I was in the second phase of treatment after spending two weeks, and I was and punished for having given up and relapsed with cigarettes. It was clear to me that I had to be very strict both with myself and with others so that the process had prospects of success. In the same way, Chris thought, who was my older brother in the addiction therapy. During those days, I had my first litmus test about how to set limits and not be an accomplice in irregular situations.
In this sense, I was obliged to inform the clinical team that Kate had told me that Richard’s uncle had asked her for the contact number when he was discharged. This situation was absolutely irregular, given that there could be no contact between family members of different users outside the rehab’s space. Nor could there be links between inmates outside the context of the therapeutic community. Knowing Kate’s background with transgressive love affairs, I communicated the situation to our operator. The clinical team called Kate and me separately, and Kate was furious at that fact. However, weeks later, Kate thanked me for what I did for instantly tackling the matter.
During that period, a new psychologist, Larry, entered the community. I ended up making very good friends with him. Larry was a very frank and luminous person who was not strange to see arriving in a motorcycle taxi to the rehab facility. A new patient was also admitted, just two months after I was admitted. His name was Ian, and he had become completely psychotic as a result of his addiction to transgenic marijuana.
As the admission a cycle completed in the sense that all of us who arrived for those two months all graduated one after another. As of this writing, we are all sober. In some period of the process, I even came to name ourselves the “eagle group.” We were the ones who went through December and a whole series of varied situations. We saw all types of people come and go. At that moment and from then on, it was us and only us.
As I experienced, addiction has tragic faces. I could not stop remembering moments in which I lived unfortunate situations like those I experienced when I was in the frenzy of opiates and marijuana. At that time, I was in a relationship with a girl who was also an addict and had severe personality disorders. I had spent a whole night because I had no more drugs. My girlfriend and I went out by bicycle to meet a friend with whom I would smoke marijuana.
We drugged heavily at my friend’s place, and everything was going very well until just before leaving his house, I found a bottle of cough syrup in his room. I immediately drank it all. Almost immediately, I fell to the ground. My girlfriend tried to revive my breath. For me, the world became distant, and I could feel the moment of death. A very unpleasant situation arose that culminated in me being hospitalized to detoxify for a few days.
What seems like fun can end up being something tragic, and it happened to me. The life of an active addict is one of constant anxiety. It is the long and progressive deterioration and the open road to madness, as I realized this fact in the rehab community.