It starts with a drink as a teenager in a dark room on a night you can’t even remember, and then it becomes a series of nights, and days become years, and you’re growing up but it’s all kind of vague, you’re family is okay but school is lame and the whole going to school to go to college (more school) seems kinda pointless to you and so you keep on hanging out with your friends and drinking when you can get your hands on the stuff. No wonder the adults like it, it takes bad, but it makes you feel good and when everyone’s drunk off their ___, it doesn’t take much to feel like really good friends, friends for life, friends until you parents send you to alcohol rehab–California is the place to be they tell you, with a half-smile. . .You never though that you would end up in a alcohol and drug rehab in Lancaster CA, but you find that the big stretches of dusty land kinda does your spirit good. There’s a quiet out here that’s not like the quiet at home, which is oppressive. And nights in the desert are full of stars and cold, cold air. It’s shocking how much the weather can change in a day in your life.
Crack rehab is something you’re hoping to avoid, so when the counselors ask you too many questions and get into your business as little too much, you try to be patient and give them real answers. In the end you find out that you have chronic depression and that you’ll need help for that, too. But rehab ends up being a pretty good experience. You get a lot of people who are focused on you and trying to make things better, which is more than what you get at home.