They'll never do it again - they swear.
No more drink - no more dope - no more smoke.
They've had enough and they want help -
a hand to reach down from the heavens
and save their sorry asses.
The drug/alcohol counselor greets them
and tells them everything will be okay.
With more streaming tears they plead for help.
'Please help me! I want to stop!'
They relay an admixture of fact and fiction
to dramatize their plight.
'I been living in a canyon!'
'I been sleeping in the alley behind 7/11!'
'I got beat/robbed 2,826 times!'
The counselor sits there listening with sympathy
as if she hasn't heard it all a hundred times before.
Of course it's all bullshit.
As soon as the hangover ends - so does the rehab.
'Meh - fuck this rehab shit' they say
and stop off at the liquor store on their way to the dope dealer.
But they'll be back.
Rehab becomes a perpetual motion machine
of crashing and backsliding.
The only time rehab is seen through to completion
is at the initiation of a court order.
About Hugh Blanton:
Hugh Blanton lives in San Diego, California and combs poems out of his hair during those moments he can steal away from his employer's loading dock. He has appeared in Bottom Shelf Whiskey.
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