.

^{_{For Dennis. I love you and miss you and I hope to see you again.}}