Raleigh Retardation and Detoxification

Thorn bushes in Raleigh were something that I knew nothing about until I decided to spend the first ten years of my adult life making alcohol the sole purpose of it. I had been walking around after shirking the homeless shelter cold turkey detox for the street for what seemed like a long time in the cold. First, I had gone to the nature trails behind the nearby gas station and laid there for a while after wrangling up my last few dollars to buy a tall can of 4loko. I looked up at the stars and felt the old twinge and stirrings of the spirit of adventure that I originally had found in my booze laden escapades. It was a mere glimmer, or gasp now. Compared to the comet, and roar that it was in the beginning. I couldn’t pretend that this was a scene from a Kerouac novel anymore. I was not Neal Cassidy and nothing about my life was worthy of much more than a pre-emptive obituary and a pathetic one at that.

Eventually as the reality of my situation crept in to such an extent that I was beginning to feel the inklings of a rational decision come on, I got up off the wet, short grass and looked around as I chugged the last of the first 4loko. I decided this was not where I was going to sleep and set out to figure something else out. I walked into a neighborhood that had a little convenience store on the main street of it. Upon walking into the neighborhood, on what I believe I remember to be called “Savage Street” I found a church and figured that behind it was probably best to lay down and catch a few drunken stupor Zs. I wandered back into their property, found some bushes and essentially threw myself into them. I fell asleep shortly thereafter with little difficulty as I was exhausted from the walk and the 4loko in my system.

I woke up a few hours later and it was daylight. No one had disturbed me or otherwise messed with me or my belongings. A great fortune for me at the time and I celebrated a bit too early as I realized I had lost my ear buds in the bush. Oh well, I proceeded down the street back towards the convenience store which I saw was now open. Upon entering I attempted to locate the booze and discovered it was too early to buy booze in North Carolina. Phooey. I was offered a cup of coffee by the store owner, and I took it, gulping it greedily. Eventually I realized I should probably give that indigent, homeless shelter, cold-turkey detox another shot as I had nowhere else to go and nowhere to buy alcohol as well as dwindling remaining funds becoming a statement which carried a severe degree of understatement to it. Leaving the convenience store, I headed towards the sidewalk in the direction of the indigent detox shelter. By the time I arrived, I was very ill already indeed. I stood up right next to the intake desk where volunteers manned their stations to process the broken, weary, tired and roofless masses, of which I had become one. The first thing I did in relatively quick fashion was to puke the neon red and green colors of the contents of my stomach into the nearest trash receptacle. This occurred multiple times until they stated that I was too sick for them to handle and needed medical attention.

One of the volunteers took me to the hospital – WakeMed in Wake Forest, an affluent area outside of Raleigh where I was admitted for seven days due to my heart rhythm and need for detox.