Birds on a Wire
Rehab felt like one long group project with people you didn’t choose and couldn’t escape. You’re all crammed into this weird little bubble—sitting shoulder to shoulder at mealtimes but emotionally on different planets. Everyone’s eyeing each other like we’re trying to crack a code, but no one speaks for the first few days. Too dissociated. Too twitchy. No one knows the rules.
It used to be a retirement home, but honestly, it looked more like a motel. Beige walls. Low ceilings. That stale, carpeted silence. The kind of place where time stretches out weirdly and nothing ever quite smells clean. The air buzzed with everything no one was saying: withdrawal, shame, caffeine headaches, legal drama, the occasional spiritual awakening, and yeah—probably a ghost or two.
They monitored our caffeine like it was contraband. One cup, maybe two, and they acted like we should be grateful. The only real recreational activity was watching DVDs on stiff, upright chairs that somehow made your spine feel worse. No couches. Nothing soft. Nothing to collapse into, physically or otherwise.
Eventually, people started talking. Not in some big “I hit rock bottom” monologue—more like casual trauma over scrambled eggs. Half-sentences in group. Muttered confessions between smoke breaks. One guy called an Uber and just left. No warning. Vanished mid-morning meditation. (Yes, that actually happened.) Another guy kept blaming his wife—for the drinking, the rage, everything. The therapists kept gently nudging him toward self-awareness, and he hated it. Eventually, he stopped showing up to group. Then he left. No goodbye.
Honestly, we were all full of shit in small ways. But we were trying. Or pretending to. Sometimes it looked the same.
It felt fake at first. Like one long, awkward icebreaker. Everyone playing it cool—but not too cool, because being too guarded got called out in group. But something shifts when you eat every meal with the same 50 people who’ve all seen you cry or shake or rage—whatever your particular flavor of broken is. When someone gives you their cookie without a word because they remembered you like it better than the ice cream.
It’s not friendship. Not really connection either—not in the usual sense. It’s this strange kind of survival bond. Not built on shared hobbies or vibes. Built on wreckage. On being cracked open at the same time, in the same room. And maybe that’s stronger. Or maybe it’s just Stockholm Syndrome in grippy socks. Hard to say.
There aren’t many places you’ll see a 17-year-old high school dropout hosting a talent show with a 54-year-old rancher and a 40-year-old lawyer. And no one’s laughing at the pairing. Because it makes sense here. Nothing makes sense, so everything kind of does.
Some days I miss it. Not the place—god, not the walls or the chore charts or the 7am medication announcements. But the honesty. The way no one was pretending to have it together, because none of us did. We couldn’t fake it—we’d already unraveled. There was nothing left to perform. Just this stripped-down version of survival: tired and twitchy and real. Like birds on a wire. All a little fucked up. Just waiting out the weather together.
