Part 7 (1/2)

”Ecstasy,” I say. ”I've never tried that but I've pretty much done everything else, from Percodan, OxyContin, and quaaludes to LSD. Marijuana, I don't like, never have. To cut to the quick, my problems are with booze, c.o.ke, and speed. I've been using them all since I was a kid, but it didn't really get out of control until around my late thirties.”

Again he smiles. That smug, knowing one. I'm quickly coming to dislike this guy.

”Or so you think,” he says. ”Alcoholics and addicts almost always cross the line into addiction years before they're ever aware of it. I'm betting you're no different.” Then out of the blue he asks, ”Do you have thoughts of suicide?”

I'm caught off guard.

”What?”

”Do you ever think about killing yourself?”

It's my firm belief that anyone of any intelligence has at some dark point in life seriously weighed the pros and cons of checking out early. But I also know that if I'm honest, I'll be treated as a threat to myself and they'll throw me into the lock-down psych unit. Which means I won't be going anywhere until the shrinks say I'm psychologically fit. That could be a whole lot longer than the typical twenty-eight days of rehab.

”No,” I lie.

”Never?”

A wave of nausea pa.s.ses over me.

”I think I'm going to be sick,” I say. ”Where's your bathroom?”

Inside of an hour I'm in the throes of full-fledged withdrawal and the formalities of the check-in procedures are temporarily placed on hold. I'm escorted directly to the staff doctor where it's determined that I'm in the first stages of delirium tremens. The nurse gives me a healthy dose of Valium, and because my blood pressure has rocketed off the charts, I'm also administered an additional shot of Clonidine, a powerful antihypertensive, to further reduce the possibility of stroke.

The combined effect of these drugs knock me out, and when I wake, when the drugs have worn off, I start to panic. My heart beats fast, and I'm still sweating. I'm still shaking and sick to my stomach. The room is dark, and for a minute or so I'm completely disoriented, not knowing where I am or what's happening to me. I sit up. I look around. The door is slightly ajar and a wedge of light falls across another bed in the room. Someone's in it, curled up in the fetal position, and I can hear his labored breathing. He's s.h.i.+vering under the sheet, like you do when you have a bad fever, and every now and then he moans. I lie back in bed and stare at the ceiling, knowing full well now where I am. I think of my daughter. I think of my ex-wife, and I ask myself, what's wrong with me? How come I can't straighten up? What have I done to my family? What have I done to myself?

I've hit a real bottom.

I've hit a brand-new record low.

It's around this time that a nurse slips into the room pus.h.i.+ng a cart. She turns on the light on the nightstand between our two beds and gently places her hand on the shoulder of the curled-up figure.

”Eddie,” she says, ”how you doing?”

”Not so great.”

”It's time for your medication,” she says.

He has to sit up now, and when he does I see that he's just a kid, probably no older than my daughter, and he's drenched in sweat.

”What happened to you?” she asks me.

”I burned myself.”

”How'd you do that?”

”It's a long story,” I say.

I swallow the pills with the water and she takes the cups from me and leaves. Maybe fifteen, twenty minutes later, just before I go under, I hear Eddie in the next bed. ”This is f.u.c.ked up,” he says under his breath. ”I ain't never doing that s.h.i.+t again.” Then it sweeps over me, whatever it is in the pills she gave me, and I'm down for the count again.

For both of us it goes on like this for the better part of two days, our sweating and shaking, pa.s.sing in and out of consciousness. It's a rebellion of the body crying out for the drug it's been trained to need. The heart pounds. The head throbs. You can't hold down food, and every nerve ending is on fire. Except to use the toilet, neither of us has the strength to get out of bed, let alone leave the room. The detox process is exhausting, and when the tempest finally subsides, and I believe I can speak truthfully for Eddie as well, we're overcome with relief and grat.i.tude.

After that we sleep.

And it's a wonderful, deep sleep.

When I finally wake up, I look over at Eddie in the next bed and find him staring at me. It's night, and the light on the stand between us is turned on. I feel immensely better, though the term better better, in this case, is relative; even slight improvement, given where I started out, is a major breakthrough. I tell myself that this is it.

That I will change.

There will be no more drinking. No powders. No pills. No potions. From this day on I will make my first earnest, and hopefully last, attempt to put it all behind me, finally and forever.

Eddie asks the running question of the week. ”What happened to your arms?”

”I burned them.”

”How'd you do that?”

”It's a long story,” I say.

”I got time,” he says.

He's propped up on one elbow and I notice his arm, the left one. It's black and blue at the bend from sticking it with needles. Though I already know the answer, I turn Eddie's question back on him.

”What happened to your arm?”

”Heroin,” he says, but he p.r.o.nounces it ”hair-ron,” as they do in the ghetto. I also detect a trace of pride in his voice, one typical of the heroin addict, especially the younger ones. It's the mother of drugs, and in the hierarchy of addiction there's a certain romance, a certain prestige factor, in being strung out on smack. A few years ago his att.i.tude wouldn't have bothered me, but now I see myself in this kid, on the fast track to destruction, and that mind-set troubles me.

He nods at me. ”What're you kicking, man?”

”Booze and c.o.ke.”

”I like c.o.ke, too.”

Again he's a little too enthusiastic with volunteering this information.

”I'm starving,” he says. ”Want to get something to eat? The cafeteria's closed but the lounge stays open all night.”

Until now I hadn't thought about it, but I'm famished, too. I rise slowly from the bed, still unsteady on my feet. I'm wearing a T-s.h.i.+rt and a pair of sweatpants. Eddie has on the same. In the closet I find my tennis shoes. I put them on and together we emerge from our dimly lit room and into the brightly lit lounge, a little broken maybe, a little sh.e.l.l-shocked for the experience, but nonetheless alive.

In the days to come Eddie and I will be subjected to a grueling schedule designed to get and keep us clean and sober. Breakfast is served at 7 a.m. followed by an hour-long group therapy meeting. After that it's a drug and alcoholeducation cla.s.s, which satisfies one of the state requirements for those who've lost driver's licenses on DUI charges, myself included. Then it's off to individual counseling. Then comes lunch. An hour later we have a study session with the Big Book Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, copies of which all patients receive on their first day. We break again for dinner and afterward we endure a lecture on the damaging physiological and psychological effects of alcohol and dope on our bodies and minds. And every other night, Sundays included, we attend either an A.A. or N.A. (Narcotics Anonymous) meeting held here at the hospital but open to the community. I switch off between the two, since I've earned lifelong members.h.i.+ps in both, though I feel more at home with your run-of-the-mill alcoholic. Eddie switches off, too, mainly just to hang with me. of Alcoholics Anonymous, copies of which all patients receive on their first day. We break again for dinner and afterward we endure a lecture on the damaging physiological and psychological effects of alcohol and dope on our bodies and minds. And every other night, Sundays included, we attend either an A.A. or N.A. (Narcotics Anonymous) meeting held here at the hospital but open to the community. I switch off between the two, since I've earned lifelong members.h.i.+ps in both, though I feel more at home with your run-of-the-mill alcoholic. Eddie switches off, too, mainly just to hang with me.

Tonight, after dinner, we flip a coin: heads it's A.A., tails N.A., and it comes up heads. The meeting is held in the rec room at the far end of the hospital, and Eddie and I get there early to help set up the tables and chairs, make coffee, and put out the A.A. literature. The leader of the meeting is one of our head counselors. His name is Dale Weiss but he's better known among the staff and patients as Tradition Dale for his strict and unwavering allegiance to the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous. One glance at his face and you know he spent the better part of his fifty-odd years drinking hard and heavy before he ever sobered up. He has the telltale bulbous nose, and across it runs a thin spiderlike pattern of broken blood vessels. In his heyday, I'm sure the whites of his eyes were bloodshot and yellowed with jaundice, but now they're clear as ice, and that's how he looks at you. An intense stare, eye to eye, until you glance away.

”How many days you got, Lenny?” he asks.

”I think about twelve.”

”You think or you know?”

”I know.”