(Missed Part 1 of this series? You can find it here.) I was told Handsome would be able to call to say he arrived safely at Sierra Tucson, but that was not the case. His phone, along with all of his luggage, was taken immediately upon meeting the ST representative at the airport. He wouldn’t see any of his belongings again till very late the following day, and he wouldn’t see his cell phone again for over a week.
Handsome was in lock-down for the better part of two days after his arrival. It’s mandatory and involved blood testing and urine samples and the like, as well as getting a grip on the medications he came in with and making an initial determination about what might be working and what might need adjustment. For those with substance addictions I’m sure this serves as a detox period, but for Handsome it was fairly torturous. No tv, no internet, no games, no books, and yet exposure to people coming off their drug of choice and being extremely dis-regulated emotionally. I think he looked at it as something to be endured, and so he did.
This was where Handsome was first exposed to some of the… quirky… rules at ST. For example, Handsome took bandanas to wear on his head during yoga and hikes. They took those from him (presumably to prevent self- harm) yet he was allowed to keep his shoelaces and he actually had extra bed sheets in his room. Another example… if you brought your own dental floss from home a nurse kept it and would dole it out back to you in roughly 2 foot increments, but they sold dental floss in regular packs in the on-site store at ST. Go figure.
After the lock down, Handsome was moved to his lodge. He describes it as a timbered Motel 6. (His accommodations and food service at OnSite in Tennessee last year were considerably more upscale by comparison.) ST had three lodges: all women, all men, and co-ed. As I wrote in a previous post, however, they moved the women who caused too much trouble in the women’s or co-ed lodges into the men’s lodge. Weeks later, I still find that disturbing and baffling. As you might expect, my sex addict spouse had some issues with that.
Once settled in his lodge, Handsome seemed to fall pretty easily into the routine of the facility. The days were incredibly long (6:30 AM to roughly 9 PM with minimal down-time), but Handsome dove in without much complaint. To the extent he complained at all it was mostly about the lack of Coke or Pepsi when coffee and tea was permitted and abundant.
When I say that the days had little down time I want to be clear that Handsome’s day was scheduled thoroughly through that time. He was expected to attend everything he was scheduled for. Failure to appear for a session meant that a team of security folks went looking for you (tracking patients by Fit-Bit-like devices). That said, the common work-around at ST was for folks to go to a session, stay 5-10 minutes, long enough to ensure that they were logged in, and then leave and blow off the remainder of the session. Handsome reports that was pretty typical for about a quarter of the patients there. Usually, but not always, the younger patients who were there on mom and dad’s dime.
From a partner’s point of view, my perception is that the treatment at ST was incredibly holistic. In addition to what you might expect at a rehab, they arranged physical rehab sessions for both an injury he had operated on a few months ago and to address the more recent injury he suffered just after Christmas. They paid close attention to a heart issue he has and would have taken him to be treated by a nearby cardiologist if he hadn’t already been under the care of a cardiologist at home. When he developed a sudden and severe tooth ache, they got him to a local dentist.
Moreover, while the offering of a veterans and first responder’s program was of little consequence to me (Handsome’s trauma is rooted in his family of origin, not his job, although that certainly added to the complex nature of his PTSD), being a participant in the program meant that Handsome could avail himself of treatments that were add-ons or “extras” for everyone else. He could do acupuncture, EMDR, somatic experiencing, equine therapy, and quite a few other things at no additional cost. While he did not find benefit in all of those things, he was at least encouraged to try them to see what might click for him. Some really clicked, and others had no impact at all.
Initially, Handsome was calling home every day, but that was just mentally exhausting for me. I wrote a bit about that here. He frequently wrote to our kids, but not to me. I got one letter the first week and after that, nothing. When we did speak by phone, it was often a disaster. The first two and a half weeks, he sounded like a zombie. I still don’t know if his meds were altered or what the issue was, but he sounded very flat and, frankly, un-empathetic and distant. I cut the calls down to once a week. In week 3, things shifted and he just started sounding like an arrogant douche.
During the calls he never asked me questions about my health or well-being or what was going on at home. He talked a lot about himself and about the “amazing” and “tremendous” people in his group. That was when I learned that his process group was Handsome and one other guy and 6 women. I started to pick up on comments about how I “just wouldn’t understand” something or how his trauma and mine are “a lot alike.” During a session with our CSAT that week, I asked her to call Handsome’s therapist at ST and find out what the heck was going on. I had previously spoken to Handsome’s assigned therapist at ST. I liked her. I thought she was quite insightful about Handsome’s issues, so when it was relayed back to me that she hadn’t considered the possible correlation between the validation Handsome was getting out of his mostly female therapy group and his sex addiction, I was floored. The more he got comfortable and buddy-buddy with his group, the worse our calls went.
This phenomenon wasn’t unique to me. I don’t complain to our kids about Handsome and I try my hardest for them to see us as a united front. To the extent they have opinions about their dad, those opinions are based on their own experiences with him. Starting in week 2, my 13 year old, who I would generally describe as daddy’s girl, respectfully declined to get on the phone with her dad. She asked me if she had to talk to him. I asked her to please try to talk to him 2x a week and she was reluctant to do even that. She said he was completely uninterested in her, didn’t ask her anything about her, and that the sound of his voice made her sad. I didn’t tell her, but that was my experience on the calls too. Most of them ended with me in tears. It was brutal.
I had an incredible bond with my dad. I think Handsome believes he has a similar relationship with our daughter, but he overestimated it. He glosses over the yelling and the tension in the house while he was fully engaged in his addiction. Both kids noticed how peaceful and calm it was when he was gone. When our daughter basically cut off her calls with Handsome it was a bit of a wake-up he needed. My guess is that somewhere in his mind he believed that even if our marriage ended his kids would never find fault with him. He saw how untrue that assumption was. Our daughter was holding him accountable in her own way and while he was hurt by it, on some level he recognized that he caused it. At the tail end of week 3, there was a huge and noticeable shift.
Handsome started to sound more positive and upbeat. He started making plans for home. He started making a transition plan that would hopefully help him integrate some of his practices from ST into life at home. I heard reports back that he was making significant therapeutic progress and that he was exercising good boundaries. He won an award for his participation in sessions and overall dedication to his recovery at the end of the 4th week.
In spite of the sudden burst of progress, it wasn’t lost on anyone that the three weeks prior were rough. He had to work through a lot of anger and resentment to start actually internalizing the messaging he was receiving. For that reason, and because he had the time off from work and insurance to cover the costs, ST had him stay for an additional week. From a partner perspective, that’s when things started to get a bit dodgy again. …