Not sure how I got there, to St. Smithers Hospital. I recall coming home from a dinner party and found myself leaning on the hospital’s registration desk. The floor seemed slippery ‘cause I had a hard time holding myself upright. A gurney appeared and I was told to “get on” and with a couple of folks holding and pulling me, I sorta fell on this bed-looking thing. Someone was pulling at some straps running over my chest, legs, arms. I was a bit confused, my mind fuzzy so I couldn’t raise any protest. Someone at this desk said, “Go to Rm 3-37” and off we went to Room 37, 3rd floor. The door looked strange. It was 2 doors, a door in a door. The room was small, a bed and a chair which both were rather large, heavy -- looked like one of those over-sized brown plastic loungers with a lever and cup holder on the side. A nurse handed me one of those sheet-like gowns so popular with the medical profession, “Put this thing on,” she ordered. Still in my suit and my arms and legs belted down, still kinda fuzzy, I eventually wrestled out of my suit and on with the gown. I was handed a pair of grey socks that had rubber cleats on the sole, an IV plugged into my arm. Of course, they had earlier taken my belt, shoe laces, a pen, phone, pencil, calendar and briefcase. Forgot to tell you, but I had a bracelet put on by the people behind that registration desk. They also gave me some stuff to read, a dark blue book whose cover I couldn’t read, a pamphlet with a bunch of dates and times for what looked like meetings. That first night, even drugged by the IV just inserted in my arm, I didn’t sleep very well probably because nurses kept waking me, “How are you,” they’d ask, a different one it seemed each hour, and always checking the IV.
So began a program I had placed myself in to examine whether I needed treatment for alcoholism. I say “I had placed myself. That wasn’t the whole story. Let’s put it this way: my spouse said, ‘It was the Program at St. Smithers or I was out.’“
I remember leaving the hospital in a week and attending my first AA meeting. Actually, I enjoyed the stay in the hospital. Couple AA-ers dropped by and we talked about their Program, what they did, and they made some recommendations for meetings. I had time to consider what was happening to me. I of course wasn’t blind. I knew I was using alcohol to deal with life and alcohol didn’t provide much relief from what I termed my bag of problems. I felt a new focus of what they were saying at St. Smithers. I saw there were other options, that my use of alcohol was a false and dangerous drug that was killing my relations with myself, family and others, an addiction which was pulling me downward and deeper into a dark pit. This awakening didn’t exactly come overnight but my eyes started to open at St. Smithers. This experience finally put me on Recovery Road and I was anxious to get out so I could spend the time working the Program. There were bumps in that road, all was not smooth, there were a couple detours but those were short and painful. I stuck with it. I had almost given up at St. Smithers but people came to reach out to me sharing their experiences with their drug of addiction.
So, I have to remember, there is help available. I was not alone. It seemed as if we joined hands and traveled similar paths. It works but it takes time and work on the elements of the Program. But it is a life-giving experience which “works if you work it.” The Program has been a “life saver” for me and my family. I am grateful.
Jim A, St. X Noon, Cincinnati