‘Twas the night before rehab…..

This would not be a good day. I started out by getting ready to close down the apartment for a month. I put the guitars away from direct sunlight, vacuumed, threw out the trash and all perishable foods. An hour before I left, my ex-wife called to remind me that I was a loser. I was annoyed at her for coming off as if only she possessed proper codes of ethics. Never mind that I was pounding on death’s door and swallowing enough dope to put half of San Francisco to sleep. I loaded up the car and drove to Oakland. My friend Valerie and I decided that it would be best to stay at the hotel across the street from her house since her furniture still had not arrived from DC.

It was a Motel 6 type of place, a nondescript, anywhere in the USA hotel. The Potter’s field of hotels. All the rooms looked alike, the only difference was the door number. The smell of disinfectant, scratches on the dresser, the TV with the remote bolted to the night stand made the rooms indistinguishable from one another. The pool was kept clean but no one ever seemed to use it. It was a great hotel for a junkie. This was the kind of place you could stay forever with no traffic and of course, no trouble. I knew it was the last night of my drug life. I had stopped being diligent about the amount of pills I was taking. At first, I would try and control the amount I was taking. When I woke up, I would count out and separate the morphine sulphate, oxi-codone and vicodin. I had a small pill box I kept in the watch pocket of my jeans. I had to count out my daily dose of pills at the beginning of my day. By evening, I was lost in a fog as thick as cheese.

I called my friend Elaine in NY before I left the house. I asked her if she thought I should still go to Hazelden. Let’s just say that she worded her response in a kindly fashion. I checked into my hotel room and started my routine: turned on the TV and measured the appropriate dosage for the evening. Only this night I would grossly miscalculated the number of pills I would take. I started crushing morphine sulfate and tablets of OxyCodone. I would dissolve them in organic herbal tea. Then I would take tablets of hydrocodone and valium and washed them down with the organic herbal tea. Shortly after that, I took an extra 260 mgs of morphine sulfate to insure a sound and restful night’s sleep.

The paramedics arrived because Valerie came to the door and I couldn’t answer.

All of a sudden there are seven or nine or however many paramedics in the room circling the bed asking me, “Sir who is the president?” The thought occurred to me how could this guy do this job and not know who the president is. He was not amused. When they left I found myself seek feeling sicker and totally beat up. I felt as if someone beat me in my sleep and woke up to pain without reference. My entire abdominal cavity was supremely sore. Later I realized that my stomach probably hurt from all the retching. I remained in bed until it was time to leave. Even staying in bed was painful.

12 step programs give chips to acknowledge lengths of sobriety. Printed on the chip is a quote, “To thine own self be true.” Bartlett’s dictionary of quotations is as thick as a Manhattan phone book. Why pick that one? Living an authentic life is the ultimate achievement for a human being.