Day 304 (Rehab)

Dr. Simmons gives me a once-over.

I fidget in the chair. I look everywhere but in her eyes.

She taps her pen on the clipboard.

"When was your last hit?"

I stare blankly at the ground. "Hit?"

She shakes her head. "Hit. Score. Taste. Fix."

"Oh. Um, it was 2 Thursdays ago."

She writes.

"What are you writing, Doc?"

"That's none of your concern. How do you feel?"

I look up at the ceiling. "Rested. Um, sometimes, I still want..." I trail off.

She raises an eyebrow. "Sometimes?"

"I've been trying to ween myself off the drug, you know? Actually stop cold turkey. It makes me feel really high and then when I crash, it hurts. This last time... I think I hurt myself. I got too deep into it."

"Self inflicted pain. You don't like that, do you?"

I shake my head.

"Well, what are you going to do?"

"I want to go into rehab with you, Doc. Try to get this drug out of my system. Detox, if you will."

"What if I offered you the drug now? Would you take it? Would you relapse?"

I don't answer immediately. She looks over at me. "Well?"

I sigh. "I don't want to relapse. I'm tired of the roller coaster. The highs are incredible, but the lows? The lows are terrible."

She writes some more. "You still haven't answered my question."

"No. No more. I won't get fooled into getting high again. I don't want an artificial high. I want a natural high, or maybe not even be high at all."

"Well, I'm here to help you, but you have to help yourself. You have to pull yourself up by the bootstraps and get back on the right track."

I rub my hands together. "Will I ever get cured?"

She stares at me. "I think that you'll be fine this time. It's different than from when you came in a couple of months ago. You're ready to leave it all behind and move on. I will help you in any way that I can. Did you do like I asked?"

I nod my head.

"So let's hear it."

I clear my throat. "Scratch. Itch. Feening. Fix. 2 dollars? Not enough. Steal some stuff, isn't that tough. Get a job. Get a place. Get somewhere to hide my face. Now I get my fix more often. Speech is getting better daily. I don't have to go without, as a matter of fact it's rarely. I look in the mirror, I sure do look different. Feel that way, too. Now I got my own personal supply, heh, who knew? I'll never sell it though, this Lady is my best friend. She was here through everything, stuck by me till the end. I married the dope. Tried to think of different ways to get high, but none works, nope. She gets mad, disappears too fast, simply because now I always wants a piece of her ass. My friend called, said to come through, stat. She's got something new for me to taste, it's called Crack. It's time to divorce you and leave you alone. You've already taken my car and home. All I got left is this coffee mug... I wish that you weren't my favorite drug. But you are. Time for a new high."

She smiles. "Poetry?"

I nod my head. And for the first time, I look her directly in her eyes. "It was the only way I could express myself."

She stands up. "Well, I certainly didn't expect you to express yourself in this way; I must say, it was quite enlightening. We're done here for today, but let me leave you with this: take your time. In due time, everything you want to get out of this program will come to you if you do what you need to do and follow my directions down to the letter. Understood?"

I nod my head. I exhale.

Time to start detox. I'm in rehab.

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