Those three days passed as quickly as any other physically unpleasant event might run its course, and when they were over and I was sufficiently detoxed, I was moved to the rehab unit. I felt sure that the worst of my process was over and I was filled with a sort of cocky bravado that came from my belief that everybody on the staff knew exactly what to do and knew explicitly what worked for people like me. It was simple, really. The staff and the program were designed to instill the clients with confidence and a sense of security that I don’t think is available through programs you find these days. This second stage was also where I was supposed to learn strategies to stay off alcohol and drugs. Here, in a controlled environment, it would be easy, but back home it might be different. And difficult. It didn’t really matter because I didn’t want to get too far ahead of myself.
The unit was set up military style. There were three of us to a room. Here I was, a young rocker, housed with middle-aged professional men. They immediately made me feel welcomed and they were a friendly crew. There was John, a high-powered Chicago attorney who had checked in after badly blowing one of his cases thanks to a long-term cocaine-and-booze habit. Moon was a back-slapping good-ol’-boy airline pilot whose binge drinking threatened to rob him of his livelihood. And, of course, there I was with my dreadlocks. John was the head of our unit and assigned us various homemaking tasks. I was shown my bed before we all went off, single-file, to the cafeteria for a lecture about addiction.
There, in the lunchroom, like a punch in the guts, it slammed me. Maybe it was because I had been in such a fog during my initial detox that I just didn’t notice it. Certainly, it hadn’t been mentioned in the Hazelden brochures and nobody had brought it up since I had arrived, but there on the wall were the sacred “twelve steps,” and one word in particular stood out—God. I thought to myself, There is no fucking way … All of a sudden the tone in my head shifted and I felt like I had walked myself straight into the nest of some creepy mind-control cult. I thought of Jonestown and how a domineering, crazed reverend convinced more than nine hundred of his followers to drink cyanide-spiked purple-drink in an act of mass suicide. That’s what religion will get you, I thought. It didn’t help when I turned my head and saw another poster with the Ten Commandments rewritten and translated into recovery-speak. I was an atheist. My mom was, at best, an agnostic. This was alien territory for me. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered under my breath. The lecture ended with a period of meditation, which, to me, was just another word for prayer. I meditated, all right. I meditated about how I had paid $14,000 up front to take part in the rituals of organized superstition. I was completely switched off. I had to get out.
Now, this is how the mind of an addict and alcoholic works: It jumps to hasty conclusions. At lunch, convinced that I was trapped in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of religious freaks, I found a phone and called for a car. I went back to the unit and started to pack. John saw me and asked me what I was doing.
“I’m leaving,” I said.
“What are you talking about? You just got here,” he said with surprise.
“I’m leaving,” I repeated. “I don’t belong here with … you people.”
“Hey, man, everything’s cool,” John answered.
“No,” I shot back, “everything is not cool! This is some dogmatic bullshit right here!”
“Could you maybe be a little more specific?” John asked without guile.
“All that God stuff,” I said. “I can’t do it. I’m not religious.”
John started laughing. It wasn’t a mocking laugh. It wasn’t cruel. It was a big, friendly laugh. He was genuinely amused by my outburst. “Bob, all these programs are like that. Just don’t do the God stuff. I don’t. Neither does Moon.”
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked.
“You can try the first step and just admit you don’t have any control over the drugs and the booze. I mean, is making something happen worth putting in at least a little effort?”
I guessed it was and I took the leap and took the first step. I admitted that I had no control over the pills, potions, and powders. God didn’t enter into the equation. It was just me and the bottle … and I could never stay away from it for long.
John also suggested I try the fourth step and “take a searching and fearless moral inventory” of myself. I hated the language in which it was put, but I liked the idea. I didn’t need God to do that either,
