By Mike Glendinning — www.glendinningmike.com
“Wake up and get out,” said the figure at the door.
I’d just spent two days in a dingy motel — the same kind of place some of my friends stayed in when life went off the rails. I sat up groggy, surrounded by furniture that looked like it had been salvaged from the worst parts of Oakland and hosed down in a parking lot before being dumped in the room. The carpet was stained, food was on the wall, and half-empty booze bottles were everywhere. The kind of room that looks like hell — and this time, I had very little memory of how I got there.
To say the last 96 hours had been a shit show would be putting it lightly.
I had relapsed. Again.
After nearly a year of trying to live clean in a rough neighborhood off Martin Luther King Jr. Way, I told myself the same lie recovering alcoholics know by heart:
“This time it’ll be different.”
I’d drink only after work. Only on weekends. Only at home. Only, only, only.
We tell ourselves all kinds of bullshit, and some part of us believes it.
Eventually I landed in a Christian-run rehab program — one of those 6-to-9-month setups where you’re lucky to get a decent meal, let alone peace. I had almost no contact with my son or his mother. That distance hurt more than anything. It was the kind of place where you shared bunk beds, tiptoed around personalities, and lived by rules designed for people who’d been on the streets a while. I got that. Structure matters. But damn, it can break you too.
One thing that kept me halfway sane was my acoustic guitar. I’d been through rehab without one before, and I swore I’d never do it again. This time, I brought it. That beat-up guitar became my therapy when nothing else made sense.
Almost every time I sat down to play — whether in a shared room with 18 other guys or in the common area where people wandered in off the street — someone would interrupt me. A guy wanting to freestyle over my chords. A woman reminiscing about her old guitar before she sold it for dope. Someone asking for something. Always something.
But up on the top floor of that old four-story Victorian rehab house, the stairwell had incredible acoustics. It became my sanctuary. While others were downstairs glued to some brain-dead movie, I’d sit at the top of the steps and play. It was one of the few places I found peace.
That didn’t last.
One Monday morning, I was doing kitchen duty — washing dishes after feeding the homeless all weekend. My feet were on fire. I’ve got club feet, and standing too long makes them ache like hell. I sat down for a second to catch my breath, and one of the staff said, “See those cameras? They’re watching you. You can get in trouble for sitting.”
I snapped.
“They can lick my ass crack. Fuck ‘em.”
He looked at me, then walked away. I muttered, “And fuck you,” under my breath.
By the time room check came around, my nerves were shot. That’s when you’re supposed to make your bed and keep your area spotless. I get the logic — a lot of dudes were straight off the streets, and they brought that energy with them. But still, I needed a moment. So I grabbed my guitar and sat back at the stairwell.
Ten minutes later, I heard heavy steps from upstairs.
The main guy who ran the place showed up, flanked by two supervisors. One barked, “Put that down and stand by your bed.” The other saw my Danzig shirt and snapped, “You are to wear a collared shirt from now on.” When I told him I didn’t have one, he ordered another resident my size to lend me one — like we were prisoners. It was humiliating.
I tried to shake it off and went to class. I couldn’t focus. I was seething. A few hours later, I went to the bathroom and one of my roommates followed me in. He got in my face and said, “I don’t like the way you smell.”
There were 18 grown-ass men in that room. And he picked me out.
I said, “Dude, really? You know how many people sleep in that room?”
He interrupted, “I’m trying to talk to you like a man. You need soap?”
That was it.
I went to the guy in charge and told him I was done. I told him the way they ran things was humiliating.
His response?
“No, it’s not.”
That was the final straw.
“Don’t tell me how to feel,” I snapped.
He gave me the classic line: “You’re putting your life at risk by leaving.”
Yeah? Then maybe you should’ve thought about that before you treated us like dirt.
I walked out that day — angry, hurt, and unsure of what came next.
But I left with my guitar.
And somehow, I knew I wasn’t done.
Stay tuned.
