Chapter 3
“I don’t blame you for doubting me, ma’am. I get it. I do. But I promise you—you clean me up—and I will do whatever it takes to stay that way.” —Ruth, Ozark
After a series of miracles—which mostly involved knowing a guy who knows a guy—I landed a spot at the Las Vegas Recovery Center on 02/22/2018. A number that would later become my clean date, but at the time, just felt like another day I wasn’t dead.
I was 33 but looked like I had been around for the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I had a fading black eye, scrapes on my head, and a raging case of psoriasis on my scalp that was so bad I had to sleep with tube socks over my hands so that I wouldn’t scratch and bleed in my sleep. My feet were wrecked from years of concrete and bad choices, so I walked with a limp. If John McAfee had a stunt double during his fugitive years, I would’ve gotten the part.
The facility itself had two main rooms: a cafeteria that somehow never smelled like food and a rec room with high ceilings and a looping hallway that gave it the feel of a hamster wheel for lost souls. It was tucked in the back of a medical plaza, surrounded by other little offices, the kind where doctors diagnose you with something expensive.
Inside, the place was intimidating—not in a scary way, but in that overly clinical, you are now property of the system kind of way. And if that didn’t drive the point home, the two-hour intake sure did. The case file. The paperwork. The search. The confiscations. The blood work. The 72-Hour Blackout Period. The “pee in this cup and don’t flush.” And the green hospital gown for the first 24 hours. They called it Code Green, a protocol to prevent bed bugs, but honestly, it felt more like an initiation ritual.
Then there was The Gaze—that moment when every patient in the place sizes up the new guy. I’ve never liked being the new guy. And in places like this, people don’t think, “Oh, let’s make him feel welcome!” No, when you lock eyes with another patient, the first thought is always, “Am I gonna have to fight this guy?”
My intake urine analysis came back like a greatest hits album: meth, heroin, and a BAC so high the staff had to have a quick huddle at the counter, probably debating whether I was a liability. After some deliberation, they decided to let me stay.
“Intoxicated patients are isolated to protect the sobriety of the other patients,” one of the behavioral techs explained.
And so, I was led to a quarantine room in the back to begin my 72-Hour Blackout Period. No phone, no contact—just me and the withdrawals, like the world’s worst all-inclusive resort.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but 222 had just become my clean date. That number would eventually mean something to me, like how people get attached to their astrological sign or lottery numbers. It’s all part of the institutional process. Sociologist Erving Goffman called places like this “total institutions”—where you’re cut off from the outside world and reshaped by the people in charge. And with that comes the “degradation ceremony”—Harold Garfinkel’s term for the little rituals designed to strip you of your past self. The total institution might shave your head, fingerprint you, or assign you a number. In my case, they took my personal identity kit and handed me a clean date—a kind of new birthday, a second chance at life, a number to protect for the rest of my life.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. But this place was more than just a rehab or a shelter. It was a system, a machine—a total institution. And I had just become a part of it.
drink your milk 