I was now admitted for substance abuse
at the Veterans Hospital, Gainesville, Fl.
Since the program is voluntary, all
Veterans sign a compliance contract,
stating they will adhere to all rules of
the program, to many to mention here.
The program provides housing off of
hospital grounds in a apartment complex
modified to accommodate 20 veterans of
both sexes. Most of the veterans were
homeless, so this is the first housing they
have had, in some cases, years. We now
had a bed, clean sheets and of course
medical attention that most of us
needed.
All individual medicines were locked up,
and it was each veterans responsibility
to take it as per scribed but all under
supervision of a health technician, at the
time it all seem like a big pain, but in
hindsight very professionally handled
considering you have 20 veterans all
in different stages of recovery, all with
different attitudes towards the program,
themselves and others. Its a mental
ward actually, wow!! I did not want to
tell the world I was in a mental ward.
Daily classes were at another location
and the Veterans Hospital provided
transportation, they also provided
transportation to and from the hospital
for medical appointments and to take
urine samples several times a week. The
Health Technicians would give us blow
test when they deemed necessary. If
your urine test came back dirty, you
were gone.
You could not just come and go as you
pleased, your time was completely
occupied from morning to night.
A usual day was up at 6am, fix your
own breakfast, lunch was brought in
to us at the class location and supper
was fixed by two of us for the whole
20 people in the program. Two different
individuals cooked every evening with
a planned menu voted on by the veterans
themselves under the supervision of
the Diet Technician. Then you did your
assigned house chores, got ready to go
to class by 8am. Your day ended at
11pm. There was very little free time
until later in the program.
We were self governed by electing a
President, Sgt at Arms and a Secretary
of course all supervised by a Health
Technician.
The Peer Leader was appointed by the
staff, usually a vet with some time in
recovery that was doing well and
followed the program. Every week
all patients were given a grading sheet
and we graded each other in all aspects
of our recovery. I think this sheet was
used to pick the Peer Leader, but I am
not sure.
I was able to adjust to this program
fairly quickly without any problems. I
think my fourteen years in the Marine
Corps had taught me to adjust to any
situation in life and be content with it
and I was.
I had now been sober for about four
weeks in the outpatient program and
now set my sites on learning how to
stay that way. Sobriety had become
my number one and only goal I had
set for myself, now I was going to learn
the steps to achieve that goal because
my way of living had become hell.
Author: Alden Morrison
