My first weekend in addiction treatment began when I had only been at the clinic two days. So, it was all still feeling a little strange. By now, at least I knew I was going to be spending my time with people with whom I could identify. Weekends in rehab were not going to be a terrible experience. I was still in the early stages of detox. During your first week in rehab you cannot usually communicate with the outside world. So, you have to hand in your mobile phone, laptop etc and any other form of communication.
This is so you can focus on settling in without outside distractions. It also involves no communications upsetting you or your loved ones. So, all my communication was with my fellow ‘inmates’ and the staff. I was okay with this.
‘Art therapy’ – weekends in rehab
The first lesson I can remember learning was that I was no longer in charge of what I did. I am quite an academic person – most certainly not an arty one. One of my most hated lessons at school which I took most pleasure in dropping when it came to my O’ Levels was art.
So, when I saw art therapy on the timetable for Sunday morning, I decided that it wasn’t for me. I informed a member of staff that I would not be going to that but would spend the time productively on the first piece of written work I had been given – my life story. He found this highly amusing, that I thought I had any say in it. I was informed that I had to take part in everything on the timetable and could not pick and choose.
“outside of my comfort zone”
So I endured art therapy – but I can’t say I enjoyed it. Even though it was not about how well you could draw or paint (more about coming up with symbolic expressions of your feelings which I could do – stick men etc) I felt uncomfortable and quite stressed by the experience. I am sure that that in itself was a sort of learning experience and reminder of how sometimes we have to go through things out of our comfort zone and can’t just do what we want to do!
Private health club
The rest of the weekend was spent quite pleasantly and productively. I did work on my life story and we went to a private health club to relax and to start thinking about our physical health .I was quite weak physically from poor eating and nutrition in the weeks leading up to my going into rehab. But, I started by swimming a length or two and adding on a couple more thereafter for each time we went swimming. By the end of my treatment, I was swimming 20+ lengths. We did our daily ‘reflections’, a reading from the 12 Step Programme of recovery followed by a discussion of what it meant to us. And we attended meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous.
“my ability to laugh had been unleashed”
By this time, my ability to laugh had been unleashed, not least by John. John began his time in rehab by insisting he did not have a drink problem as he only drank a couple of cans of special brew a day. He was in the clinic because his family were concerned.
So, when introducing himself, the rest of us would follow convention ‘my name is Sue and I am an alcoholic’. John would not do this – ‘my name is John and my children think I am an alcoholic’. Following a phone call from one of his grandchildren that weekend, this changed to ‘My name is John and now even my grandchildren think I am an alcoholic’.
It was some way into his addiction rehab treatment before he admitted he might have a problem – but more of that in a later post. For now, it lightened the atmosphere and caused myself and June in particular to struggle to control our desire to laugh! Weekends in rehab weren’t so bad.
The Haynes Clinic is an alcohol, gambling and drug rehab clinic which offers detox and counselling for people with addictions.
Call 01462 851414 for free and confidential advice.