kitch's summer journal 1: Utah

Substances: Cannabis and dexedrine.
By: kitchkinet
Webpage:

well as a lot of you know I dissappeared from the boards for quite a while this summer and I figured I'd sit myself down and write out what I can remember of it, just so y'all know where I was.

Towards the end of April this year my parents gave me an ultimatum, either I move out of the house or go to an inpatient drug rehabilitation facility, a wilderness program out in Utah. I really didn't wanna go. I was in a pretty good relationship with a beautiful girl and I didn't wanna leave her for that long.

the night before I went I bought a whole bunch of pills along with some of my own prescriptions and stashed em. I had about 400mg of adderall/dexedrine 150mg of valium and 20mg of ativan. I also had an eigth of weed. I stayed up all night smoking and getting as drugged up as I could. It was gonna be a long flight and we had to leave here at 4 AM.

my father drove me to an airport in new hampshire and I hid the rest of my pills in a baggy under the waist band of my boxers. good thing I did because I got red tagged and they searched me pretty thoroughly. From New Hampshire I flew to Las Vegas, I made hemp necklaces the whole flight. I stayed there for an hour, mailed a letter to sonia and got on a plane for salt lake city.

when I got off I went and smoked all the cigarettes I had left and went down to the baggage area where there was a red neck holding a sign with my name on it. I went over and he brought me to his pickup truck and we hopped in. From there we drove about 4 hours into south central Utah's mountain's. I was pretty damn buzzed for the entire intake process. They made me strip naked, took everything I had and put it in a box with my name on it that they duct taped up.

They gave me all of my gear which consisted of:
1 internal frame backpack
1 9 pound -40degree rated chinese military surplus sleeping bag
1 sleeping pad
1 2 person backpacking tent
3 grey tshirts
3 pairs uncomfortable boxer shorts
1 pair cargo pants
1 pair cargo shorts
1 fleece zip up hoodie
1 chinese made bomber jacket
1 German Federation surplus poncho
4 pairs nylon socks
3 pairs wool socks
1 pair gore tex hiking boots
1 pair plain black low top converse allstars
1 pair wool gloves
1 wool cap
1 bandana
1 pair sunglasses
various 12 step books, notebooks, pens etc
1 crazy creek camp chair

I spent that night in the transition house, basically a little shack. The next morning I crammed everything into the sleeping bag. All in all the gear weighs about 50 pounds. The lowest we got was about 6000 feet, there's half an atmosphere at 8000 feet, meaning 8,000 feet above sea level there's half as much oxygen as at sea level. I tossed my pack into a truck and we drove another 2 hours out into the mountains before we got to the campsite.

There were 4 girls and 3 boys in my group when I got there, along with 2 guides. I'm used to camping but this was all pretty new to me.

we concentrated most of our time on spirituality and addiction, along with hiking hiking and more hiking. I found god out there. I did things I didn't think I ever possibly could and I realized that I need to get motivated. I didn't however come to the conclusion that I needed to stop drugs.

I was in the field for 6 weeks, hiking ~4 miles a day, no buildings in sight, llamas to carry our camp gear, sweat lodges, vision questing. I gained a world of wisdom and came back much stronger.

The day I graduated I was so sad to be leaving. They brought me to a motel where I met up with my parents and everything was all smiles and hugs and kisses. Then they told me that they had made the decision while I was away that they were going to get divorced. They had also decided I needed to go to a halfway house (3+ month residential treatment place)

It was pretty hard but I convinced them that camp was the best place for me to go, and that I would stay in the transition house for a week in the mean time. Had a lot of fun there.

Then I flew home.

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