Thriving in Recovery

THE 13th STEP: THRIVING IN RECOVERY Bob Reese, PhD PART I: THE DRINKING YEARS Ch 1. Insanity “You think you are in control of your life? Take a good look around. Have you noticed you are an in-patient in a mental hospital?” The words reverberated and burst through to my awareness. FUCK! He is right! His words became background noise as I looked around the walls of the wide room until I found the placard on the wall containing the 1st Step of Alcoholics Anonymous: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.” Well, Charlie Dumbfuck. I’m not so sure about part one of that statement, but you must admit this asshole at the front of the room is dead on about the second part. I am in a mental hospital. And, while they say I can leave anytime I choose, if I leave I will lose my job as Head Athletic Trainer of the New York Jets. As this realization began to sink in deeper and deeper an almost overwhelming sense of fear came over me. It would be years later before I could identify that particular fear as fear of truth. It was accompanied by a nauseating sense of dread that life was never ever going to be the same. This horrific insight struck me in the middle of my second week of alcohol rehab at South Oaks Hospital on Long Island. Until then I had been marking time until my 30-day stint would be up and I would be free to go back to my life and just not drink – or at least be more mindful and controlling of what I did drink. FUUUUUCK! I screamed again inside myself. Maybe I am an alcoholic. Am I powerless over alcohol? Think about it, Reese: Are you powerless over alcohol? What happened and how did you come to be in the drug and alcohol rehabilitation wing of South Oaks Psychiatric Hospital? Flashback … Early in January of 1991, I drove up to Kutcher’s Resort in the Catskills for the annual Eastern Athletic Trainers’ Meeting. The meeting always began on Sunday evening so the athletic trainers (ATs) convention could secure a good rate. Because the resort was usually busy on the weekend, conventioneers could check in, but could not access their rooms until after 4:00 or 5:00 PM. Traditionally an ever increasing crowd would gather in the bar to watch the NFL playoff games while they waited to get into their rooms. It was also traditional that the NFL ATs from the Eagles, Giants, and Jets would foot most of the bill since we were the ones with liberal expense accounts. Both the Eagles and Giants were in the playoffs, so it would be up to the Jets ATs to pick up the tab this year. I was purposefully late. I wanted to avoid the tradition for several reasons. First, I had just gone through the inaugural season with my third head coach at the Jets, Bruce Coslet. While I really liked Coslet personally and loved his coaching philosophy, it had been an extremely stressful season for me. The new General Manager, Dick Steinberg, had come into the Jets with the belief that the medical department was too powerful – that we had too much say especially in personnel decisions. After 13 years I was no longer allowed to talk to the media about injuries. While I understood the reasoning – control the message – I thought I was very good at doing that and enjoyed the opportunity to parry with the press and use these occasions to inform the public about sports medicine. And, as long as I’m being honest, my ego was bruised. I liked seeing my name in print and doing interviews on national TV. The biggest stress, however, came from friction with the new strength coach. The previous strength coach, Jim Williams, and I worked as partners. He was educated in anatomy, physiology, and kinesiology. He understood how to work around injuries so that the players could maintain conditioning as injuries healed. The new guy was … well, not that way. His biggest fault was that he wanted to treat every player the same, regardless of their injury history, age, or position played. Players were complaining and asking me to protect them. Because I could not reason with him, I went to the head coach. Coslet had a meeting with both of us and told us – while looking directly at me – to get along or one of us would be gone. While still looking at me, he then reframed it: “Get along with him … got it?” Hence, a stressful season. The next reason I did not want to entertain the masses at the convention is that I was loathe to listening to how great the Giants were over and over and over. If you are the fan of any team just think of the biggest rival your team has and how you hate for their fans to rub their good fortune in your face. We rarely played the Giants except in preseason, so the rivalry was not born there. It goes back to the old AFL-NFL antipathy and the New York media’s treatment of the Jets as second class citizens even when we did well. Since the Giants were having a great year, and we were reminded about it daily in the papers and on talk radio, I really did not want to hear about it anymore. In my mind those were all good excuses to avoid the tradition. But the real reason was that I knew that my drinking was becoming problematic. Recently I had begun having blackouts after only a couple of glasses of wine. (I should point out these glasses were large – usually about 10-12 ounces, but that had never been a problem before.) I rarely got drunk, but more than a few times I could not remember going to bed. After one of these incidents, I cautiously asked my wife, SG, if had fallen asleep in my chair and if she had locked up the house the night before. She told me that, after watching TV, I locked up as usual. My concern was compounded with a more recent incident. One of the coaches had a post-season holiday party and I was going to make sure I watched my Ps & Qs – literally, watch my pints and quarts. I had told myself no more than two glasses of wine, and I stuck to that. It was extremely difficult and I had less than an enjoyable time. As SG and I left the party we agreed to meet another couple for a night cap at a local piano bar on the way home. I neither remembered the end of the evening nor the drive home. At work the next day I asked my colleague if I had gotten drunk and he said, “No man, you had two drinks – like the rest of us – and then drove home.” “So, I drove home?” I asked. “Yep,” he replied, “I pulled out right behind you and you were fine. Why, was there a problem?” I lied, “No, things just got a little foggy.” My mental review of how I landed in rehab turned next to recounting how I had adjusted my drinking over time. I used to be a beer drinker who occasionally had a mixed drink or wine. I did not particularly like wine because you were supposed to “sip” it, and I was not a very good sipper. At some point in my 30s beer began to bloat me – both my gut and my weight. I was packing on pounds at an alarming rate and attributed it to the beer. Switching to Lite beer had not helped much, so Scotch became my drink of choice. When I first started drinking Scotch, it would be with water. After several years it became Scotch with a “splash” of water. Then, of course, “Scotch, straight up.” At some point I recognized that I was drinking a lot of Scotch, so I decided to stop – cold turkey. Not drinking, just Scotch. I switched to bourbon. I didn’t particularly like the taste of bourbon, so I reasoned I would drink less of it. That worked great for a while. Then, in 1988 I herniated a disc in my lower back and the pressure on the nerve caused me to develop a foot drop. After the second game of the season, I was sent home for bed rest. The sciatic pain was unrelenting and I had begun taking the prescribed Percodan (Oxycodone) like candy to little effect. I was worried about becoming addicted to the pain meds and began self-medicating with the bourbon. At the time numbing the pain with Jack Daniels seemed the smarter choice. ... ...All this preceded the trip to Kutcher’s Resort. ...