Ever since I first discovered meth in 1981 — no, that's not right. I believe I should correctly say that since Meth, out on its voyages of discovery and exploration in seeking to establish hegemony among the curious and dissatisfied, first discovered me — when that insidious chemical gained a beachhead and planted its dooming standard into the promontory of my frontal lobe — I have made many attempts to resist its power and influence over me with varying degrees of success, none (obviously) permanent. In keeping with the metaphor, I have staged a great many coups d'etat against the invader in the form of trips to rehab.
I believe it was in 1984 when I first deemed the situation untenable and took up arms, checking into a facility in Austin, Texas, and spending and enjoyable clean six weeks attending groups and learning the (now hateful) argot of drug treatment. On graduating, I felt a sense of accomplishment and virtue which lasted for the 20 minutes or so it took for me to relax; I was a veritable paragon of sobriety on the ride from the facility to the connection.
This established a pattern I was to repeat 15 more times over the years, sometimes from an honest desire to get clean, sometimes to escape law enforcement or angry creditors, and sometimes just to catch my breath and replenish my reserves. I experienced and mastered every treatment model and therapy modality, eventually outstripping the counselors in both knowledge and practice, and having them often defer to me in day to day matters of groups and treatment issues.
I learned firsthand the corrupting influence of power during my stay at a long-term therapeutic community. After being abused, tortured and belittled for nine months, I was handed the reins and given control of the group. What followed during my tenure as "peer commander" was a reign of terror that faithfully adhered to the blueprints established by various bloodthirsty despots throughout history with pejorative adjectives appended to their names, e.g., "The Terrible."
I enjoyed 28 extremely pleasant days in 2001 when, being well employed and ensured to the gills, I was intervened on and sent to one of those expensive, for-profit treatment centers, charmingly nestled in the Colorado mountains. My fellow rehabbers, middle-class alcoholics and pill poppers all, reverted to summer camp mode on arriving and it was pretty much a four-week slumber party.
I did outpatient treatment, relapse prevention weekends, dual diagnosis mental hospital programs, lockup facilities, and, right before I made the interesting life choice of robbing a bank, I had lined up a spot at an ibogaine clinic in Tijuana.
But of all my forays into the world of addiction cessation, I never encountered a place quite like Primary Purpose.
Primary Purpose, for those unacquainted with it, it is (was? I understand it may have shut down) a pastoral hideaway tucked into the redwoods on E Road in Albion. Ostensibly a rehab, it was actually — you know, I don't really know what the hell it was. God bless John Jacobson, I love and respect the man and I know his heart was in the right place. But if he was running anything more than a recharging station for wayward tweakers I never saw any evidence of it. I understand most rehabs have a permanent success rate of about 8%. Primary's, I believe, hovered around -5%, given that some people who showed up without a drug problem left with one.
I hadn't been in Mendoland too long, maybe 18 months, when I heard the call to sobriety once again. Maybe it was the fact that after 25 years of drug use and not a single arrest, I'd garnered two possession charges and was playing an endless game of cat and mouse the Fort Bragg Police Department, most notably Officer Karen Harris who seem to have a raging hard-on for me, but I thought it politic to give the game a pass for a few rounds and realign the various systems and processes knocked askew by the old ol' oom-papa-mow-mow. I scraped up the $500 entrance fee and tooled on down to Albion, a hamlet I'd abandoned only recently, just ahead of a band of pitchfork and torch wielding lesbians led by a nude Sherry Glaser riding a centaur and wearing a flaming crown, or at least that's how I remember it. It was a near thing getting out of there, anyway, and I had some misgivings about being back on the ridge, but I figured if I stayed away from the grocery I'd be okay.
I was greeted in the parking lot of Primary Purpose by a filthy young man dressed only in a pair of tattered half pants, like something you might see in an elementary school production of Huck Finn. He was carrying a stick and surrounded by six or seven disreputable looking dogs. "Hey," he said. "I'm the dog master. Go on in, they're waiting for you."
I went inside and met the group who asked me some questions and voted on my suitability for the program. After being accepted I was told that if I didn't feel up to joining the group just yet I could spend a couple of days resting and getting my strength back. Excellent! Most places insist you get right with the program. I went into the dorm area and unpacked, but before getting to the business of resting and recuperating I was going to incur some further damage by finishing the dope I'd brought with me. Not exactly cricket, I know, but I find it's best to do these things gradually as abrupt drop-offs can be damaging to the psyche and cause one's valves to close.
I informed the guys that I'd like to take some air before bedding down and could they recommend a place to take a walk? They directed me to a trail that began out back of the main house and looped for half a mile around a pond and off I went, pipe and sack in pocket.
As soon as I got out of sight of the house I left the trail behind and ventured off into the pygmy forest, footfalls quiet in the spongy humus. The only sound was of water dripping off of leaves and the way was jungly and damp. I blazed a trail through the ferns and fungi until I came upon a likely looking fallen log and sat down to partake in a last blast of the ol' koo-koo-ka-joob. I excavated the pilo and prod from a stash pocket, loaded her up and took a mighty blast, blowing out a massive toxic cumuloid front. Finishing the bowl in short order, I sat reflecting on my situation. Not sure why people make such a big fuss about quitting, I thought. This is a breeze. In fact, I'm rather enjoying being clean. I feel positively — perky.
Thought followed thought, time did its legendary thing, and the day edged toward the crepuscular. Best think about getting back, I surmised. I heard voices — several — and barking dogs in the distance, getting closer. Then a yell: "They've got the scent! This way!" Cheese and rice! They set the bloody dogs on me! I stashed the pipe and sack in the log and took off running. The baying hounds! The trackless, darkening forest! I was in a damn prison escape movie!
I ran through a big brambly patch and smack into a 12 foot high fence topped with concertina wire, making a terrific bang and alerting my pursuers to my position. "This way! I hear him!"
I followed the fence line for a bit until I heard a very loud BANG! I stopped in my tracks and BANG! BANG! Two holes appeared in the fence about 20 feet up and 20 feet ahead of my position. Somebody was shooting on the other side of the fence! With a high-powered hunting rifle, judging from the size of the holes and the thundering report.
I sprinted away at top speed on a vector perpendicular to the fence, crashing through the vines and underbrush and periodically finding myself completely surrounded by vegetation. I need to find high ground so that my rescuers (formerly tormentors) could find me. I aimed myself in what I thought might be the direction back to the house and eventually came upon a large, solid looking deadfall. I clambered to the top of it and was about to give a yell when I fell through the top of my perch and crashed to the forest floor. Branches jabbed into my body from all sides and threatened to pierce me every time I moved. I was trapped. I began yelling, at first in a mostly informative way ("I'm over here!", then a little more panicky (Heeeeeeellllllp!), and finally, as the bits and pieces of the forest dislodged and got into my hair and under my clothes, taking on the character of scorpions and snakes and spiders in a primal, wordless, panicked and sustained shriek.
They found me shortly after and tried without success to pull me out. It eventually took a chainsaw to free me from that tweaker trap and it was 10pm before we got back to the house. The experience was an absolute buzzkill and after a shower and some first aid I sacked out and wasn't heard from for two full days.
I thought often during my stay of that pipe and sack in that log, but I wouldn't have gone back into that forest on a bet. For all I know it rests there still, but beware, treasure hunters — I wasn't kidding about the trigger-happy neighbor.
That little episode set the tone for what proved to be a very Lord Of The Flies-ish three months. The sobriety didn't take, of course, and in fact couldn't really gain a foothold what with all the pot smoking and pruno drinking we were doing. But I had fun and spent a few months shed of the ol' wickety-wickety-woo. Totally worth the half-a-rack.
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