Road to Recovery

Simon Says: Alright, enough of that shit, suffice it to say that methamphetamine addicts are the yellow underbelly of the snake of addiction. I've been down the road of several addictions and these people are the worst. Selling Epsom salt to your friends for $100 a gram just ain't cool. The freaky thing is that two weeks later it's like nothing ever happened and everybody's friends again. I had to get the fuck out of there and I did. Only one problem; no where to go. Been in this situation before and always seemed to figure something out. I hadn't been to AA in over a year but I still had my old sponsors phone number on my phone so I called him and asked him to give me a ride to detox. Well, he gave me a ride to Fairview Riverside ER. I was detoxed in the ICU (intensive care unit). Spent about a week in the ICU and then I was transferred to station 10 of the psych ward. I guess I was sicker than I thought because the doctors on station 10 petitioned the courts to have me committed. So, next thing I know I'm being transported to Hastings, MN where the courthouse is located. There I get to go before a judge and find out if I'm going to be incarcerated in the State Hospital for the mentally ill. I've done this a couple times before so I pretty much know what to expect: a stay of commitment. A “stay of commitment” is just like being on probation, you have to take the medications the doctors prescribe and stay out of trouble or you'll be put in the State Hospital. That's the boat I'm in right now. Actually I'm kind of in a double trouble situation because I'm on probation for the next two years due to a DWI I got a little over a year ago. I also got ten days in jail which I just finished up last month. The DWI I got is another story which I got to tell but in another post. As a condition of my stay of commitment I was ordered into an inpatient treatment center. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) was the main emphasis of this treatment program. I've been through this treatment center before so I knew what to expect. Its a good place called Theo1 in West St.Paul, MN. DBT is based on Eastern philosophies of Zen Buddhism, its basic premiss is to develop a “life worth living”, originally developed by Marsha M. Linehan, a psychology researcher at the University of Washington, to treat people with borderline personality disorder (BPD). I served my 45 days there and I didn't mind it one bit, haveing no where else to go except maybe the Dorthy Day homeless shelter. While I was in Theo1 a Dakota County social worker helped me find an apartment where I'm living now. Stay tuned, this story never ends.