Residential Rehabs

So it took a month or so in the converted basement of an old school in the Northern confines of some two bit town in the middle of nowhere for me to detox long enough so I could see I had become a hopeless asshole full of alcohol and resentments.

Could have been worse…

I’ll never forget Rita, the cook, who’d been preparing meals there for girls and boys like me for near twenty years by the time I rolled through her kitchen for my first night of clean-up duty.  Rita had arms the size of my legs, and a permanent scowl that ensured she got to go home after her ten hour shift every day without taking any of our shit with her.

There were counselors there, and on and off, for a month, alone and in group, they tried to make me feel like they gave a shit whether I lived or died after I left the relative safety of the treatment center.  But I remember Rita most of all.  I remember her sending another guy on permanent toilet scrubbing duty ’cause he complained the eggs were overcooked one morning…

Rita ran that joint, I don’t care what it said on the diplomas hanging on the wall behind the clinical director’s desk.

I made it through, along with only a few others from my intake.  It was a tough month.

My counselor gave me a coin with a picture of a sailboat on it.

Rita gave me a hug and shed a tear when she saw mine.

Small pleasures…