The End of My Addiction

card and my passport. It was Friday the 10th of July, and on unlucky Monday the 13th a driver from the rehab center at Marworth, near Scranton, was supposed to come fetch me. When I arrived at Marworth, I intended to say, “Oh, what a shame, I don’t have my credit card.” At that point I assumed Marworth would send me home to get my credit card. Left to my own devices, I would head straight to JFK and catch the first flight to Zurich. It would be hard not to drink on the journey, but I felt sure I could do it out of sheer desperation.
    The hospital wouldn’t sign me out except to hand me over to the driver from the rehab center, so Joan and Steve were going to my place on Saturday to pack a few things for me. I told Joan, “Thank you very much for the shit you’ve gotten me into. In addition to some clothes, I need my credit card, of course, and I need my passport.”
    “Why do you need your passport?”
    “Because I do, and I’m asking you to bring it. You’ve done enough damage. You’ve taken me to the ER and let someone lie about me, and here I am on the verge of losing my license. Thanks to you I’ll lose everything. Will you bring me my passport?”
    “No.”
    “Do you think that’s fair? I am locked up when I have no mental illness, and you are making yourself an accomplice of these people.”
    “I don’t want to take the responsibility of giving you your passport.”
    “Fine. Then don’t ever talk to me again. It’s over. You won’t hear from me ever. It’s finished. If that’s your support.”
    The next afternoon, she brought me a small suitcase. I trembled with anxiety as I looked inside, and then saw with relief both my credit card and my passport. I thanked Joan, who clearly remained worried about what I might do.
    Encouraged by a plan I thought worthy of an Alfred Hitchcock thriller, I passed a relatively peaceful night.
    On Monday morning the Lenox Hill psych ward signed me out in the charge of the driver who had come to take me to Marworth. The driver was a very nice fellow and a few minutes of conversation made it clear that he was a former alcoholic whose outlook on life was imbued with the spirit of AA.
    It was a bright, sunny day, and France had won the World Cup for the first time the day before. I had called my mother after the game, and she held the phone out the window so I could hear the victory celebration in the Paris streets. Still, my mood was bleak. I saw that the van had a CD player, and I thought it might cheer me up to listen to some music. At my request, Joan had packed a few of my favorite classical and nonclassical recordings. I said, “I brought some CDs.”
    Before I could go any further, the driver said, “You can’t listen to music at Marworth. It’s against the rules.”
    “Really? The other rehabs I have been to allowed music.”
    “That’s against Marworth principles. They say it takes away from the focus on your recovery.”
    That news stunned me. I thought, “I’m forty-five years old and my life is over. My reputation is ruined. I’m a broken physician. My license to practice in New York may or may not survive. It’s the end of what could have been a beautiful career. I’m being forced to go to a place where I’ll spend a fortune for treatment that is useless, and where I won’t even be able to listen to music.”
    The driver interrupted these thoughts by saying, “We won’t be at Marworth for a couple of hours yet. Would you like to listen to something now? I have a few CDs myself.”
    He had a version of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, and I asked him to play the second movement. When the music started, tears came into my eyes. It felt like the last cigarette before the firing squad took aim and fired.
     
    Marworth was a handsome old estate converted into a treatment facility, and I liked the look of the place as soon as I saw it. I intended to follow my escape plan and flee to neutral territory in Switzerland, but the people at the front desk were very pleasant and even congratulated me on France’s winning the World Cup.
    “And tomorrow is Bastille Day,” I said.
    When they asked for my credit card, I handed it to them. I thought I would give the place twenty-four hours, and if it was bad I would find a way to leave. I felt a pang of regret when they made me turn over my CD player and CDs, but then a couple of other physicians who were there for rehab came and spoke to me and showed me around a little, and I felt a little