Getting to Happy (42 page)

“Hi, I’m Bernadine, and I’m an addict from Phoenix,” she said when it was her turn to introduce herself. Hearing herself say this was like scratching her fingernails on a chalkboard. Bernadine didn’t feel like a drug addict. She’d developed a dependency on pills. She didn’t take them to get high, and she certainly didn’t enjoy taking them. Didn’t that make a difference? Over the next few weeks, she would get tired of saying this and even more tired of hearing it. What she wanted to say was “Hi, I’m Bernadine. I’m a great cook. I live in Scottsdale. I’m here because I’ve been doing a number on myself for years, but guess what? Game over.”

By the time she got back from her walk, went to breakfast, sat in on two lectures about the nature of addiction and getting clean, went to a Yoga class, ate lunch, watched a film about the history of Alcoholics Anonymous and how following the Twelve Steps could help you on the road to recovery, Bernadine was exhausted.

She returned to their room. Belinda wasn’t in her bed. Bernadine wondered where she could be. She went to the kitchen, the reading room, both ladies’ rooms. The gym and yoga studio, the meditation room, the steam room and sauna. Belinda wasn’t there. Finally, Bernadine went to the front desk. “Has anyone seen Belinda?”

“She’s gone,” Polly said. She was not Nurse Ratched, although Bernadine would discover that Polly ran a close second. She had greeted Bernadine when she arrived. After John had left, Polly looked at Bernadine’s two large suitcases and said, “Where do you think you’re going? To a resort?”

“What do you mean she’s gone?” Bernadine said. “She just got here.”

“Her insurance company refused to cover her treatment.”

“I thought you guys verified this before we get here?”

“This happens more than we care to acknowledge. It’s more paperwork for us. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

Bernadine shook her head. It wasn’t until she walked back into the room that she noticed Belinda’s quilted overnight bag was gone.

The sound of moaning woke Bernadine up. It was the middle of the night. She hadn’t had a roommate since Belinda had been sent packing over a week ago. Bernadine looked over at the other bed. Whoever it was, she was bone thin. Another hour went by. The girl fell out of the bed. Bernadine helped her get back in, then walked down to the front desk.

“The girl in the bed next to me is not doing so well. She seems to be in a lot of pain,” Bernadine told Mary, a/k/a Nurse Ratched.

“She’s just having a tough time. Do you need a sleep aid?”

“No, I don’t want a sleep aid.”

“I’ve got earplugs.”

“I just want to know how long she’s going to go through this.”

“It depends. She could be better tomorrow. Maybe worse. This is what happens in rehab, honey.”

“If she isn’t any better, would it be possible to change rooms?”

Nurse Ratched chuckled. “If this were a hotel, we could upgrade you to a suite. We’re short on rooms, sweetheart. See how she does tomorrow.”

The next night was just as bad. Her legs seemed to kick uncontrollably. She complained she was freezing. A new nurse wrapped her in blankets and gave her something that eventually calmed her down. This made her snore like a trucker. As it turned out, this girl was only nineteen, was detoxing off that Oxycontin, another new pill Bernadine never knew existed. When she saw daylight peeking through the blinds, Bernadine got up. She drank a small glass of orange juice in the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water, then joined the small group who walked four miles every morning. She was up to two.

“I don’t like it here,” Bernadine told Mignon at the end of her second week.

“What don’t you like about it?”

“Being forced to go to those AA or NA meetings. Saying that serenity prayer over and over. Hearing all those depressing stories and testimonials. And the lectures. I’ve learned enough about addiction to last the rest of my life. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to know. But I would love to talk about something else.”

“Like what?”

“Like what to do once you leave here.”

“That’s next week. It’s under recovery.”

“I mean, I’m not ungrateful. I’m getting a lot out of being here. I haven’t had a pill for thirteen days and I feel great.”

“So what do you like about being here?”

“Honestly?”

Mignon nods. Pushes her glasses up. Crosses her legs. Those gray Hush Puppies are dreadful.

“Going to yoga class and meditation. The morning walks.”

“What about group?”

“I mean, the impact letters are pretty powerful, but I’m not sure what they prove.”

“Why don’t you see how you feel after you share yours next week. Then tell me if it mattered. How’s that sound?”

“It sounds good.”

“I’d like to share something with you, Bernadine.”

“Sure.”

“Please keep this between us—it’s not meant to be shared with the other counselors, during discussion after the lectures or with any other people in the program.”

“Okay.”

“One of the things you said in your written statement was how the horrible way your marriage ended made you feel like a victim.”

“That’s true.”

“That you still feel a great deal of anger and resentment toward your ex-husband.”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

“What if I told you these emotions and thoughts were totally justified?”

“It’s what I’ve been trying to get my friends and everybody to understand for years!”

“What if I also told you it doesn’t make a bit of difference if they’re justified or not?”

“I thought you just said you
got
it?”

“I do. But so what? Tell me what holding on to all of this anger and resentment has helped you do.”

“Pop pills.”

“What else?”

“Be unhappy.”

“So, would it be safe to say that you’ve been letting the pain from your past turn the present into the enemy?”

“That’s one way to look at it.”

“Tell me in your own words what you hoped to accomplish by coming to A New Day.”

“I wanted to stop taking pills and learn how to live a healthy life again.”

“That means you’re pretty damn tired of living like a victim, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then I’m going to ask you to try something.”

“Look, Mignon. I don’t want you to think I think I’m better than any of the people in this program. Or that I don’t have a problem. Watching what drugs and alcohol have done to some of these people is exhausting, not to mention depressing as hell. I’m just trying to figure out how to get to happy.”

“This is precisely why the steps are so important for so many people.”

Bernadine shook her head. She was thinking about what Belinda had said. She was also wondering where she was and how she might be doing. “I have a problem with the idea that if God could remove all of our defects and shortcomings, then we’d all be perfect.”

“I totally agree. This is one reason why I’m going to ask you to take what you need from the program during the next two weeks.”

“I’m glad you understand.”

“There’s something I’d like you to try after you leave my office.”

Bernadine looked a bit apprehensive. “Like what?”

“If you can, try to pretend that your life is a one-thousand-page book. You’re how old?”

“Fifty-one.”

“At fifty-one you’ve already lived, say, six hundred of those pages.”

“Okay.”

“You’ve got four hundred more to go. Today, you’re starting on page six hundred and one. You can live these next four hundred pages without clinging to what appeared on pages one to six hundred. Keep in mind that no one’s asking you to forget what’s on those other six hundred. For now, leave them just where they are. At least until you’re ready to accept whatever it was that was painful. The idea is to live the next four hundred pages the way you wish to. How’s that sound?”

“This is the kind of stuff they need to suggest in those lectures. Instead of scaring the hell out of you.”

“I know, Bernadine. But a lot of what some people hear doesn’t scare them enough.”

“Thank you,” Bernadine said.

“You’re welcome. See you in group?”

Bonjour

The day after my surprisingly pleasant date, my doctor left me a message saying she wanted to see me right away but there was no need to be alarmed. I could drop by at my convenience. This freaked me out. I’m probably dying. They never want to give you bad news over the phone. I bet it’s some kind of cancer. Or my liver or kidneys. Something that can’t be fixed. I’ll have to cancel my trip because I’ll probably be getting prepped for chemo. Fuck.

I should never have done drugs in college and after graduate school. I should never have smoked those stupid cigarettes! I should’ve stopped with the French fries and double cheeseburgers and large Cokes once I hit twenty-three. Just said no to those second and third helpings of peach cobbler and sweet potato pie and fried chicken and macaroni and cheese and that extra dollop of sour cream on my baked potato, knowing I’m lactose intolerant. But no. I have always said yes to Savannah, and now look at the price I’m going to have to pay for being so self-indulgent.

Is this what happens after fifty? Your body starts turning against you? Years ago, it seemed as if every time I called Mama she was either on her way to, or just coming back from, the doctor. Or going to pick up a prescription. Now my friends and I are doing the exact same thing. There’s always some mandatory test we have to take. Some new ailment or complaint. We’re always getting repaired.

I was sitting on the exam table, waiting for the doctor to walk in and give me the bad news. My heart was beating like crazy. I looked at all the disease pamphlets on the wall to see which one I might be lucky enough to get. As soon as Dr. Mizrahi walked in, she gave me a reassuring pat on the knee. “So. You’re producing too much glucose, which is the same as sugar, which means you’ve got diabetes two.”

My chest sank. “I know what diabetes is. But what does this mean for me?”

“That your glucose levels are much higher than they should be. Your mother was diabetic, right?” she asked, flipping the pages of my chart.

“
Is.
She’s still alive.”

“What about your father?”

“Never met him.”

She gave me a prescription. At least it wasn’t cancer.