A LIKELY STORY: FINDING A PREFERABLE ESCAPE FROM THE WORLD

As the huge, metal doors closed and locked tightly behind me, I felt a faint hint of anxiety sit distantly yet clearly in my chest. The Aquinas Drug Treatment Center of Southeast Missouri seemed to have just a bit too much in common with a mental hospital, with its sterile white rooms, security check-in booth and aimlessly wandering, glassy-eyed inhabitants.

And I remember thinking that made me a Jack Nicholson of sorts, a non-addict in a sea of addictions.

I thought these things and immediately was ashamed of myself. These people were not insane, not crazy, far from it. They were people, almost identical to you and me except with the one obvious difference. They dealt with an often relentlessly cruel world by sticking needles in their arms or scurrying to the bottom of a bottle. Maybe stupid, but it's not crazy.

Now that I think of it, I was wrong to call myself a non-addict, at least partially wrong. We all have addictions, things that console us when times are tough, places we hide when life seems to have us by the hair and refuses to let go. For some of us it's TV, others bury themselves in their work, but I've noticed they all involve escape of some sort.

For most of the other male faction of the newsroom, it's golf.

Lacking any chemical dependency and having nothing to do Sunday, I had my first fling with the Mistress Golf, who seems to have captured the heart of every reporter and editor within a 50-mile radius.

Co-worker and fellow columnist David Angier graciously accompanied me to a nearby golf course where he watched me practice putting and chipping, inserting gentle advice and good criticisms.

He told me that I was a pretty good putter, but I think he was being kind. I enjoy the sport, if you can call it that, and only time will tell if she overtakes my free time like she has the others.

When I borrowed a set of clubs from Jeff, a co-worker, his wife said she was going to call Lori and tell her to forbid me from ever picking up a club. Apparently, Jeff's been spending a lot of time on the golf course when his wife would rather he be at home.

"It can be addictive," Jeff said with a shrug.

Dave turned out to be a good teacher, but my morning on the green wasn't nearly as enlightening as my afternoon visiting my brother at the drug rehabilitation center in Farmington.

Once the door was shut, I signed the big sheet marked "GUEST" and was directed back to a dining area where my brother was strumming some slow rock 'n' roll song on his guitar.

The room was full of people laughing with their friends and family -- Sundays are visitation days for everybody at Aquinas. The place no longer felt like a mental institution to me, at least not in here. It looked like a big family reunion and for some I guess that's exactly what it was.

I enjoyed my two hours with my kid brother. He had been there five days, but Patrick seemed to be more like the good-natured little kid I remember than the moody, angry young man I had come to know since the drugs took over. It's amazing what five days without drugs will do for a person.

He told me he was doing all right, was attending counseling there and gaining weight. He said he had big plans when he got out of there, none of which included any drug stronger than nicotine.

I told him things would have to change and he said he knew that. I told him that I had faith in him and felt he could do it. He's already taken the first steps of getting enrolled at the university. In addition to being pretty good with a guitar, he knows his way around a drawing board, too. I'm hoping the art will take the place of the drugs and still provide an adequate escape.

We laughed liked we did when we were kids, and he told me stories about the place and how crazy life in there seems sometimes.

When the visit was over he walked me back to that great hulking metal door and thanked me for coming. He reached out his hand to shake but I forced him into a hug.

Driving back home and reflecting, I remembered his remark about how crazy that place had seemed to him. I wished then and now that I told him I didn't think it was crazy in there.

Not at all.

~Scott Moyers is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.