Last.Damn.Call

That’s how many nights I stayed in rehab. My roomie taught me to think in number of nights or “sleeps” I had left before I could go home. And that helped tremendously. Instead of 60 days (which is what I was initially told)…long days of thinking about damage I had done and trying to block out all the brokenness around me…I focused on a goal. The number of sleeps which passed by much faster than the hours I could count in any given day.

Let me tell you how reluctant I was to be going to treatment. My husband had a major health scare (totally alcohol related) and I was very lost. I don’t know how long you have been married or shared a home with another person, but for approximately 20 years, I had rarely slept without my husband nearby. Even though, a substance had driven the ultimate wedge between us, we were always in the same house at night.

So, when he was hospitalized in August of 2024, we were told he wouldn’t see Christmas that year if he didn’t stop drinking. He was having such terrible withdrawal and what I would call psychosis (calling me from a hospital bed in Indiana and telling me our son was visiting him…all the while our son was sitting next to me in our house in Benton, IL). To say I was scared, well…that would be the understatement of the century. I was terrified. And you know what I did? I drank.

I didn’t tell my kids that Dad would be ok. I honestly didn’t know. I didn’t tell them I was ok. I wasn’t. I drank. Because that’s what drunks do. And what more valid reasoning than the fact that your whole life is falling apart? Not suspicion. Not a possibility. A fact. Shit was going south and fast. So, I drank.

I misspoke in my book when I recalled my mother-in-law scooping me up and taking me to rehab while Eli was still hospitalized. It wasn’t a lie I wrote. I honestly thought that was the way it happened. I was losing my grips on reality and any sense of time and place and existence. I thought about changing that error when I finalized my book, but I decided it was my truth at the time, as twisted as it may have been, and I would keep it that way. As a reminder of how bad things got. That one untruth, the one fact that I checked and didn’t correct, now serves as a reminder of how far I have come.

23 sleeps in rehab. 23 sleeps in a room with a stranger, a heroin addict. 23 sleeps with women crying and screaming and fighting. 23 sleeps of unlearning the way I thought I knew how to function. 23 sleeps to dream about the things I had lost. 23 sleeps to dream about my family. 23 sleeps until I could sleep in my own bed and shower without being monitored. 23 sleeps until freedom.

I would like to add something just because I find it very interesting (I can’t quite come up with the exact word). I had private insurance in rehab. The only person not on a medical card during my stay. Yes, I know this because everyone talks. Nothing is private. I was told that because my insurance would possibly PAY for more days, that’s what I would get. Not that I needed more time than the others. Not that I was any worse off. Not that I would benefit from it. But because my husband and I had always held jobs and had insurance…the facility could keep me as long as “deemed necessary” and my insurance would pay. The medical card didn’t pay like insurance did.

I would like to say this didn’t piss me off, but we all know it did. So, as a “functioning alcoholic” who had managed to somewhat hold down a job, and more importantly, my spouse, who had been with his company for forever…now, I get to be punished for doing something right. I felt like a paycheck. Like I was being held for ransom. We can get more money out of this one, so we will keep her. I am sure that wasn’t the logic behind all this–I tell myself that to keep my faith in humanity alive.

Thankfully, our insurance sucks. At day 23, I was told they wouldn’t pay past the next morning. I could pay out of pocket for an “extended stay”. And I would have, if I needed to. I had plenty of people who would have helped make that happen. But I knew I was ready. Side note: I was sent home on a Friday, but if I wanted to stay the weekend, it would be approximately $1,500 a night. I politely responded, “I appreciate the offer, but this is the shittiest hotel I have ever stayed in.” And the counselor and I both shared a pretty good laugh.

23 sleeps didn’t fix all my problems. But they did give me a hell of a boost, a jumpstart that was much needed. I am forever grateful to that shitty hotel. The place where I learned to tolerate others. To learn about my own flaws. To block out all the noise of other people. To sit with my own self-loathing and self-pity. 23 sleeps to dream about what could have been and what could now be. Before those 23 sleeps, I was never coming home, not in reality. I was never waking up from the nightmare that was my daily life as an alcoholic.

When days are hard, when nights are long, when sleep doesn’t come easily, I remember those 23 sleeps in rehab. How far I have come and what my future may hold. If I can’t sleep, I now dream with my eyes open. Seeing and planning a future that would have never been. Without 23 sleeps in a hotel created for the lost to be found.

LAST.DAMN.CALL.: M. Cox, Lindsey: 9798299331349: Amazon.com: Books