NOTICE: EVERYTHING YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ IS FICTIONAL
So some time ago I landed myself in rehab for heroin addiction.
After about 6 or 7 years of using, abusing and selling every drug you can possibly think of I got myself into some real deep shit around the ages of 19-21. I had been completely sober and started selling heroin that some guys and I had robbed from some higher level dealers in the area in a string of home invasions that were being investigated by local detectives.
As being one of the suspects in the home invasions I was confronted by detectives one afternoon and was told they were going to find evidence linking me to the crimes and charge me with armed robbery, felonious assault with a weapon, drug trafficking and a whole slew of other shit that never came to be. But at the time they told me that they knew I was involved in the robberies and that they also knew I was selling the dope. They told me that they didn't have anything on me yet but they would soon.
Common sense and maybe a little street smarts tells me they were simply trying to shake the tree so to speak, because if they did have anything even CLOSE to something that could be considered evidence, there is no way that they would have warned me that I would soon be arrested. They did not take me down to the station for questioning, this exchange happened one afternoon when I was pulled over by an unmarked car on the side of the road, with me sitting in the car the for most of the conversation until they finally pulled me out and illegally searched my vehicle.
Needless to say, if they were trying to scare the shit out of me, it worked. I immediately snapped the phone I was using to sell the dope in half about two miles away from where I was pulled over and threw it in a trash can in a mcdonalds bathroom.
So now I was sitting on a bunch of heroin that I was too afraid to sell and though I had never tried heroin before this, I had used other opiates and was curious as to what heroin was like. So believe it or not I ended up getting addicted to the stuff and shot it up daily for about a six month period just before landing myself in detox and subsequently, rehab.
Detoxing from the stuff in a controlled environment was not so bad. I was given a drug called Tramadol every few hours to lessen the effects of the withdrawal and pretty much had 24/7 access to food, tv and books or magazines. I had someone pull a few strings with some people they knew at this detox center and I spent 7 days there completely free of charge and to this day I remain very grateful for that.
After I was pretty much forced to go into "treatment." I wasn't very happy about this because I had just spent 7 days listening to a slew of speakers who were members of alcoholics anonymous, people who constantly spouted off about god and how accepting god into your life is the only way to obtain sobriety. Now these people all had great intentions but I was just sick of hearing it.
I eventually got into a free, AA based rehab center and it was a complete nightmare. Every day this ego-manic whose name I will not say, screamed and belittled those who were staying at the facility, all the while telling us that AA and god was the only way to sobriety. Most of the people there were religious, so needless to say I did not fit in very well with the other guys at the rehab, at least not concerning religious views.
I was told on a weekly even daily basis that I would die if I did not believe in god and accept AA's word fully and wholly. We cleaned every day three times a day, which is fine. We were sometimes sent out to work often without pay, to do jobs for people who basically knew the manager of the facility and knew they could request guys to do free labor.
All the while there is the constant threat of being kicked out of the facility if you so much as think of defying the manager of the place. In the three months that I was there I think I was one of maybe five people that didn't get kicked out and replaced with somebody else. At the three month mark the "roster" looked almost completely different because this guy decided to kick so many people out on a weekly basis, for reasons ranging from verbal defiance to accidentally breaking something around the facility. And the reminders of how grateful you should be to be staying somewhere for free and to be receiving the message of AA were constant.
Meanwhile there were rumors of the manager using the facility to make money under the table from certain events and things that were hosted by said facility.
I was berated by the manager for being a reader and an atheist, he claimed I was a know it all and arrogant and that I could never stay sober with the attitude that I had, granted I never spoke more than ten words to the guy on a weekly basis. People who he knew from years of being in and out of his facility were favored over others and even though some of them had relapsed IN the facility multiple times he would always let them come back, all the while some kid who accidentally broke a mop sink one time was kicked out and never let back in.
All in all, this place was certainly an interesting experience, but I am fucking so glad I'm gone. The guy who ran the place was a complete ego-maniac and had no sense of respect or how to deal with people. He simply ran that place however he wanted to and expected everyone to be a yes man for him on everything he said. God was shoved down my throat more than I think it ever has been in my life. The walls of this place were littered with religious pictures and sayings. We were told to pray every day, which I never did.
Honestly, I just needed to get a lot of this off my chest, but I figured maybe I could use it as an excuse to also ask you guys what you think of AA and its religious nature... Have any of you ever had experience with AA? How did you deal with it?
So some time ago I landed myself in rehab for heroin addiction.
After about 6 or 7 years of using, abusing and selling every drug you can possibly think of I got myself into some real deep shit around the ages of 19-21. I had been completely sober and started selling heroin that some guys and I had robbed from some higher level dealers in the area in a string of home invasions that were being investigated by local detectives.
As being one of the suspects in the home invasions I was confronted by detectives one afternoon and was told they were going to find evidence linking me to the crimes and charge me with armed robbery, felonious assault with a weapon, drug trafficking and a whole slew of other shit that never came to be. But at the time they told me that they knew I was involved in the robberies and that they also knew I was selling the dope. They told me that they didn't have anything on me yet but they would soon.
Common sense and maybe a little street smarts tells me they were simply trying to shake the tree so to speak, because if they did have anything even CLOSE to something that could be considered evidence, there is no way that they would have warned me that I would soon be arrested. They did not take me down to the station for questioning, this exchange happened one afternoon when I was pulled over by an unmarked car on the side of the road, with me sitting in the car the for most of the conversation until they finally pulled me out and illegally searched my vehicle.
Needless to say, if they were trying to scare the shit out of me, it worked. I immediately snapped the phone I was using to sell the dope in half about two miles away from where I was pulled over and threw it in a trash can in a mcdonalds bathroom.
So now I was sitting on a bunch of heroin that I was too afraid to sell and though I had never tried heroin before this, I had used other opiates and was curious as to what heroin was like. So believe it or not I ended up getting addicted to the stuff and shot it up daily for about a six month period just before landing myself in detox and subsequently, rehab.
Detoxing from the stuff in a controlled environment was not so bad. I was given a drug called Tramadol every few hours to lessen the effects of the withdrawal and pretty much had 24/7 access to food, tv and books or magazines. I had someone pull a few strings with some people they knew at this detox center and I spent 7 days there completely free of charge and to this day I remain very grateful for that.
After I was pretty much forced to go into "treatment." I wasn't very happy about this because I had just spent 7 days listening to a slew of speakers who were members of alcoholics anonymous, people who constantly spouted off about god and how accepting god into your life is the only way to obtain sobriety. Now these people all had great intentions but I was just sick of hearing it.
I eventually got into a free, AA based rehab center and it was a complete nightmare. Every day this ego-manic whose name I will not say, screamed and belittled those who were staying at the facility, all the while telling us that AA and god was the only way to sobriety. Most of the people there were religious, so needless to say I did not fit in very well with the other guys at the rehab, at least not concerning religious views.
I was told on a weekly even daily basis that I would die if I did not believe in god and accept AA's word fully and wholly. We cleaned every day three times a day, which is fine. We were sometimes sent out to work often without pay, to do jobs for people who basically knew the manager of the facility and knew they could request guys to do free labor.
All the while there is the constant threat of being kicked out of the facility if you so much as think of defying the manager of the place. In the three months that I was there I think I was one of maybe five people that didn't get kicked out and replaced with somebody else. At the three month mark the "roster" looked almost completely different because this guy decided to kick so many people out on a weekly basis, for reasons ranging from verbal defiance to accidentally breaking something around the facility. And the reminders of how grateful you should be to be staying somewhere for free and to be receiving the message of AA were constant.
Meanwhile there were rumors of the manager using the facility to make money under the table from certain events and things that were hosted by said facility.
I was berated by the manager for being a reader and an atheist, he claimed I was a know it all and arrogant and that I could never stay sober with the attitude that I had, granted I never spoke more than ten words to the guy on a weekly basis. People who he knew from years of being in and out of his facility were favored over others and even though some of them had relapsed IN the facility multiple times he would always let them come back, all the while some kid who accidentally broke a mop sink one time was kicked out and never let back in.
All in all, this place was certainly an interesting experience, but I am fucking so glad I'm gone. The guy who ran the place was a complete ego-maniac and had no sense of respect or how to deal with people. He simply ran that place however he wanted to and expected everyone to be a yes man for him on everything he said. God was shoved down my throat more than I think it ever has been in my life. The walls of this place were littered with religious pictures and sayings. We were told to pray every day, which I never did.
Honestly, I just needed to get a lot of this off my chest, but I figured maybe I could use it as an excuse to also ask you guys what you think of AA and its religious nature... Have any of you ever had experience with AA? How did you deal with it?
"Bake the children in the pies, sip the tea, watch your demise, tip your hat, don't be ashamed, we're all afraid"
"[God] sounds like an abusive lover, 'But dear, I wouldn't beat you if you didn't make me angry'" - Nope
My problem with religious people is not the fact that they hold the beliefs they do, my problem is when they claim that those beliefs make logical sense. If you wish to hold beliefs in fairy tales, that is fine with me. I still think you're silly, but that is fine. But the moment you claim that your views concerning those subjects can safely operate in any realm other than the realm of faith and/or fiction is the moment you deserve to be called on your bullshit.
"[God] sounds like an abusive lover, 'But dear, I wouldn't beat you if you didn't make me angry'" - Nope
My problem with religious people is not the fact that they hold the beliefs they do, my problem is when they claim that those beliefs make logical sense. If you wish to hold beliefs in fairy tales, that is fine with me. I still think you're silly, but that is fine. But the moment you claim that your views concerning those subjects can safely operate in any realm other than the realm of faith and/or fiction is the moment you deserve to be called on your bullshit.
