The Rest of The Story in a Nutshell (let's see if I can make it fit):
- The day
after I was potentially to discharge (and had already seen the discharge coordinator), a substitute counselor delivered a recommendation from the facility - to my daughters and I at the same time - that I go to sober living at discharge. I was caught off guard because no one had ever addressed my earlier concerns/objections and my counselor had not said anything to give me the impression that this is what she would recommend regardless. So being trapped by love for my kids and not willing to alienate them any further, I quickly arranged with the discharge person that I would go to "extended care," which is where I spent the last two weeks. There was nothing different about the program, really - aside from size (much smaller) and 12-step focus (much larger, which is saying quite a lot). The good news is that this gave me time to more carefully mull over sober living and decide, "It sure couldn't hurt. Unless I really can't deal with the women there."
- There were odd things and idiosyncrasies in that new rehab, but nothing to speak of until or unless we run out of other things to discuss. The fine and good thing was that there were only four women there for a few days and we really gelled. That was a welcome and affirming change from rehab #1.
- As I said yesterday, my sober living home is very nice. Craftsman style with wood floors/trim and stained glass windows throughout. I share the home with 4 other very nice women, one of whom is the "house manager." She is quite strict/anal about upkeep of the house, but is quite up-front about it so mainly it's ok. I'll tell you what, though. I left a bottle of soda unattended for no more than 3 minutes just a short time ago and by the time I returned, that thing had been magically transported into the fridge. Yikes! I keep apologizing because I don't want to get a "restriction" for being out of line in any way. Being me, it couldn't hurt to be under such an unyielding but non-threatening thumb, right?
- Speaking of unwieldiness (which we weren't, but it's a clever alliteration, don't you think?), my sponsor took me to task yesterday when I told her that part of my plan for support would be to help people understand in advance what I might need from them if I ever need to pull the panic chain, which it seems I need to be fully prepared to fully execute. She asked for a clarification and though I gave a couple of ideas stated in a positive sense, I also gave an example of what I thought would not help. At which she bristled and told me in no uncertain terms that I'd failed at this thing my way so I needed to start listening to suggestions. I protested, "I am!" but she wasn't hearing it - all she apparently heard was the screech of my heels digging in. So we left off rather awkwardly last night and this morning I called to thank her for being so patiently enduring with me and apologize for my tone. She reiterated that I need to do things differently this time and I held my tongue aside from acknowledging that she was correct. One small step forward for Obladi-kind, perhaps.
- I'm working now on getting clearance to return to work. I spoke with my manager last week and she sounded very welcoming, so I'm hoping all will be well on that front. We are currently working from home 100%, so I'm thinking sober living was an extremely good move, seeing as I didn't know this was coming. This time, occupational health wants a certificate of completion from the rehab (so I'll get one from both places) and a release from my provider. Being the good and responsible human he is, Daniel wants to meet with me before writing that release. I suppose I could get clearance from the doctor at the last rehab, but think it's better that I get the ok from the guy who knows me best. No sense in jumping through hoops just to clear them - let's make the hoop meaningful.
- It's absolutely astounding to me how easy it was to fill my day from 5:30am up to now (9:30pm), when really I didn't have much of anything "to do." But it's fine, good.
I've read all of your posts, but of course can't recall them all right at this time. I do have a sense there were a good number of things you all talked about that I want to re-read and perhaps throw my two cents in (though I've done some of that sideways in this post).
Love yous
(Large nutshell, as per yoosh.)
(How exactly does one abbreviate "usual" in the colloquial fashion?)