The kitchen of the detox looked out over the parking lot of the hospital. At night all that remained was the ghostly outlines of the parking spaces that glowed from the lights that surrounded it.
I remember sitting by the window a few nights before I was to leave. Two little piles of graham crackers sat on my napkin on the ledge of the locked window. Looking down I watched as two people who had just signed themselves out AMA wandered down below heading out to get there fix.
They looked lost … unsure of which way to go, they would begin in one direction then turn around to go in the opposite direction. Stopping, talking, starting out again, then finally heading off in different directions … alone
Back onto the merry go round of addiction they again had lost their power to choose.
I sat curled in a chair, hospital blanket draped over and around me. Carefully choosing from my two pile of crackers I would select one, dipping it into my cup of milk. Holding it under, waiting for the moment just before it would disintegrate and plop it into my mouth savoring the way the slight sweetness and cool taste of the milk mixed in my mouth.
I would stare out the window through the ghostly reflection of myself, looking down and wonder what had become of those that had left. What would become of those who had stayed?
What would become of me?
It’s been over two years since that moment in time and I am the only person that has continued to stay clean. Sometimes I still wonder how I got out of that cesspool I swam in for so long.
Why me and not them?
Why some and not others?
How did I escape when so many others died and will continue to die?
And as I sit curled in a chair in this new place in time, I look out my bedroom window, down at the world below and think the very same thing I did then ...
