What's Wrong with Detox?

Well, folks I did end up in Detox last week, for the second time in my life, the second time in two years. And I can tell you that the process is Deeply Flawed on a number of levels, and many of those levels I'm not prepared to discuss here, because I'm not a professional, I don't know Jack Shit about the subject, and beyond that I am an Asperger's patient who, uhm, kind of has trouble with the whole Reality experience, and beyond THAT I'm still stupid enough to believe that Ginger Ale Tastes Like Love.

OK, I know that some of you are going to be WAY too young to get that joke.

But here are two, I think legitimate, points that I want to make.

1) There are no Public-Access computers available in Detox, and believe you me, a Detox patient is not allowed within fifteen feet of any kind of computer at all.

Here's the funny part: You ARE allowed access to a public cell phone.

Now, most of y'all probably think this is great. But I don't own a cell phone, never have, never will -- I don't even use my LAND LINE unless I have no other options, I don't have ANYone's telephone numbers memorized (some of them I have written down, but I keep them here on my computer or on a notepad next to my Land Line). 

So, if you put a cell phone into my hand, my immediate instinct is just to toss it out the fucking window, 'cuz honestly, I can't even figure out how to USE the damn things.

I am a person who communicates with the outside world by means of the internet. And if you say to me -- "No, you can't have access to the internet" -- that's exactly the same thing as saying to me, "Sorry, you just dropped  off the face of the planet, and nobody will ever know what happened to you, nobody will ever know where you've gone, Sorry, but you've just Ceased to Exist as  Human Being."

And not only is this Unfair, but it genuinely created some problems for my friends and family and people who care about me. It was, literally, as if I had vanished.

2) There are No Pussycats in Rehab.

You think I'm joking? I'm not. Not only was I deprived access to my OWN pussycats, who I desperately needed and I feared (as it turns out, correctly) needed me -- but I was deprived access to ANY pussycats at all. And you know what? I think that pussycats are really therapeutic. I kow that some people don't like them, but guess what? Pussycats are smart enough to know who doesn't like them and smart enough to know to stay away from folks who don't like them.

I  think every Rehab ward should have at least eight or ten pussycats living on the  premises, all of them available for adoption, all of them available to Go Home with a patient who really takes a liking to one of them. I think that this would be one of the most Amazing Healing things that any Detox Ward could do. God damn it: just give them a pussycat to pet and (if they mutually wish) Snuggle Up to.

In fact, I think that I just Invented a job that I would be the first one to apply for: 

Detox Ward Pussycat Wrangler.

Don't those of you who know me think that that job and me would be the perfect combination?

-- Freder