The Beginning of My Drug Detox Days

In the winter of 1988, nearly a week before the New Year of 1989, I began working at a wing of Somerville Hospital, which was an alcohol and drug detox in Somerville, Massachusetts. When I entered I was nervous, as I wasn’t a certified addiction counselor at that time. I was merely a dear friend of one of the hospital’s executives. By this time, our friendship was into its fourth year. Tom was a large man who could easily fill a doorway, mostly muscle bound with a flowing beard that almost matched the same color of his caramel eyes. He smiled at the slightest whisper of a joke, and his presence in any room projected a deeper sense of calm in nearly everyone I who came into contact with him. Tom was also a recovering alcoholic and drug addict.

Earlier that summer, I’d graduated college and found a job for a magazine in Boston. I had dreams of one day owning my own advertising agency, and surely never thought I’d find myself working in an alcohol and drug detox. So, when Tom asked me, I said, “Tom, you know I drink, right?” I rarely drank around him or anyone of my friends in addiction recovery. My desire to be respectful to their addiction ran deep. My mother is a recovering alcoholic and my grandmother died of alcoholism when I was fourteen.

Tom smiled, his eyes twinkling a bit, and I would swear there was mischief about. “Yes, I know,” he said. That’s all he said. That’s it, and nothing more. If he was up to something, or had a plan for me, I didn’t ask. All I knew was I need some extra money. Working for a magazine doesn’t pay well, so the money would come in handy. Besides, I would be able to spend my weekends helping people in need, making money and paying off my college loans.

It would be a win-win for sure.