My Story: A New Life - Part I
Continued from My Story: The Downward Spiral - Part Three
After years of half-hearted pseudo-recovery interspersed with relapses and periods of substance abuse, I finally surrendered the battle at the end of 2003. It is only in retrospect that I'm able to identify what happened as having been a surrender. At the time it felt like nothing more than the latest episode in the tragedy that my life had become.
As I related in the last chapter of my story, my final descent into the abyss began after a long (for me) period of abstinence from drugs and alcohol. What started as an occasional sampling of prescription pain medication became, by summer 2003, a daily crack cocaine habit. Although I had used cocaine a good deal before that summer, the drug really sunk its claws into me when I returned to it.
By autumn I had returned to drinking as well, my vodka binges aggravated by the fuel of cocaine smoke. I lost a drastic amount of weight due to barely eating, coupled with hours of constant exercise (daily walks to the liquor store and crawls around my living room in search of specks of crack in the carpet). I had an episode of extreme agitation, yelling at my apartment walls, using a lamp stand as a battering ram, and throwing objects out the second floor window. For the first time in my active addiction, I began to fear that I might die before I could get clean.
Around Thanksgiving 2003, I managed to stop using and moved into a recovery house. I stayed clean until shortly after Christmas. One night an urge overwhelmed me. I told myself that I'd smoke "just one" rock to calm the craving, then I'd get back on track. But I ended up smoking and drinking several nights consecutively. I felt horrible that I was using drugs while living with other recovering addicts, and guilty as I traded some of my last possessions for a high that would only last a matter of minutes.
When my binge was finally cut short by my arrest, the dread and shame of my situation was tempered by relief; I was comforted by the realization that in jail I would be safe from myself.
Despite this vague sense of relief, I wasn't in any mood to celebrate. My thoughts were primarily on the idea that I had failed yet again, and would be facing felony possession charges. I felt a general sense of impending doom.
There is an old saying that it is darkest before the dawn. This cliche certainly turned out to be true in my case. But at the time, it seemed as though the nighttime would last forever.
I spent my first twelve hours or so at a police station in the suburb where I was arrested. I was alone in a cold, bright, florescent lit cell. A large window looked out into a hallway, where police officers came and went throughout the night. I curled up in a fetal position, my arms pulled inside my T-shirt for warmth, and caught up on some much needed sleep. Next, I was transferred to a precinct in Detroit proper, on a warrant for impaired driving.
Impaired driving is a crime that usually leads to arrest immediately upon being pulled over. However, my case did not involve alcohol. I had been arrested by state police, my car impounded, but the drugs in my system were not immediately detectable. All the troopers could do was take a urine sample (or it may have been a blood sample - I was far too stoned to remember) and send me on my way in a cab that was waiting in front of their post. They told me as I was leaving that if my drug test came back positive, I would be notified of a warrant by mail within a few weeks. When several months passed with no warrant, I assumed they had either thrown it out or lost track of it somehow. By the time I was arrested for possession of cocaine, several months later, I had nearly forgotten about the incident. What appears to have happened is that the State Police notified Detroit of my drug test failure, and Detroit issued the warrant without bothering to inform me. They probably couldn't afford the postage.
But I digress. As I was saying, I was transferred to the Detroit precinct, which was nothing like the suburban jail. The cell in Detroit had much more of a dungeon feel. The only light was from a low-wattage bulb surrounded by a rusty metal cage. Unlike most jail cells, there was no plastic covered mat to lie on. I had to make do with the damp, chilly cement floor. This was the typical iron bar type of cell, of which there were several facing each other. The toilet was near the front of the cell, only a few feet from my neighbor's toilet on the other side of the walkway. I could hear the ranting voice of a female prisoner in a cell nearby.
After about twenty-four hours at the precinct, I was told I was being transferred to Wayne County Jail. This is where I was to stay, at the very least until the court process was begun. I had heard stories about WCJ from a friend's brother who had worked there, as well as from AA acquantances who'd been put up there as "guests of the county". It was a universally despised place. By the time I was transferred there, I'd had a couple days for the residual effects of the drugs to wear off, and the grim reality of my circumstances was becoming ever more disgustingly clear. I wasn't in the mood to be chaufeurred by a cop who wanted to joke around and be Mr. Cheerful, but that was what I got. He ended up having some very helpful things to say, however, which I'll cover in Part II.