Most people that know my full background these days, which, btw, is relatively few other than close family members, often ask me about my experience with alcohol/drug treatment and rehabilitation programs out there. These days there is certainly no shortage of these services around, and they run the gamut from an AA meeting in some depilated hovel in the ghetto, to resort style setups overlooking the beaches of Malibu. In my own personal experience, all I have to reflect upon is emergency room detox for alcohol and a handful of AA/NA meetings that I attended for rather random periods of time. Ill start with the hospital.
As to alcohol detox, this is probably one of the most excruciating processes known to man, and actually one of the only substance detox processes which has the potential to be life threatening. I have pulled it off both in personal agony by myself at home, as well as in a hospital setting. Going to any ER is never a fun process and it becomes increasingly more awful when you have not drank in about 6 hours and your body is on the verge of seizing. 2-3 hours is not an uncommon wait if you are in a larger metro area, and trust me when I tell you that reflecting on this experience is probably one of the best deterrents out there to getting out of control with alcohol. When the intake staff does finally bring you back, you are made to give up all your belongings which are put into a large sack and locked up. After making you throw on one of those tie around gowns with your ass hanging out, you are thrown in a bed while a nurse takes your vitals. If you are really in detox, it will not be difficult for the nurse to pick up on, as you will be wicked disoriented and your blood pressure surging. Eventually, an MD will pay you a visit and then prescribe you some drugs after a basic evaluation.
Lorazepam and it's cousin Diazepam are the substances I have the most experience with. As a guy that had never taken any kind of Benzo before these experiences, it hit me like a freight train. It is almost like magic. All the racing heart, generalized discomfort, and paranoia laced existence you were living with before will slowly drift away as you become entrenched in an almost zombie like state. This is, of course, the very point of these drugs. Your central nervous system is going haywire because being drunk is it's new "normal", so without it it goes into panic mode. The benzos make your CNS an almost non-factor because it is so subdued. As a result, you relax.\
How long you stay in the hospital is entirely dependent on how fucked up you were when you arrived, but in my most gruesome experience they turned me loose on the morning of the 3rd day. They will leave you with a prescription for your benzo lifeline, as well as instructions for either getting yourself into AA or enrolling in a program through the medical establishment. Fight the tendency to just shallow a bunch of the benzos and pass out. You are going to need these as a maintenance tool for at least a couple of weeks. It will go a very long way in making you not so paranoid that you can't be in public without freaking out.
For those that can't go to the hospital to detox, either because of money or other circumstances, you have both my sympathy and pity. I will not sugarcoat anything as you are in for at least a week of pure hell, and with none of the drugs to incapacitate your CNS, your body is going to be putting you through some serious hell. Be prepared for nasty cold sweats, uncontrolled shaking, mild to severe delirium, and massive paranoia. You are also not going to be sleeping hardly at all either. I was up for almost a week during one of my particularly nasty home detox sessions. There really is no good way that I have discovered to endure this process. You pretty much just have to ride it out and try to keep your mind occupied. Just like going the hospital route, the level of severity you endure is entirely dependent on your condition prior to detoxing, but you can expect to start feeling a little better after the 3rd or 4th day.
AA and NA I have both been a part of at certain times in my life. There is a tremendous divergence of opinion as to both the efficacy and ethics of these programs. Considering that I no longer attend either, I would think it is safe to assume I am not an advocate, but then again, I have seen more than my fair share of people that have seen tremendous success with these programs. AA buys into the "disease" theory of alcoholism, meaning that alcoholism is a product of either chemical or biological processes which causes the subsequent behavior. The problem is that there is very little medical evidence out there to support this belief. It's not like pneumonia, for example, where a lab culture of your lung tissue can confirm a diagnosis. AA's whole mantra over being "powerless over alcohol" assumes that free will is out the window and that the bottle of Jack has all the control. Regardless of it's medical acceptance, some people need strength in numbers to kick the habit, and also activities to occupy their time that do not involve drinking. In this context, AA comes through in shining colors. Unless you live in the middle of nowhere, chances are high that you will find an abundance of meetings nearby to check out and meet with others who have similar issues. If you happen to live in a larger city, you could foreseeably spend damn near an entire day in meetings if you were so inclined. The sheer fact of discovering that you are not the only dumb shit drunk on the planet in and of itself is rather comforting. Also, for sheer entertainment value, you will run across many highly fucked up people that will make your situation seem like a trip to Disney World by comparison. Some of the stories I heard across AA tables were so outlandish I am not sure I believe them, and still others (especially from the females) I feel were told for sympathy value, but entertaining nonetheless.
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My main problem with AA and NA is that after a period of time it starts to become incredibly boring. It is mostly the same thing over, and over, and over, and over, again ad nauseam. After you get to the point where you have memorized most of the basic precepts and the commonly performed meetings, you are going to be bored out of your skull in all likelihood. Granted you can assume an enhanced role by leading meetings or attending one of their events, but all this does is delay the inevitable onset of lame. In my case, I ran into a couple of situations that made my tenure at AA extend beyond my typical couple of month tenure. In one instance, an older gentleman took me under his wing and took a particular interest in me (what AA calls 'sponsorship'). In another, there was a female involved that I was fucking every waking moment for months. The girl involved AA situation ended up spanning a little over a year and only ended when I moved away for school. It just goes to show you the unparalleled power of the vagina. Hell, if things had turned out differently and I had not have moved, I would probably still be plugging that girl and attending meetings religiously.
So if there is a moral to this story, I sure can't figure out what the hell it might be. Truth be told, I still drink and occasionally do drugs. That may not be the conclusion you were hoping for, but it is true. I certainly do not consider myself "powerless" over alcohol as AA touts. On occasion, I will have a single beer with coworkers after work and call it a night. Sometimes I will hang out with clients and not drink at all. And on still other nights I might have a business convention out of town and go on a 2 day bender. There is very little rhyme or reason as to how or why I throw down. It just sort of happens.
I have come to terms with the fact that I will probably always enjoy getting fucked up, and I most assuredly enjoy it too much at times. Instead of total surrender, my philosophy today has led me to keep things under control based upon my highly advanced knowledge of my tendencies. These are tendencies that (obviously) took me a VERY long time to hone in on. Am I playing with fire there? Yup, sure am, and I have had to call in "sick" to work on numerous occassions when recovering from an epic bender. However, the longevity I have managed to maintain in my current career, as well as my subsequent promotions has probably given me a false sense of security that I have it all figured out. Yeah, I don't and I never will. I never intended to start this blog to offer addiction advice, only to relay my personal experience with as much candor as I can muster.
Cheers!
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