Rehab Experiences

[Brilliant_Frenzy]

Okay, so my curiosity resides in your rehab experiences: have you been to rehab (and how many times); were you forced to go, or did you choose to go; if you chose to go, do you feel it made any difference; what type of rehab did you go to; did you hook up with another rehaber and do drugs while in rehab; how has rehab changed your life--positively, negatively, or not at all?
Me: I've been to rehab three times. I was forced to go all three times, two outpatient and one inpatient: the first was because I was stupid enough to get caught doing lines in the upstairs guest bathroom when I was home from college for Thanksgiving break in September 2000 (outpatient); the second was because I spent a lot of my trust fund money on blow when I turned 21 (inpatient); and the third was because I had to play along to convince my family that everything was back to normal (outpatient). I hooked up with some people in the first outpatient program and delved more seriously into opiates as a result of those friendships. As far as rehab changing my life, I think it has positively and negatively. I think it's given me a greater respect for chemicals, and has shaped my view of chemicals (Chemicals are pathways to the Divine). Negatively, it's affected me in that I had to take nearly two years off of college to jump through bull-shit hoops to please my ultra-conservative family. Final word: I am not done experiencing chemicals. I use them recreationally and for spiritual reasons. To me, chemicals are here for a reason. It's stupid to have something and not use it. Everything has a purpose. I just think the difference is how you use them. Everything is kewl in moderation.
PS: Did anyone else think the Twelve Steps were a method at brainwashing?
I know this should probably be in the Dark Side phorum, but I put it here because I thought it would get more responses. Please move it if you'd like, but I seriously ask you to not delete it, as I am interested in what people think.
[ 26 March 2002: Message edited by: Brilliant_Frenzy ]

 

[alert]

I have been to rehab twice. Once inpatient and once outpatient. Outpatient was 4 3-hour meetings a week for 6 months. I got sent to inpatient because I kept pissing dirty in outpatient. I was forced into rehab, because I ate 16mg of ativan and ended up getting an ambulance called on me and all sorts of trashy shit. I was also doing alot of coke at the time. Now that I am out of rehab, I still do pretty much everything. I get fucked up everyday, but I'm more more careful about obeying stupid laws now. Rehab taught me alot of propoganda and inpatient really forced me to think about my addictions. I did drugs my first day out of rehab, but I know more about addiction now. im all blowed so this post doesnt have much point, but the senseless ramble should give you the idea.

 

[SovietContin]

1)have you been to rehab (and how many times):
Outpatient. One time. Seven months. Why seven months when people who pissed dirty got out in only three months? The guy didn't like me, I didn't like him. I simply refused to say what he wanted to hear.

2)were you forced to go or did you choose to go:
I was forced. I was accused of counterfieting money. When I was being released on bond, I figured I'd piss dirty for at least 4 or 5 different types of drugs, so I told the pre-trail officer everything I had been doing. Infact, when he asked me what I would test positive for I said "Every drug in the rainbow except PCP". I was trying not to get specific because my mother was there, but I ended up having to admit to using marijuana, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, ketamine, LSD and ecstasy within the past week.
The ironic part is that somehow I tested negative for everything, including the marijuana I was smoking non-stop (almost literally as I hadn't slept in 3 days before getting caught [over at someone elses house and he ended up getting a warrant served and they ran my ID while i was a fugitive of the law] and was puffing almost every two hours).
Point being I was forced to go to an outpatient program.

3)if you chose to go, do you feel it made any difference:
Had I actually wanted to go, I think it would have made a huge difference. My counselor was an arrogant piece of shit who could have cared less about what I was going through. His whole thing that we should present a positive image of ourselves to the world to be successful. I grew up punk rock and I was doing my own thing before I ever dreamed of doing drugs. He didn't get it. And I resisted everything.

4)what type of rehab did you go to;
I tried out 4 and settled on the 4th. The first one was Christian-based. That didn't fly. The second group was mostly old PCP and crack addicts. I didn't think I'd fit in. The third one.. the guy automatically assumed I was a big pothead (which I wasn't at all, I was pretty much only into hallucinogens and I was only doing harder shit prior to my arrest because I thought I was going to end up getting 5-10 years and figured I should go out with a bang). The other people in the group were pathetic losers that cried, literally. So finally I found one last group. The counselor seemed to be a bit of a prick, but he knew what he was talking about. I regretted choosing his group later.
It was in this nice office, wood paneled walls, mantles, expensive everything. The other kids in the group were a bunch of faggots. They were all in for smoking pot or getting caught with beer.. and none of them had used more than a handful of times. They were just yuppy offspring. And because of that, I looked really bad in comparison. The counselor told me I was one of the most fucked up patients he'd ever had in terms of all the stuff I was putting in my body.

5)did you hook up with another rehaber and do drugs while in rehab:
Yeah right, these kids were bitches and would have narced if they knew I was still using. So no, I didn't hook up with them or talk to them.
But I did plenty of drugs. Moreso than ever in my life. The counselor insisted I could not function on drugs and never be successful and this and that and all these retarded stereotypes. He also was cocky and made threats about how he could catch anyone and he'd *KNOW* if we were still using. So I just figured out how to cheat his urine tests. I used drugs several times a week, everything from pot to acid to MDMA to MDA to MDE to PCP to coke to crack to heroin to meth to DOM to whatever. Infact I had intentionally tried to get hooked on coke and heroin. Not to mention there were two times when I came to group on ketamine. The second time he said "I suspect that someone in here has used drugs this weekend", which most likely was me as I was taking 30 seconds to begin replying to his questions and I looked like shit. He observed that test, but of course he wasn't testing for ketamine.

6)how has rehab changed your life--positively, negatively, or not at all?[/quote
At the time, it obviously just made things worse. I don't think it was so much rehab or the idea of going clean. I honestly had wanted to at first until the guy started pushing me. My drug use after that was out of spite for him.
I did quit using for a long time almost immediately after I got out of rehab, though.
Nowadays I try not to think about it. I don't think it's done anything for my life in the long run.
One thing that I did pick up was that had I been allowed to smoke pot during the first month, it would have made it so much easier to get off everything. When I first started going, I was at the point where I fiended for drugs all the time. I was high on something almost every single day. It didn't matter what I took, as long as I was on at least ONE drug (usually I was taking several types at a time). I found that when you're like that, substituting everything else with pot is a great way to stop the other shit and pot gets boring really quick.
The only thing I think that my counselor said which was true was that "if you cheat the urine tests, you're only cheating yourself". I really fucked myself up and would have been much better off if I had cleaned up while I was going.
Overall I think most rehabs are pretty much a joke. If you're serious about quitting and need some help learning how to do other things with your life, then I think they're alright. But for the most part, the counselors don't care about why you got into drugs or why you use, and if you don't address those issues then all the encouragement in the world to go clean isn't going to do much help. Every rehab program I went to was based on "drug addiction is your problem, all your other problems are because of your drug addiction". That's completely ass backwards. It's one thing to experiment, but people who are truly happy and have a lot going for them don't become drug addicts. There's something else going on if you develop a serious dependancy.

PS: Did anyone else think the Twelve Steps were a method at brainwashing?
Yes, my counselor made me attend a few NA meetings before he'd let me out of his group. I'm convinced he did this just to piss me off. 12 Steps operates like a cult. They initiate you into their weird culture, strip you of all your dignity and self-respect, tell you everything about yourself is wrong, they whine, they make up excuses for themselves, the sponsers take their own insecurities, guilts and other negative feelings out on the sponsees. Everyone talks shit behind everyone elses backs. They tattle. And they are far from free of addiction. They substitute their drug addictions with meetings, gallons of caffeine, packs of cigarettes and acting like neurotic pussies. They are the most disgustingly pathetic group of people on earth.

 

[thirdeye]

well, the first question is have you been to rehab, so I guess you're expecting answers of both kinds. I haven't been to rehab, I have been doing various kinds of things both casually and sometimes seriously. I haven't ever been afraid of going to rehab, or thought about being made to go. I have always been more wary of the legal aspect of it, fines, jail time etc. This thread really made me think about rehab. I wonder if drugs were legal, what sort of effect it would have on rehab. massive flood of people coming in, or everybody out enjoying chemicals?

 

[BOGBUBBLE]

i went to teen challenge its not really rehab, its more like church campe for tweakers.... it was the worst expiernce of my life, and after only 5 days of 42 year old crackhead banter i went home....

 

[LIKWID*PHLO]

Originally posted by Brilliant_Frenzy:
Okay, so my curiosity resides in your rehab experiences: have you been to rehab (and how many times);
I went to detox for a week and then started an outpatient program. But the detox was basically the same thing as rehab except they gave me methadone and some other shit since I told them I was also an alcoholic (which I wasn't but the pills fucked me up) That was a trick some forty year old lady in the lobby told me to do.
were you forced to go, or did you choose to go;
I was forced to go I woke up with my mom standing over me with a needle and a couple of bages of dope in her hand,that she found in my room. That same mornin I was off.
what type of rehab did you go to;
THis place was a shit hole in manhattan. I was nineteen when I went and by faaar the youngest person in there, these people were all long term addicts. THe place was run down and the food was shit.
did you hook up with another rehaber and do drugs while in rehab;
While I was in the lobby waitin to get admitted I was bullshitting with the "patients" (this is when I learned about the say your an alcoholic trick) and some guy started complaining about the wait and how he was getting dope sick, When I told I knew exactly how he felt because I hadn't been able to fix that day, he told me to follow him. Right in the lobby he took me into the bathroom locked the door and started giving me bumps of heroin, and told me he wasn't sick at all he was just tired of waiing in the lobby. I didn't do anymore dope with him while I was in there but we did hang out alot for the few days he was in there.
how has rehab changed your life--positively, negatively, or not at all?
Well I haven't done heroin since I've gotten out, and if I didn't go away I probably would have been arrested for something because I was stealing everything in sight to feed my habit.
all the meetings and shit I didn't listen to, some I would skip and others I would pass out in (the alcohol pills and methadone combo DEFINITELY worked) the only reason it worked for me was bacause I already decided I wanted to get off heroin for myself I just couldn't do it cold turkey.
[ 26 March 2002: Message edited by: Brilliant_Frenzy ]

 

[sweetdevlz]

I've been to outpateint rehab. Let me tell you, it was almost a waste of a month and a half. I has to go three times a week, and got tested randomly. My mom made me go cuz i was losing tons of weight cuz i was doing a lot of coke, and tweeking a lot too. my first day, I went stoned, and they made me sign a piece of paper saying i would not use any "chemicals." Im like "WHAT?!! No more drugs AT ALL? I'm not signing this." But they forced me to...which just goes to show thay if you're being forced into rehab, it wont work for shit. Within a week of rehab, I was doing coke again. Of course they found out, cuz I pissed dirty, so they made me tell my mom...so then I just drank a lot during the next month and a half of torture. I even tried acid my for the first time during rehab. I kept getting into trouble with the counselor though, one night I went drunk, and she smelled it on me, and another time she got all pissed off at a bunch of us for going across the street during our break to go buy cigarettes. I never "graduated," cuz i kept on pulling bullshit, and our insurance ran out. 3 days after I was done with that shit, I finally got to smoke pot again, and then I smoked a bunch of glass and didnt sleep for 3 days. At this point, I also started rolling a lot. Rehab did make me think whenever I did drugs, of the consequences, and how my life would be if I went back to using every day. During the year I've been out of rehab, I've only done coke 3 times, which had been the whole reason I was there in the first place. And a few months after I got out of rehab, I just quit doing drugs again on my own. Then i started doing stuff just every now and then...now I'm getting worse, in December, I smoked glass every other day for a month...then I started rolling a lot, like once or twice a week, and that lasted for 3 months, now i want to quit, but i want it so bad! I sometimes wonder if i need some kind of help, but what good would rehab do, I've been there, done that, and because of it, when I do drugs, I just worry about what a bad person I've been brainwashed to think i'm becoming! Besides, im 18 now, insurance only pays for rehab for one time in one's life, and if i told my parents that im fucked up worse than i was before, they'd throw me out so i could live in a ghetto apartment with my bf, who's just as screwed up as me, probly cuz i introduced him to E and glass. But, I guess I can safely say that rehab is not the answer, unless you want to change...I guess I didn't want to, or i'm just not ready to.