Insanity and Mirror Lake

Mirror Lake Rehab Center

They tried to make me go to rehab

I said, no, no, no

Yes, I been black

But when I come back, you'll know, know, know

I ain't got the time

And if my daddy thinks I'm fine

He's tried to make me go to rehab

I won't go, go, go

-Amy Winehouse

December 17, 2018, Monday

Arrived at Mirror Lake Center at 9:00PM after a very, very long and emotionally draining day.  I had to completely remove my clothes sans my underpants so I could be searched.  I was given a pair of scrubs to put on.  I could easily fit my entire body in one of the pants legs.  I am in the Detox Ward.  It’s between 45º and 50º in here.  I have no coat because my husband was told to take all my belongings when he left me at the Vanderbilt Admitting Center in Nashville.  I have no toiletries, not even a toothbrush.  I don’t even have a watch.

The medical assistant showed me to my room.  I requested an extra blanket.  They’re about as effective as a newspaper, as is the pillow.  

My roommate is a sweet 40-year-old mother of two, Kelli, with no husband, and a heroin/Vicodin addict.  She is going through withdrawal right now and is doubled up with her knees to her chest shivering uncontrollably.  She won’t get another dose of meds for another two hours.  Like every patient I’ve met so far, she asks me what my addiction is before asking my name.  Some ask me what my “D.O.C” is.  This means “Drug of Choice.”  Who knew?

December 18, 2018, Tuesday

Spent a sleepless night on a mattress older than me.  I am exhausted and freezing.  My cell phone has been locked in a safe.  No outside contact is allowed for seven days.  I am given an ID badge on a lanyard.  My condition is assessed by five different P.A.’s.  The assessment includes being asked if I have taken any of a huge litany of drugs, some of which I have never even heard of.  I asked the P.A.’s what they were and was rewarded with incredulous looks.

My vital signs (BP, pulse, oxygen level, temperature) are taken three times daily, including once in the middle of the night.  Because I am in the Detox Ward and not in Rehab yet, I do not have access to any other buildings.  If I wanted to go outside, there is a fenced-in smoking area, phew.  

Food is brought in to-go containers three times daily.  It is always cold and it makes my memories of high school cafeteria food seem like a culinary delight.

December 19, 2018, Wednesday

I’ve being given 10 mg. doses of Valium four times daily, including a dose at 2 AM.  It helps me sleep even though I’m freezing.  My ID has been updated to allow me limited access to the cafeteria in another building.  A minor improvement in the food and at least the it and the cafeteria is warm.

Attended my first AA meeting today.  According to the schedule, there are two options:  “Faith Based” and “Traditional.”  They’re both 12-step AA programs but “Faith Based” must be for holy-rollers of a higher caliber.  (Read:  idiots.)  Men are segregated from women in the meetings.

The AA 12 Step Program is simply an asinine, misleading complete waste of time.  Better suited for a carnival barker.

The first tenet of the 12-Step is “I admit I am powerless.”  So - the prisoners of war are made to say over and over and over again that they have no power at all in their lives.  Oh, horseshit.  Every living thing has power in their lives, even a newborn child.

Learned from other unfortunate prisoners that some are going on their 5th court-ordered attempt at rehab.  They don’t give a shit about rehab.  They’re noisy, disruptive, bored, and just looking for attention.

Most women attendees have at least two kids but sperm donors instead of husbands or even remotely caring fathers.  Most have been violently abused as have their kids.  Their addictions range from alcohol to meth to cocaine to heroin to other opioids to things I have never heard of.

All attendees are poorly dressed, poorly groomed, and I sense a sad resignation to their fate.  A lot of them seem to have a rage that is bubbling just below the surface.

It’s quite the adventure to walk by the admitting desk late in the evening.  There are people sitting in the chairs there moaning, convulsing, holding their knees to their chests and grinding their teeth.  Some are rolling on the floor, foaming at the mouth.  Kudos to the staff, though.  They are all professional and unfailingly kind.

December 20, 2018, Thursday

Today is a red-letter day.  I had my first shower, clean clothes to put on, and brushed my teeth for the first time since Sunday.

I’ve learned that I have two more days of Detox before I can move to Rehab.  How long will I be in Rehab?  Depends on what my insurance will pay.  Holy mother of Christ I hope it’s no more than 10 minutes.

The Detox and Rehab schedule is the same, rigorous, and lasts all day.  After my seven-day phone suspension, I am required to sign up for phone privileges not to exceed 10 minutes daily.  After the day’s schedule is complete, of course.  

It seems like Mirror Lake goes out of their way to make living here as punitive as possible.  No food or liquids in either the meeting rooms or the bedrooms except water.

Gems I gleaned from today’s “traditional” 12-step program:

• “Faith should control the whole of our life.”  Huh?
• “We alcoholics were living a divided life.  We had to find a way to make it whole.”  Again…huh?
• “When we were drinking, our lives were made up of a lot of scattered and unrelated pieces.”  Yours, maybe.
• “We must pick up our lives and put them together again.  We do it by recovering faith in a divine principle in the universe…”  There is no ‘divine principle’ in this or any universe.  Hence, there is no ‘faith’ to recover.
• “…Which gives it meaning and purpose.”  Really?  How, exactly, is some cosmic divine principle going to accomplish this bullshit?
• (this is my favorite bullshit line)  “Avoid fear as you would a plague.”  Fear is healthy and normal.  Otherwise the human race would have been extinct eons ago.
• (this is my second favorite bullshit line)  “Avoid depression, which is allied to fear.”  Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain which is hereditary.

Met with my counselor after I walked out of that carnival barker’s show with smoke coming out my ears.  I told her I couldn’t listen to that bullshit anymore.

She told me I didn’t have to - she would find a more suitable program for me.  (She didn’t.)

Tomorrow I go from Detox to Rehab.  The only difference is the living quarters are nicer in Rehab and you get to use the phone for 10 minutes…if you can remember to sign up for the privilege.  

My insurance will pay for five days of Rehab.  This means I’ll be out Dec. 25 or 26, whenever the clock starts ticking.

Random thoughts on my (to date) four-day sojourn at Mirror Lake:

• It’s not a lake, it’s a pond.
• It’s impossible to sleep in the Detox ward because the night shift has no sense of decorum for the sleepers.  It’s a party for them all night long.
• The Detox ward is exactly like an ancient, beat-up, run-down nursing home.  But at least it doesn’t smell like piss.
• I’ve never been incarcerated but this place must come awfully, awfully close.

December 21, 2018, Friday

Was awakened from a sound sleep at 2:00 AM by an aide to give me a Valium so I could sleep.

Spent the rest of the night stewing about being here.  The more I thought about it the angrier I became.  Why did I agree to come to this hellish place?

• Jack wanted me to
• Dr. Aylar wanted me to
• Dr. Angel wanted me to

You will kindly notice none of them stayed here.  None of them even darkened the door. 

What have I learned in my four-day sojourn here?

• Do not do what others think I should do.  Do what I think is best for me, not what someone else’s opinion of what is best.  Because they don’t know shit about me or what I’m going through.
• This “treatment” for alcohol addiction is no treatment at all; rather, an exercise in frustration and a test of anger management skills.  
• This rehab center (as I suspect all are) is nothing but a cash cow for the corporations that own them.  They serve no other useful purpose.

It’s about 5AM now.  I don’t have a watch (no patient does) so if I really wanted to know the time, I’d have to dress and walk down to the front desk, peer around the corner, and look at their tiny clock.

Today’s agenda:

• Get a shower
• Eat a cold breakfast
• Tell my counselor I want to get the hell out of here now.

I overheard one inmate say he’d been here for 21 weeks.  Twenty-one weeks.  Five weeks shy of half a year.  My counselor told me I’d been scheduled to remain incarcerated for five weeks.  Thirty-five days.  If I chose to remain I suppose the Short Bus would pick me up and take me straight to Moccasin Bend Psychiatric Hospital for the rest of my life.

Word hits the street quickly about my departure.  My sweet roomie, Kelli, comes up to me crying and begging me not to leave.  “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had!” she wept.  I knew her for four days.  Sweet gentle soul.  We exchanged phone numbers.  I plan on phoning her regularly and asking her to come visit.

The counselors meet with me one-by-one to discourage my departure.  I was waiting to leave at 6:30 AM and finally was cleared to leave at 3:30.  Reams of paperwork had to be filled out and signed by difficult-to-locate personnel. It was deliberate.  One of the counselors did an end run around me and called my husband to tell him I should not leave.  Jack wouldn’t tell me who it was and that’s probably because I’d have kicked their ass.  They don’t think I have the acuity to make decisions for myself?  I wondered if the shoe had been on the other foot they’d have done an end run around Jack.  The answer, of course, is no.

The Facility Administrator gave me a lecture on leaving, telling me he had been 12 years sober.  He showed me some sort of a chip to prove it.  I told him I’d rather have a new car - it would actually be useful.

By far the most interesting conversation I had was with this meth-mouth bully.  She stuck her head through a window in the ward section and shouted in the waiting room, “Which one is Lee Anne?”  She was redirected to me.

Out she charged and said, “We need to talk!”  Ooookay.  “Let’s go outside!” she barked.  Then the interrogation began:

“You need to stay in the 12-Step Program!”

“The 12-Step Program is bullshit.”

“Why would you say that?”

“The very first tenet of the 12-Step is to admit you are powerless.  So, you’re going into this program knowing you’re a failure.  That is asinine.”

“You need to stay with the Program!”

“No, I do not and I will not.”

“You need to turn your life over to a Higher Power!”

“I don’t believe in a Higher Power.  That’s more bullshit.”

She looked at me for a few moments.  (Trying to intimidate me?  Good luck with that, Pal.)  

“Are you the lady that used to work in Alaska?”

“Yes, I am.”

With that she turned on her heel and stomped away.  I looked at her receeding backside.  Went back to the waiting room and asked the front desk, “Who the hell was that?”  Oh, the attendant said, she thinks she can bully anyone.

Guess again, Meth-Mouth.