What Is It Really Like Going To Rehab?

Find out what it's really like going to rehab for the first time. What did you expect it to be like? 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

It's time again for Doc Jock, your addiction lifeguard podcast. I am Dr. Jock DeBerker, a psychologist, licensed professional counselor, and addiction specialist. If you are suffering from addiction, misery, trauma, whatever it is, I'm here to help. If you're in search of help to try to get your life back together, join me here at Doc Jock, your addiction lifeguard, the addiction recovery podcast. I wanted to be real clear about what this podcast is intended for. It is intended for entertainment and informational purposes but not considered help. If you actually need real help and you're in need of help, Please seek that out. If you're in dire need of help, you can go to your nearest emergency room or you can check into a rehab center or call a counselor like me and talk about your problems and work through them. But don't rely on a podcast to be that form of help. It's not. It's just a podcast. It's for entertainment and information only. So let's keep it in that light. All right. Have a good time. Learn something and then get the real help that you need from a professional. what is the purpose of going to rehab i mean why would you go someplace voluntarily walk in and surrender your time 30 days 60 days 90 days 120 days whatever it is to a group of people that you don't know to cure you of something that you don't agree with having, that you don't agree that you have it, and then follow their instructions after you leave the place that you were at. where perhaps you didn't think you should have been in the first place. So why? And so the first time anybody goes to rehab, it's a very confusing, troubling, upsetting time in their lives. And I've had a lot of conversations with people over the years as I've tried to help them understand what the purpose of that is. And it becomes particularly more difficult when I'm doing interventions and I'm confronted with somebody that I've never seen before and I'm letting... Their family members, their loved ones love them into voluntarily going into a facility where they're basically not going to be able to leave. I mean, they can, but not really for 30, 60, 90 days or 120 days. And so the very first time you go, you may not actually understand why you would be there. And so these words are the ones that I got from one of my friends who he's been to rehab a few times. And he currently he's been clean and sober for a long time. And he actually works in the field of recovery. And he just recently died. Got through his master's degree in social work and is continuing his work in the field. And so the conversation I had with him was one that was based on an understanding of why you go or what you're thinking as an addict the very first time you go. So the conversation went something like this. Hi, I'm Scott. Hey, Scott. So you decided you were going to go to rehab. at some point in your life, right? Well, I mean, it was actually three times in my life, yes, but... Well, I'd like to talk to you about that very first time. Well, the very first time. Yeah, yeah, the very first time you went. And, like, what did you think the purpose of it was, that first time you went?

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Okay, so... It was right after I graduated high school, and my drug use wasn't that bad, really, but I was on antidepressants, and I was really depressed, and I was smoking weed and drinking, so they weren't working, and my parents thought it'd be good to put me inpatient in a psych ward for a month, so I went to PIMC. It's a psychiatric institute in Montgomery County, and it was either a rehab with a psych ward component or a psych ward with a rehab component because, well, it was psych work, so I couldn't leave. It was a locked-door facility, but they had meetings and stuff like that, so I considered that my first rehab thing, and they heavily covered it. concentrated on, on a lot of, uh, it was actually, I'm not sure what the model would be.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Wait, wait, wait, hold on. Hold on. You're going down a rabbit hole. Yeah. Let me repeat the question. All right. Let's start. Let's start again. All right. So that, so that very first time that you went to rehab before you got there, what did you think the purpose of it

SPEAKER_00 4:38

was? To get my head straight before going to college. That's what, that's what you thought. That's what I thought it was to get my head straight before going to college. And it just, it didn't work. It really backfired. Did you want to go? No, no. Well, I was, but I was, I just turned 18 and, you know, you know, the shrink and parents were pushing me to go and I wasn't feeling really well. I mean, I was probably severely depressed. Yeah. I was 18 years old, so I don't really remember too much because I'm 52 now, but

SPEAKER_01 5:05

yeah. So you thought it was to get your head straight. You didn't think it was to not use, to get a... No, no, I didn't think it was to not use. I thought

SPEAKER_00 5:14

it was to get my head straight for rehab. So you'd get out and then you could just pick back up again. That was the plan. I mean... You actually thought that. I'm in this place where I couldn't leave and all of a sudden they're... throwing this 12-step stuff at me, and I'm like, what is this? I'm in there with antisocial personality disorder people, all kinds of stuff, and it was,

SPEAKER_01 5:34

yeah. Drama? You had drama?

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Definitely drama. I mean, I learned that you could shoot Jack Daniels at 18 years old from a guy in there, and he's probably dead anyway, but

SPEAKER_01 5:45

yeah. So your expectation was not that you were going to be working on recovery necessarily. It was just a place for you to kind of think differently? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

I think that it was more of the psych ward with just the rehab component to it. It wasn't actually like, it was weird. They had 12-step meetings, they had community groups and all that neat stuff. It was like everything in the psych ward, but they threw a lot of 12-step at you.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

As part of the recovery. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00 6:09

yeah. I mean,

SPEAKER_01 6:09

I wasn't buying it, but you know. And when you went in, did you know how long you were going to be there? It was a month. Yeah. No, no, no. Did you know how long you were going to be there?

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Did they tell you? I don't think they did, but I knew that I was supposed to be at college in like a month and a half. So I knew I had to get out before then or, you know, I don't think they told me no. So you had no idea. Yeah. And there was no visitors. Parents didn't come see me. Now that I think about it.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

It was a lockdown facility.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Yeah. So it's not, it wasn't your normal kind of rehab. No, you couldn't leave. Okay. So when you got out, did you think you were cured? I

SPEAKER_00 6:44

didn't even really know. I don't think I really even realized why I went.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

So when you got out, you didn't have like an aftercare or anything. You were just going

SPEAKER_00 6:52

to go. No, my aftercare was packing me up and shipping me off to Salisbury state on the Eastern shore. And that was a horrible, horrible idea.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Because you weren't ready to do that because you weren't, you weren't, you

SPEAKER_00 7:04

weren't

SPEAKER_01 7:04

clean.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

It was too much freedom. Back then, I had just missed the grandfather clause from being 18 to 21 to drink. I missed about a year or two. They were still selling to people who were 18 anyway. They weren't checking IDs. I looked older and I just went off to the races with the really cheap beer.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Going to rehab was not the answer. It was part of an answer.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

At that time, no.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

You didn't take it seriously. Oh no, please. No.

UNKNOWN 7:36

Yeah. No.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

And I was pissed off and I was locked up and I was pissed off and I was, why am I here? And you know, the girls are cute. Okay, fine. But they're bananas. And, and there, there was no, there was no cognizance of what I was supposed to be doing there, what it was for. I was 18 years old and I was, I was just, yeah, no, I, you know, there was no real, I had no awareness of why I was there, why I was supposed to be there. And I got out and I went to college and then things got really bad for a couple of decades. Let me

SPEAKER_01 8:05

ask you another question then. The people that you saw when you were there, do you think they had any idea about what it was for or why they were there? No,

SPEAKER_00 8:14

because some of them were actively psychotic.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

Take out the psychotic ones. Take out the psychotic ones. Leave just the...

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Okay, well then you had the borderlines.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

So it's just a room full of crazy people.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

It was. And I was the least crazy one there, I think. And I'm looking around going, I ain't ever going to rehab again. It was really bad. It wasn't good, man. No, no, no, no. But that was the first of three rehab experiences. So,

SPEAKER_01 8:44

yeah. But after that, you had an idea of what it was going to be because you'd already been to something like it sort of. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks. Do you want the second experience or do you want the third experience? Nope, I don't want any of those. This one is just about that first one. Because what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to build on this idea that rehab is something other than what most people think it is. It's a physical barrier between you and your drug of choice and that's it. And it's a chance for you to kind of get your mind around the idea that you got to really do some work to get into recovery. You can't just go park your butt in a chair for 30 days and then walk out and think you're

SPEAKER_00 9:25

cured. Oh, no, no, no. Yeah, I agree with that completely. Now, I mean, what I look back on my last stint was it was a good jump off point.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Because I was ready. I mean, I couldn't kill myself, right? What am I going to do? But it took you three times to get there. Yeah, 88, 1997-ish. I was at Avery Road up there in Montgomery County in 2013. And there was many psych wars in between, which was just because of... Psychosis, not rehab.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

Yeah. So your understanding of rehab really, and the real purpose of it really started to formulate after that, that second time and you entering into the third time and during your stay there, you

SPEAKER_00 10:10

got to really realize. Yeah. And the length of time between the second and third was 1997 to 2013. So, and I think when I got into the last time, I was pretty much just open to do anything. I was just done. I was just surrender. I can't do this anymore, man. Well, actually, I mean, the story that I'll tell when you ask me about the third time is that I went, I was in Montgomery general psych ward. Imagine that. Yeah. Cause I, you know, I was honest about the suicide attempt and I heard they put me in a locker room and they do. And, uh, I said, I want some help. And they go, okay, you're going to Virginia. I'm like, all right, let's go. And then I brought a carton of cigarettes just in case I didn't know if you could smoke or not. I asked them, they said, we don't know. And I brought a carton of cigarettes just in case, but that shows a willingness of me being like, I'm going, even though I may not be able

SPEAKER_01 11:03

to smoke, I'll

SPEAKER_00 11:07

bring this just in case. Yeah. Rehab's a necessary tool, but it can be confusing. like a lot of these counselors now are definitely all about the about the oh positive affirmations in the mirror and on which is fine and then all works good and all that but they're really not getting sponsors they're really not actually participating they're really not seeing their part in it because there's everybody else is a problem you know and that kind of thing so yeah we're talking about really like getting back to basics type stuff with with directing people to get sponsors and and like you know in our the detox facility and also an independence house is actually a requirement what they do is they come to me and they sign an roi and i call the person that i usually know and say hey do you know that you sponsor x and the answer i'll get is oh yeah they call me every day or they'll go x who

SPEAKER_01 12:01

and right because it is about the aftercare that's really where the recovery is

SPEAKER_00 12:05

oh yeah because it shouldn't like we talked about it doesn't doesn't crack open for years man

SPEAKER_01 12:10

yeah year and a half two years before you really

SPEAKER_00 12:13

are there my emotional breakdown was at three and a half

SPEAKER_01 12:17

And

SPEAKER_00 12:17

like my landlord and my roommate were worried. My roommate's like, I think he's going to lose his mind in recovery. I'm yelling at myself.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

It's hard.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Three and a half years. You know, people

SPEAKER_01 12:26

think they're fixed at three and a half years. Yeah. You're fixed when you're fixed, but it's not less than a year and a half. Really?

SPEAKER_00 12:32

No. Like I said before, five years.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's wise words, man. Thanks. Cool. So there it is. If you're trying to figure out what is the purpose of going to rehab the first time, what's it like and what are the expectations? And that's exactly what it's like. And Scott's an interesting character because he's actually been to rehab a number of times and he also is now a clinician. So if you're wondering what it's like or what to expect when you go to rehab the very first time, That's pretty much what you're going to see. It's confusing and you're not really sure. And many times people will go and they end up not really getting anything out of it because they, I don't know, they might have some strange expectations about what it's all about. So as we enter into this holiday season, And I know you're probably holding it together because your family's there. Your friends are around. You don't want to be seen as some crazy out of control addict. Hey man, that first of the year, that's the time to get sane, stable, and sober. So why don't you go out there and do that? Start working on yourself. Stop trying to destroy yourself, deconstruct yourself instead, right? Take yourself apart to put yourself back together. It's a much better way to live. it's a little short today I know this podcast was a little bit short but hey it's the holidays so maybe I'll do another one another day this week and put out two but if you like this episode please like and subscribe and give me some feedback you can send me an email or a message through your provider to this podcast and listen man if you're looking for recovery you gotta get in to recovery. Don't be afraid. Go get some help. Check into a hospital. Go to a rehab. Seek out a counselor. Go to some meetings. Do something. But don't end your life trying to protect your addiction. That's insane. So until next time, this is Doc Jacques, your addiction lifeguard, saying see ya.