This is the last of the letters from my stint in rehab in 2010 that I’m going to post online. I’ve gotten a lot of emails asking whether or not rehab actually works and I don’t know how to answer that question because it definitely works for some people and what I learned there was invaluable, however I didn’t stay sober after rehab. I’m sober now, but rehab wasn’t a cure-all for me. Despite that, I would never want to discourage anyone from going, in fact I think everyone should go to rehab just to learn how to be a less shitty person. I’m more than happy to answer any personal emails about it, but I just wanted to put that out there to address similar and/or public ones.
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You are honest and strong. I must have missed the earlier posts but it’s pretty cool yr putting these up. Best of luck in not hating everything all the time.
These are great, Julia! I’d love to see versions that the government didn’t get a hold of.
Thanks, Julia. These letters are great.
Heh, reminds me of my month at rehab for alcohol. I’ve been out for about two months and i also learned a good bit (even though i did have one hick-up a few weekends ago). I saw it as a necessary suck in life but definately got me in the right direction. Thanks for the work, Julia!
Thanks for sharing Julia. While I didn’t go to rehab, I did get sober. This post just reminded me how hard/weird/uncomfortable the first couple months are when you start to actually “feel things”. A good “remember when” for me.
Julia, you turned a shitty day into a good one, thank you. I walked a couple of miles to the post office this morning (have to walk because i’m not allowed to drive on base). i was expecting a car tag sticker (i know, really fits together there) and found the fart party vol. 1 i ordered. got to the thank you section before i stopped (pizza dude got here) and finished off the mini-comics. thanks for the work; i really enjoy it and it made my day take a turn for the better.
p.s. some reason the thanks to modest mouse tickled me.
I don’t think I’d do all that well in rehab. In those sorts of situations I tend to simply…well I suppose the term is “escalate”. If I have one skill in life, just one skill, it’s how to snarkily and passive-aggressively resist such forms of treatment. When I was reading these three stories, I was running through my head how I would respond to treatment of this nature and it eventually gets to the point where I am daring and provoking the doctors into some horrible anachronistic treatment (lobotomy, total sensory deprivation, some undisclosed form of torture) simply to watch them break international law on my behalf and/or out of frustration.
Oddly, in normal life I’m never this overconfident or this horrible. In reality, I guess I’d actually recover (or simply pretend to recover, deception is so much easier than confrontation).
sounds like you might fare well in a sanatorium
I really admire your willingness to share all this personal stuff. I was hospitalized for bi polar disorder and I can relate to a lot of the stuff you wrote about in your letters.
Awesome honesty, and love the three sketches where you are discovering feeling. Might be a good print/T-shirt? i.e. A lot of us may be able to relate to learning that skill.