Edward's Road to Recovery, Entry #3

Woah, this is a strange new format.  Hopefully everything looks okay when finished.

Anyways, today is as good a day as any to write about my experiences in the IOP (intensive outpatient) program of CATS, which immediately followed my stay in the day-treatment detox facility of the Inova hospital, because I just completed the ten week program last night.  I got out from detox on a Tuesday, I believe, and on a Wednesday began my first day of IOP.  At the time I was a bit hesitant, but because I had had such a good experience at CATS thus far--sharing my story and really feeling connected to both my fellow patients and the staff in ways that I never expected--I was pretty positive that IOP would be a worthwhile experience.  To make a long story short, it was most definitely worth it.

The logistics of IOP are this: it is a group that varies from approximately 5 to 12 patients, led by one counselor.  We would meet at the same place at the same time three times a week, for three hours per session.  Nine hours a week at first seemed daunting, but as the chemistry of the group slowly gelled into something really amazing, I honestly wanted the sessions to last even longer.  Like a support group, we would typically check in and/or talk about our plans for the upcoming weekend, to make sure we were staying busy and had a plan to get through the weekend without drinking or using.  However, IOP provides more of a structure than a group like SMART Recovery or AA, because each class was usually based around a unique topic.  The majority of the class would be spent with us going through various worksheets and discussing the topic of the night in great detail, with our counselor Becky pushing us back on topic if we strayed too far (and we inevitably always did).  We talked about things like PAWS (post-acute withdrawal symptoms, which can last physically for up to one year, and mentally for up to two, and consist of things like headaches, nightmares and bad sleep, body aches, and depression), self-soothing exercises (yoga, meditation, breathing, etc.), coping skills to deal with cravings, and creating a recovery plan.

I don't remember too much of the academic material from our group.  What I do remember is the people and the good times we had.  I think our group was very unusual in that we had an almost perfect chemistry, even as old members left (either to graduate, to sadly relapse, or just to drop out) and new members joined.  There was always someone there to welcome the new people and show them that in our group you could be completely at ease.  There was absolutely and truly no judgment, and people could say whatever they wanted.  I especially tried to cultivate an environment where everyone felt comfortable sharing their most troubling and embarrassing issues and stories.  I was known as the member who was the most willing to go all-out in terms of baring my soul and all the many blemishes of my past behavior.  Even people who were court-ordered into the group because of a DUI got a lot out of it, because we encouraged them to speak up and share their viewpoint, which more often then not was that they felt they didn't really belong in our group.  But we loved them just as much as we loved everyone else, because most of us had been there in our past, at a time when we weren't ready to admit that we were powerless over our addictions. 

For some reason the group seemed to excel because of its all-male demographic.  I know that others who had been in other classes said that the other groups were very weak compared to ours.  Basically people didn't really put much effort into sharing or participating in the other groups, and everyone just looked at the clock till the three hours ran down.  Ours was so different.  Maybe people would be shy for their first session or two, but eventually everyone would participate and share very intimate details about their lives, to which almost all of us could relate.  Our counselor was a girl, but she was pretty awesome, and being younger, she could hang with our group of guys quite easily.  My main job was when she asked us tough, personal questions, I would turn it back around on her.  For a while in there we did have one girl, who in my opinion was a bit much of an attention whore (although I enjoyed her own perspective in the class, since she was by a good bit the youngest member), but she left after a few sessions.  One of the lecherous old guys in the class, JR, told me that he thinks she left because she realized that he had seen her working (apparently not as a dancer that night?) at a strip club somewhere in the Crystal City area.  That might actually be the truth, considering she said she hadn't had a normal job in a long time, but still lived on her own and had a heroin habit.  In any case, it did feel like a bit of a boys' club, and there was that sort of foul-mouthed sense of humor that comes with the territory.  Another thing I was known for was being the one who cursed the most.  Dat's me.  (Oh, and I was known for my lust for food whenever someone brought snacks in.)

My only complaint about the group (and it's a small one) is that over time it became completely dominated by alcoholics, and (although I do have an alcohol addiction) because my drug of choice was heroin and opiates, I felt like a variety of viewpoints were not always expressed.  This isn't really the group's fault, though.  It just shows how many more alcoholics there are out there than other kinds of drug addicts.  I believe there were only three other heroin addicts in the group, and usually only one at any given time besides me.  We were all young.  There was also Ben, who I went through detox with, who was an oxycodone addict.  For whatever reason (perhaps because it's a suburban, predominately upper-class and white area outside of DC), I only saw one person in my entire stay at CATS who was there for anything else other then alcohol or opiates (his drug of choice was cocaine).  Though in general, an addiction is an addiction is an addiction, I do think there are differences in experience between older businessmen who drink too much and junkies.  But in a sense I like that they put everyone together, since we could all share and relate to our own unique experiences.  A lot of times I related more to older alcoholics than I did to other young heroin addicts.  I think there is a sort of shared brother/sisterhood among all addicts, no matter what kind of drug they were addicted to.  The treatment is essentially the same for all kinds of drugs, with some minor differences in the beginning, and the heavy burden of addiction bears down on everyone through the years in the same ways.

What I gained most out of IOP wasn't an absorption of knowledge.  Most of the facts about addiction and the methods of treatment and self-help techniques I knew about before going in, since I researched drug addiction so heavily during my years of use.  What I gained was simply the kick-in-the-ass impact of getting out there and doing the shit that I'd read about for so long but had been too scared to do.  I hated, hated, hated social groups and that sort of thing before treatment, but I would wager that I was the most talkative member of the group throughout my entire ten-week stay.  To me, what recovery is about is really conquering the fears which we've held so tightly and buried, leading to self-destruction and hatred.  It helps tremendously to not just sit there and dream about goals for the future, but to talk about them and write them down on a regular basis.  There is a great sense of accountability when I talk about my goals and then people ask how they're going the next week.  Although I already had a lot of aspects of my recovery plan compiled before I went into IOP, every single day I spent in the group I was more and more motivated to actually get out there and do the stuff: reading, writing, music, film, yoga, meditation, cardio, lifting weights, dancing, breathing, having sex, playing video games, traveling to new places, and of course making new relationships, and maintaining and improving old ones.

One of the key things to take from addiction recovery is this: there is a difference between compliance and acceptance, a difference between abstinence and sobriety.  We can quit because we have to; we can stop using drugs and still be unhappy.  Accepting sobriety means trying to do something every day of your life to better yourself.  It can be at times a very selfish project.  Because we have spent so long hating and destroying ourselves, early recovery is often a time where you are supposed to focus very strongly on yourself, sometimes at the expense of others' demands.  Laws of AA include that you're not supposed to date for the first year of sobriety or make any major decisions in your life.  It's all about a time of self-healing.  That is the most important part of recovery.  With time we can learn to give back to all those we have hurt, and most importantly to learn to help others who struggle with the disease of addiction.  Sobriety isn't being off drugs.  It is a lifetime journey towards happiness and contentment, and I think for me towards some kind of greater truth.

--Edward