David

David called from the Betty Ford Clinic. He's not actually in the actual name Betty Ford clinic', but something similar. It's just our joke. He is doing better this week. It has been difficult, he says. It has been a journey.

"Well, of course it has," I say. "Are you doing okay?"

"Yes, but ask me last week and it was a different matter," he says.

He’s been difficult. It has been difficult.

He was going to leave early a week, or so, ago, but he has decided to stay and complete his 3 months, which is over at the end of June.

"Why would you leave early?"

"I just want to come home."

"It is only another month."

"I know," he says.

“Stay and do your time,” I say.

“Easy for you to say.”

He just had his birthday. "How was it?"

"50 and in rehab, now there is a sentence I never thought I'd say."

What is it, 35 grand for a three month stay. Drug counselling. Trauma counselling. AA meetings. Group therapy. New people every week. But, locked away, cut off from the world for the most part. He seems to get one day when he can communicate with the outside world in a very limited way.

Most people are there for meth addiction. David is there for prescription medicine abuse, with a little recreational crystal meth use thrown in for good measure. His doctor just gave him anything he wanted, any scripts. I always questioned it? David joked for the longest time that he took the Heath Ledger mix nightly to get to sleep. It just seemed to be this year, well, the last 12 months where it got out of control.

“Anyway, nearly over,” I say.

He always sounds happy when he calls. "Oh yeah, you should have heard me last week," is his reply when I tell him that.

“What would I have heard?”

“Oh, you know, blood curdling screaming, the full cliché.”

“Lovely.”

“It was a difficult week.”