Detox Day 1

As soon as my stetcher arrived, I was overcome with nerves, however, at peace with my choice to go. I was hoping that the EMTS would talk to me, small talk, jokes, a boring conversation, anything to keep my mind off of what was really happening. But, no, the young woman who sat next to me in the back of the ambulance said nothing. So, I layed there, nervous, scared, not knowing what to expect, but accepting my decision. When we arrived at the detox center, I was wheeled in and took everything in. I saw a young, heavyset girl with blue hair, who was clearly in some sort of drugged up state.  My first thought was that they were checking me into the psych ward, and not detox at all.  Pictures of m e being restrained flashed through my head. I was never getting out of this place I thought.  They needed to take my vitals, but i had to ask- I am in here for detox, right? They weren't sure but they would check my records.  Vitals taken, I was shocked at my surroundings.  No one was very friendly, everyone looked pretty drugged up.  Finally a nice nurse told me it was time for a strip search- WTF? My biggest fear after getting a dui was going to jail and getting stripped searched. Not something I could handle. I kept thinking, thank god I didnt know about this or I would not have agreed to come here! Now, I knew there was so chance, so I remained calm.  And this strip search merely consisted of me changing in front of 2 female nurses.  No cavity searches, if you will.  Thank God.  The nurses went on to tell me that we had a lot to go over, and I asked if I could please call home first. I expected a strict no, but they said sure and I called and it calmed me.  I was happy to know that I could make the phone call when I wanted.  I had some freedom I guess.  Now, the second most important question- Can I please have something to help me sleep. Yes, you can, as soon as we finish the intake questions, we will get you some meds.  THANK YOU!!!!! My mind was at ease.  Questions answered, vitals taken, doctor visit, and to the meds.

I decide to make my presence known prior to getting my sleeping aid, and I go over to the magazine rack to see whats there. I bump into roomie number one from the hospital and am happy to see a familiar face.  I quickly say hey, didn't we share a room at the hospital. The nurses get worried we know each other and we quickly explain the situation. I was so happy to see her, because she was easy to talk to. I knew there was at least one person there I could go to.  I started to feel a little more comfortable with the idea of spending the week there.  After some mingling time, trying to make myself look like I am not scared, look like I have done detox before- look tough,  I decide it is time to go to bed. I get my  adavain loved it.  trazadone- loved it. The combo of the 2 hit me pretty hard on day 1, considering I was pretty drunk already anyways.  Within 10 minutes I realize why the walls are plastered with signs leading you towards emergency buttons in case you fall. I feel like I can't walk straight, and I get right into bed and pass out.  Weird dreams fill my mind. Dreams of the people I saw throughout the day, of the place where I was sleeping.  Dreams that perplex you about whether you are dreaming or still awake. Vivid dreams. I love these dreams.

And Away I go. . . .

I can't make up my mind about whether or not I will go to detox. I have said yes, and the hospital personnel have been working hard to get my stay covered by insurance. When it comes time to sign the dotted line, I am alone, well my roommie is with me begging for methadone, but my husband is in the waiting room.  I beg for them to let him in while I sign the papers. One last chance to reassure myself this is the right decision. To make sure everything at home will be taken care of, to make sure he will visit me.  They tell me no.  They scold me.  I am a grown adult and why do I need him to make the decision for me. If I really wanted to get better I wouldn't need him to be there with me.  I am hopeless and I wont get better if I lean on him to help me with this decision. They lady who has spent an hour or so finding a bed for me and getting the insurance approval is pissed off. I tell her I am not sure if I want to sign, but if I could please see my husband I would make up my mind one way or another.  She takes the paper that I am supposed to sign and storms off, mumbling something to herself about wasting her time on all the paperwork.  Finally, a doctor comes in to talk to me. He understand me and he tells the nurses to let my husband in for 10 minutes. The nurse reminds me how my husband was sneaking me my cell phone, like drugs, and we were rule breakers. Please! As soon as the doctor leaves, the nurses disappear and my husband is not let inside. I ask the nurse to go into the waiting area to get him so I can check out and go the hell home already. After that whole shindig I am not going. They are making it too difficult. F it.  The nurse goes and looks for Brad.  She comes in and thrilled to tell me, your husband left. He's gone.  I can sense her feelings of joy at my having been abandoned. She delivered the news as if to say, no one wants you, your pathetic.  I decide to take matters into my own hands and I use the patient phone. I call my father in law. Not what I want to be doing. He knows about my drinking problem. He knows about the past weekend. He knows I am in the emergency room from drinking too much. He has been watching my kids all weekend.  He is kind and cordial and I ask him to call Brad's cell phone. It is out of state and I am not allowed to dial out of state on the patient phone. He tracks him down, Brad comes to see me, and swears he has been in the waiting room the entire time. Take that, mean nurse. No one abandoned me.  It felt good.  

And finally, finally, a clinician pulled me and Brad into her office and explained to me the dangers ahead if I were to go home.  My blood alcohol content was .25% 4-5 hours AFTER my last drink.   That is dangerously high.  I must have been at least .3, likely higher throughout the last few days.  She explains the dangers of shocking your central nervous system after a binge like mine. Seizures, cardiac arrest, insomnia. She explains kindly, in a non-judgemental way, that this is the best decision for my health and my family. When I agree, she continues to be kind, and tells me she is proud of me and she means it.  They need more people like her in that hospital unit. 

I ask if Brad can drive me to detox, and they tell me no he cannot, I have to go via ambulance.  I clinch his hand while waiting for my stretcher. I get on, strapped on, and away I go. . . . Detox or bust.

Mean Nurses

Prior to taking this hospital trip, my husband poured out the vodka into the sink.  The feeling it evoked from me was disgusting.  I was sad, maybe even crying.  I wanted one more. To know it was the last. Somewhere at sometime I read that alcoholics should know when they take their last drink. As if it makes it easier to say a final goodbye.  I can't tell you how many times I used that as an excuse to have a drink. 

On the drive to the ER, I feel frozen. I know I am doing the right thing. I am nervous. I am scared. I am embarrassed. I am consumed with guilt.  I actually HATE drinking.  For the first time in my life. I really, truly view alcohol as a poison.  I am still very drunk. But this is a true "sobering" experience.  I am scared to check myself in and be judged. By doctors, nurses, other people in the ER. But I am doing the right thing. And they will be nice.

Some are. At first, anyways.  The main ER check in people are fine. They ask me if I want to detox and I say yes.  I am not sure what that means. But I want to. Brad and I are separated so he can do paperwork, and they shuffle me off to the detox wing.  I meet my temporary bed-mate. 

A beautiful 18ish year old girl detoxing from heroin. It has been 1 or 2 days since has had any. And. . . she knows all about detox, meds, withdrawals, etc.  Probably not her first time.  She gives me the lowdown, where they'll take me, what meds I will have. She hears my husband tell the nurse that I drank about a gallon of vodka in 2 or 3 days and she gasped. Sadly, I feel like I have street cred. A heroin addict gasped at my consumption. I belong here. Why I feel that way I don't know and it is kind of sick, but it is how I feel.

The nurses become more and more judgemental and rude as the minutes pass. They kick my husband out after his 10 minutes. They yell at me for using a cell phone and treat me like I am breaking the law when they catch me on it. 

I grow anxious when my husband leaves. I hate being alone in that room. I get a new roommate.  Another heroin addict, who is also a detox pro. She ran out of money for heroin. She wishes she got loaded before she checked herself in. She almost vomits in our little room. She begs for methadone. They don't give it to her. 

I agree to check into a detox center at a different hospital and stay there until I am fully detoxed.  I am scared and nervous.  I have second and third thoughts. But I am not waking up in my own bed tomorrow. It will not happen.  No way. No how.

The ER

I am still begging for help.  Call my sister. Call my therapist. Take me away for 28 days. Do something.  I succumb to the help of Brad and my sister, Ellie, a psychologist. They talk on the phone a few times, despite my level of intoxication, I am still shamed and humiliated. But I know that I need to do something other than stay home. My biggest fear at this point is waking up in my own bed tomorrow, with a massive hangover, withdrawals and a guilty conscience. Maybe this is finally my bottom. I am not sure at this point. The only thing I am aware of is that I do not want to wake up in my own bed tomorrow. And I will do anything necessary to keep that from happening. That is a sad feeling. Desperate. Lonely. Pathetic. But that is the one thing I am 100% sure of. I can't face the consequences of my own actions.  My drunk actions. Not actually knowing what I am agreeing to, I willingly get into the car and head towards the local emergency room. 

The Final Binge

So, it is supposed to be a new day. Less drinking, not more drinking- that should be the plan.

I wake up still drunk from my midnight/early morning drinking binge. And what do you know, another one of those- I need a drink to feel sober- mornings. So, I drink. Not sure what time I had my first but I know I had been drinking from 2-3 a.m., and I know that I am pretty drunk by 8 a.m. I guess I just skipped the sober thing all weekend. Not a happy drunk, not a fun drunk, not an innocent drunk. A sad, depressed, lonely, alcoholic drunk. I am literally going crazy. Crying, feeling crappy about the blur of the past few days. Not remembering much, but remembering enough to know that I screwed up pretty bad. I called people I should not have been calling in my condition, and I don't mean pregnant. I spoke with my sisters, my mom, my husband and it wasn't pretty. I am not sure what happened, but I know they all knew I was drunk all weekend, and most of them knew I was drunk by 8 am Sunday morning. Too much damage was done and I knew I couldn't fix it.

My husband and I were home alone, and I beg him to get me help. Enough is enough already. I have been a mess for 3 days. Not one second of it was fun. It left me in a depressed, disgustingly drunk state of mind and I felt that I couldn't clean up my own mess from the previous days. I need help, I say. I want to go away. I want someone to help me. I am done drinking. After this last drink. This is my last drink. They say addicts should know which drink (or pill, or shoot up) is their last. And this last melon vodka martini will be my last. And I actually mean it. Not like when I said I wont drink come Monday. That was a lie. This final drink is the truth. Or so I hope. . .

On Drinking: A sudden awakening

On Drinking: A sudden awakeningBlogCatalog

A sudden awakening

I am in my underwear and a t-shirt. Nicole surprises me with an afternoon visit and wakes me suddenly from my drunken slumber. Brad has asked her to check on me because he knows I am drunk. Really drunk. And it is only lunchtime on Saturday. I am half awake and can't really see or comprehend much because of my intoxication. She tells me that she is worried that I was in a drunk car accident. She saw a car that looks just like mine in an accident in front of my place. When Brad called and told her I had been drinking she got really worried. She told me to go back to sleep. I did, not paying much attention to what she just said. This, lunchtime, fogged memory is my last memory of that Saturday. I have no clue what happened the rest of the day other than I drank every moment I was awake. I am told I woke up at 2 am and drank. Threw up and drank more. And more and more. Sunday will be a new day. . . .

January 8, 2011: Let the drinking begin

I plan to have a few melon "martinis," and take a much needed nap. I pour my second martini, and then third and I am ready to sleep the day away. Wait a minute, why stop at 3? Now that I know I can sleep, why pace myself. A nice long, drunk nap while the kids and husband are away wont hurt anyone. The more the better.

Now this is wehre things get ugly for the weekend. Saturday morning, drunk by 10. Who knows how much I have drunk so far, but given that I have a larger than needed bottle of vodka, I don't need to ration anything out for the weekend. Yeah, I promised Brad I wouldn't drink come Monday, but I certainly didn't mean it, and I am sure he knows that. Empty promises are nothing new to the spouse of an alchy. And opposite of what AA preaches, I only plan my drinking one day at a time. Unless it is Saturday, in which case I must plan for Sunday (liquor stores are closed). I cross the bridge of Monday's alcohol when I come to it. Right now, I am happy to know that there is enough alcohol to last me the next two days. Off to a drunk sleep I go.

January 8, 2011

I wake up in a fog. I don’t remember the previous evening and I am pissed that I drank all of my vodka. I know that it is virtually impossible for me to get more. I don’t have a liscence, I don’t have money, Brad has vowed never to buy for me again. I am hungover/still drunk/ and I physically need a drink to get through the day. I have to work my charm. I will find a way.

I muster up the courage to go downstairs and face my sure to be angry husband. I know what awaits- Where did you get that vodka? When are you going to stop? Do you remember so and so and so and so? I have been there a million times and it never gets easier. It is shameful. But not shameful enough to stop drinking. These mornings are 100% preventable, yet, vodka is more important.

I get through the routine morning after questions, and I proceed to my mission - get Brad to buy me vodka. I manipulate. As we are in the you need to stop drinking phase of our discussion, I drop the bomb. I’ll stop drinking Monday. Just get me through the weekend, and I will stop Monday, I promise. I cannot make it through today without a drink, but if you buy me vodka I will wean myself off of it by Monday. No he says. He will not enable me. He is done enabling me. He told himself after my DUI, never again. I am persistent and must make a good argument. Mission accomplished. He will buy me vodka. Agin, I breath a sigh of relief and excitement. Soon enough, I will be drinking.

It is 8 am. Sadly enough, I know the local package store opens at 8 and I want him to get up and go right away. He, clearly, doesn’t see the need to go at such an early hour in the morning. So not an alcoholic. I am dying, shaking, foggy. It is one of those mornings where I need a drink to feel sober. I love those mornings.

I watch the clock hit 8:00 and I can’t believe he is still laying there, not getting me my vodka. I tell him to go or I am taking a nap. As if that is a good threat. If you don’t help me get drunk first thing in the morning, I am going to take a nap and sober up. After making the same pointless threat a few times, he goes to the local package store. It is only 8:30, but that was the longest 30 minutes ever. I need to steady myself. He reminds me that he doesn’t like doing this and this is the last time.

As soon as he walks through the door with my sweet Smirnoff melon vodka, I calm down. Just seeing the bottle calms my nerves. I make my “martini.” I am, afterall, a bartender. I take the bottle of vodka, take the top off, and pour into a martini glass. I drink it down, at room temperature, like a tall glass of water after a hard workout. Ahhhhhhhh. Life is good. For a short minute.

The Beginning of The End

Nicole is driving me home from the gym because I do not have a licence. It has been suspended for 120 long days. I drove drunk. Really drunk. And I thank God every day, well not the drunkest of drunk days, but most days, that I got that DUI. It saved my life.

On the way home from the gym I am working myself up- obsessing over how to get alcohol for the weekend. A snow storm is coming, I don’t have much money, and this is my last chance to get alcohol for the next few days. My husband, Brad, certainly wont help me get any- he thinks I have quit drinking. I can’t focus on what Nicole is saying to me. I am obsessed with getting alcohol for the weekend. My palms are sweating, I have butterflies in my stomach, my mind is racing. . . must get alcohol. . . . over and over again in my brain. She is talking about something or other, and I am nodding along, all the while thinking, I have to get her to stop at the packy. It is such a burden to me that her husband will buy alcohol for her. She never has to stop. I always have to ask, beg for her to stop to feed my addiction. It is humiliating. But not humiliating enough for me to go one day without asking her to stop. I muster up the courage to ask her, and make sure I let her know that I am not getting too much. I don’t want her to think she is enabling me. I overexplain myself. I wont drink too much. This is my only stop for the weekend and I only have a little bit of money I tell her. I want to rest her mind. She is not enabling me to get drunk. I want to make sure she knows that. Simply so that she will stop for me again on Monday. She says yes, and as she pulls into the package store, I feel that same sense of excitement as when I was 18. Soon enough, I will be drinking. . . Ahhhhhhh

Now, what am I going to get. I have about 8 dollars. A bottle of vodka. I don’t know the difference between a pint or a fifth, but I know there is an 8 dollar bottle of raspberry flavored vodka and I get it. I decide it will last me the weekend, 3 days. I ration it out in my head that I can do about 3 shots each night before bed and it will last me through Sunday night. I ask the all too familiar faces behind the cash register to pull me a bottle of raspberry Smirnoff and pay them 8 dollars in change, much of it, actually in change. Few, I am calm. I have my alcohol. I can now continue with my day.

The bottle is calling my name and I decide I can do just one shot earlier than planned. I do. It is so good that I do a few more. Before I know it, my bottle is gone by 7:30. I am drunk. Really drunk. Another Friday night ruined. I argue with Brad, become the drunk bitch, and go to bed for the night.