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I couldn’t tell you whether it was three or five days later, but I woke up one morning and the tension, the Ace bandage that had been tied so tightly around my entire life just wasn’t there. I felt a desperate need to reach out to someone. I called my friend Clark, who was shocked to hear from me. He came down and got me out of there. Unbeknownst to me, he was already planning my intervention.”
On his inter vent i on: “I walked into my intervention the afternoon of January 28, 1992. Some people wanted to say some stuff to me. I had a choice and a plane ticket to Minnesota. And everybody wanted me to get on that plane and go get help. It wasn’t until several weeks later that I saw it for what it really was. The most caring and compassionate thing that you can do for another human being is sprinkle them with dignity and respect, and show them that you love them. That’s what human beings need to get well. It was an incredible act of profound kindness. At the time, I was so emotionally beaten down, I just couldn’t stop crying. All the quit had left me. I had always been fighting everything my whole life. One of the hallmarks of recovery is that at some point, you have to bottom out, and I really bottomed out that day. The day before that, Clark had asked me, ‘What are you going to do?’ And I said, ‘Well, if you just lend me a little money, I could get this job. I’ll go to this meeting. I’ll see this doctor.’ And I was hustling and shucking and jiving and lying. And just 24 hours later, walking into that room, I realized I didn’t want to live the way I had been living. My parents, teachers, doctors, friends, friends’ parents, lawyers, shrinks and eventually judges — everyone had been telling me the same thing for almost 20 years: You need to stop drinking and drugging, and start addressing these things in your life — and I am here to help you. People want to help other people. That’s how we’re hardwired as human beings. I had thousands of life jackets thrown to me while I was drowning, and I just kept throwing them back in the boat. That night, I put on the life jacket, and I wound up at what is now Hazelden Betty Ford up in Center City.”
On g etting treatm ent at Hazelden: “I spent five weeks at Hazelden. The first couple days, I was on the medical board while they detoxed me and made sure I was physically safe enough to go to a unit. When I got down to my unit, I was so ready to be done with this phase of my life that I just said yes to everything. I attended every group. I attended every lecture. And I found myself with a solution put in front of me very quickly: the 12-step program. Everything in the literature,
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Artful Living
What It’s Really Like at Hazelden Although Hazelden Betty Ford is a worldclass institution, it remains shrouded in secrecy. The clinic that first opened in a rural Minnesota farmhouse in 1949 has been responsible for major innovations in addiction treatment, yet it maintains a tight-lipped approach as to what exactly goes on behind its doors. So what is it really like at Hazelden? As it turns out, no two stays are alike. The clinic’s signature approach is one of individualized care that aims to uncover the tapestry of factors across the nature-nurture divide that contribute to each individual’s unique situation. Which is why you won’t find any cookiecutter approaches here, says Director of Communications and Public Affairs Jeremiah Gardner, who is in recovery himself. Instead, stints at the center are as varied as the people who walk through its doors. One person who did just that in December 2010 is musician Johnny Solomon of Communist Daughter fame. Then 31, he was addicted to meth after years of daily use. “I had a show at First Ave., and I was just so broken inside,” he recalls. Backstage, he called Hazelden while fans clamored in the Mainroom, oblivious to the fact that Solomon’s band at the time, Friends Like These, was unraveling at the seams because of his allencompassing addiction. Ali, now 29, entered the clinic several years back at the behest of her parents. Fresh off a stint in California where she “made a bunch of messes and took a bunch of ecstasy,” she wanted a clean break. Her stay began like most, with a closely monitored detox: “You’re sequestered in this room, and someone comes in every hour or two to check your vitals while you’re sleeping to make sure you’re not going into withdrawal.” Although Ali’s experience fell in line with a typical 28-day stint, Hazelden has moved away from that standard. “We bring people in at various levels of care and transition them to lower levels as soon as they’re ready, with the goal of keeping them engaged in some level of care as long as possible,” Gardner explains. Today, the average engagement lasts 59 days.