Sometime during the first night, a transvestite came in. I heard a man and thought "isn't this women's only?" He took the bed beside me, and smelled like a man, but in the morning I could see that he was a she. or whatever. He coughed loudly and said "there's the crack coming up." Everyone laughed. um ok. I guess that was funny, I really wouldn't know. I roll out of bed and linger. It's a tiny intake room full of 8 plastic beds and about 4 crack addicts. It's dark, so we can sleep and they bring us good food. The stinky crack injector is there, and she looks like what you would imagine she would look like. Not much happens for 3 days, I'm detoxing, which involves eating, smoking, sleeping, sweating, and reading. I'm the only one that reads. Thanks god I brought a book. By day 2 I'm bored. Detoxing off alcohol and oxy is not the same as crack and heroin. I beg to be let on the other side. Everyone else is argumentative and snotty. I am sweet and compliance. They won't even let me have coffee for fucks sakes! I eat, and drink tea, and eat, and smoke, and eat and sleep. Finally they let me go to an AA meeting on the other side. Ya! My first ever. How exciting. I read and for the first time in my life I have to say "hi my name is jenny and i'm an addict." That is soooo weird. Way weirder then anyone could ever imagine it to be, like everything suddenly becomes real and present. People cry. I don't.

Eventually I get let over to the other side, where I have a room to myself and have to wake up at 7. We have meetings and activities all day. Believe it or not, but I love it. I need the structure. I crave the responsibilities. I get to watch Criminal Minds one night on the communal tv (after I made the hardcore street crack addicts change the channel, nobody NOBODY gets in the way of my Matthew Gray Gubler) and they make me turn it off at 11. I welcome it! After a year of drinking 2 bottles of wine and passing out on my couch, it is refreshing. It is needed.

2 hard crack addicts. They know each other from the streets. They share stories of how to make a dealer think you're blowing him longer with a rock so they can get more from them. I have nothing in common with these women. One night, as we watch Criminal Minds and talk about the longest we've been up on crack at a time (clearly I only listen, one girl was 18 days), we decided to break a lock on the fridge in the kitchen and steal rockey road ice cream. Craving sweets like they are they drug, we eat so much until we think we will puke. We laugh and joke. These girls are just girls, they are my age, they have come on unfortunate circumstances and their demons are heavier then mine, but for a small moment in time, we are the same. We are on one level. We look in each other's eyes and know we share a life disease of addiction. Is their's worse then mine? Yes. If I saw them on the street, in the corner, in their rags, with a crack pipe hanging from their mouth and a dealer's dick in their hand would I say hi? Absolutely not. But at the moment, it didn't matter. We were struggling, in the same place, at the same time, and we needed companionship. During that 5 days, when I should've been the loneliest in my life, I for once, felt like one of everybody else.