I Liked Rehab Better Than My Job

Which would you prefer:

Going to your job every day for a month?
                or
Going to a locked ward for alcohol/drug rehab for a month?

When I was in my 20's, I preferred the drug/alcohol treatment center to my daily working life. Not just once, but twice. I was working in a call center back then. At the time, I believed that being stoned or high made me better at my job, or at least happier.

I remember how sad and worried I felt when it was time to graduate from treatment and return to my real life. I liked rehab. We got to get up every morning and have a great breakfast together. Then we'd have classes about drugs and alcohol and their effects, therapy groups where everyone told fascinating stories and said all kinds of insightful things about life, and individual counseling sessions. My counselor was this big biker guy from San Francisco who really understood how I felt about things.

We also got to play pool (I was a pretty good pool player at the time, since I spent a lot of time in bars that had pool tables), gin rummy, and poker. I found most of my treatment center buddies to be very entertaining, interesting people. In the evenings we'd make popcorn, and we'd make little hors d'oeuvres out of the individually wrapped bologna and processed cheese slices that were provided in the hallway pantry refrigerators. We had movies to watch, too, like "Rocky" and "Grease".

It was nice of (name of major telecommunications company) to send me there twice. I'm not so sure most companies would be that understanding today.

I had this dawning awareness that your life shouldn't be something you want to escape. If you feel you need to be drunk or high to get through your day, then there's a problem.

I'm still clean and sober today, which is a good thing for me and everyone around me. Ironically enough, I still don't have the job thing figured out yet. It's a puzzle I want to solve. It's a scary challenge I want to overcome.