A New Beginning: Reflecting on My First Day in Treatment

For this daily prompt, I suppose a lot of people are going to talk about their first days at work or as a parent. I think I’ll try to remember my first day in treatment. I say that I’ll try to remember because I was in a bit of a haze. Sunday was the last date of my use and my first day of treatment was on Thursday. So, I was still sobering up.

From what I remember of the first day, I was enthusiastic about my new path but overall confused. The clinic has a confusing layout. It’s laid out like the number 8 but with a disconnection in one of the hallways. I think it took me two weeks to understand the layout.

The first day was also full of assessments. I had to take several of them on a Chromebook, you know the type with the multiple-response questions. There were a couple of times that I was able to get into a group session but for the most part I was pulled out of the group several times to do assessments and intake paperwork. I was asked a lot of questions about my use and past. I remember answering all of these questions very candidly.

I remember being excited for the experience, and hopeful. I was hopeful that I would make it this far. I’m less than a week away from completing my course. I’m not sure what I thought the next couple of months would be like when I started that day, I think I wasn’t trying to overwhelm myself by thinking about them. Now, I try not to think about that first day too much. Instead, I try to focus on the things I’ve learned over the past two months.