Robert Rickelman | Updates

13th and Island Detox

Robert Rickelman — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 17:11:27 -0500

The detox center was at the intersection of 13th and Island, right next to the trolley tracks. This was a seedy part of San Diego, but I was a seedy individual. Sam, a short, powerfully built man, about 60 years old, signed the necessary admission forms.

“Okay, do you go by Robert, Bob, or what?”

“Rob,” I said.

“OK, Rob. This place is pretty unique. Some people come here voluntarily for a three-day detox. Like you. If you’re lucky, you get one of the rooms. Each has four beds, but there are only six rooms. If all the beds are full, you grab a mat, spray it down with Lysol, and find a place to sleep on your left side of this long red line. That line of red tape is all that separates you from the majority of our ‘guests.’ Ya see, this place also serves as a four-hour drunk tank for those blockheads the cops think aren’t dangerous enough to lock up. If they get too rowdy, we call the cops, and they go to jail. So, for the most part, they’re pretty obnoxious and rude, but only a handful a night actually wind up in a cell.”

Only a handful. I shuddered.

“Ya know, this being Memorial Day Weekend and all, it’s gonna be pretty crazy here. The good news is that we have a room with an empty bed. It’s yours for three nights. The noise from the trolley can be pretty annoying, but being in a room beats the hell out of sleeping in the common area. Believe me. You’re gonna be comin’ down pretty hard. Aren’t ya? You ever get the D.T.’s, seizures?”

“Both, mostly DTs.”

“Rob, I wish we could give you something, but this goddamned place is strictly non-medical. We can’t even give you Benadryl to help you sleep. Just try to stay calm and steer clear of the troublemakers. We’ll get you through this in one piece, trust me.”

“Thanks, Sam. I really appreciate it,” I said.

* * *

It was about noon. I’d made it through this drunk tank/detox Sunday and Monday night, and Tuesday morning. I was still shaking like a motherfucker. A grubby-looking guy, about 50, sporting a week’s worth of stubble and dirty gray hair asked me if I wanted to play spades.

“Sure,” I said. “But I’m pretty rusty. And shaky. I’m coming down pretty hard.”

“Booze?” he asked, somewhat sympathetically. I nodded.

“Well, don’t worry about it. We’re all a bunch of hardcore drunks. My name’s Ted. We’re playing over at that table.”

He motioned to a row of long, beat-up, dark brown Formica lunch tables, each of which seated about eight. The chairs were standard-issue, beige steel card-table variety. There were two pretty crusty looking guys already seated at the table. They both needed a bath.

Ted and I sat on opposite sides of the table.

“Okay, me and uhh . . .

“Rob,” I said.

“Yeah, me and Rob will play you two guys. I forgot your names.”

“Michael,” said one.

“Bill,” said the other. It was hard to believe, but he was shaking worse than I was.

Ted said, “Okay, we’ll play to 500. I got the pencil and paper, so I’ll keep score.”

We were fine with that. He was the only one whose hands were steady enough to write anyway. We were one sorry foursome.

Ted shuffled and slid the deck for Bill to cut. Ted restacked it and dealt each of us thirteen cards; we weren’t using jokers.

As we gathered our cards, Bill’s eyes rolled backward. All you could see were the whites. He made a kind of gurgling sound, which was barely audible among all the hubbub going on at the detox center. He fell straight back in his chair and smashed his head on the filthy Linoleum-covered floor. He was bleeding pretty good from the back of his head.

“He’s having a seizure,” I said. “We gotta get him an ambulance.”

Two staff members noticed the commotion and hustled to where Bill lay on the floor. Al, the fat one, asked what had happened.

“I’m pretty sure he’s having a seizure,” I said. I was in a near panic.

“Yeah, must have had a pretty bad hand,” Ted said. No one laughed.

Within minutes, the fire department paramedics arrived, and after taking his vitals, they put him on a stretcher and left for the hospital. These same paramedics would be called back within an hour when a feeble old bum had what must have been a heart attack in the men’s shower. He was dead when they wheeled him out.

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Group Therapy

Robert Rickelman — Thu, 08 May 2025 18:05:08 -0400

It was Friday morning, and I’d been out of the intensive care unit since Wednesday. Once again, I’d mixed my psych meds with a fifth of vodka and several beers and wound up back in the ICU, tethered to a ventilator. To my mind, it wasn’t technically a suicide attempt; it was just another case of let’s do this and see what happens.

Since I came off the ventilator and arrived in the psych ward, I’d endured the typical, albeit extremely uncomfortable, symptoms of alcohol detox. For the last few days, my mind was short-circuiting, assaulted with crazy dreams and hallucinations. My heart raced so fast I expected it to burst, and my body seesawed between drenching sweats and severe chills. But by the third day, the worst pangs of withdrawal were beginning to fade.

I was getting two milligrams of Ativan every four hours; I could have used more. I wished they still gave detox patients Librium or Valium. They worked so much better, but someone must have decided that they packed too big a punch, so instead you got Ativan. Ativan sucked.

There was no chance that I would be released until after the weekend. Weekends were boring. Most of the staff was off, and there were few groups or activities to attend. I liked the groups; they helped pass the time. But I knew I needed to rest and let my body recuperate from the ravages of my latest binge. A fifth of vodka and a twelve-pack of beer had been my typical daily intake for the past three weeks. My body was battered—my psyche as well.

For the most part, I stayed in my room, wishing that I had the kind of one-way mirror that the TV cops used when interrogating suspects. From the safety of my room, the entire floor was a circus and entertaining to view.

I was sleepy, but it was almost time for the 9:00 check-in meeting. A patient had a better chance of being released early if he attended and participated in the therapy and meetings. The previous day, I was too wonky, but that morning I was strong enough to take a shower. After that, I headed to the meeting.

As we filed slowly into the meeting room, I noticed that my favorite fellow patient, Steven, had chosen to honor us with his presence. Steven spent most of his time patrolling the halls of our ward, making pronouncements in a surprisingly rich, baritone voice that resonated with a strong, deep timbre. I would have bet that he probably once had a career as a voice-over talent, or maybe a news announcer. That was how I liked to imagine him before, as with the rest of us, his life veered so irretrievably off course.

Steven was a handsome man, probably in his mid-sixties with a tangled mop of curly white hair and a full white beard that needed a trim. He had been admitted days earlier, most likely petitioned for his own safety. This was my third day on the ward, and I had never seen him in anything but hospital-issue blue scrubs. Despite his wild appearance, his scrubs were always clean, and his hygiene was good. He was never dirty, and he never smelled bad.

Most patients were annoyed by his behavior and constant proclamations. Some even told him to shut up, but I found his remarks clever, even when they were nonsensical. When a patient approached him and asked why he spoke so loudly, his booming reply was, “If I don’t speak in a very loud voice, I stutter.” I sensed he was telling the truth.

Steven’s announcements, when he was on a roll, were mesmerizing. I wanted to learn his story, but I felt too jumpy to engage him. I heard him claim that in 1975, he’d had a computer microchip implanted in his brain. I was half inclined to believe him. He was a very strange man.

As we filed slowly into the meeting room, I took a seat next to him. Including Steven and me, there were ten patients. Most were barely conscious, and a handful were about to nod off. Three others straggled in, and we numbered thirteen.

James, a tall, muscular Black man, was the psych tech in charge of the morning’s meeting. He was very personable and liked to joke with the patients, but never in a mean way. I liked him.

James passed out paper and a pencil to each of us and told us to rate our anxiety and depression on a scale from one to ten. There was also a section where we were asked to note any suicidal or homicidal thoughts, also on a scale of one to ten. We then listed our goals for the day. For some people, the goal may have been as simple as taking a shower or attending groups. At the end of the day, we would meet again to report on how things had gone, and whether we had reached our goals.

When everyone had completed their forms, James asked for volunteers to share what they had written. When no one volunteered, James asked Steven to begin.

Not one to follow rules, Steven had written nothing on his sheet. Nevertheless, he launched into a disjointed, thoroughly whimsical enumeration, delivered as if he were reading us newspaper headlines:

"George Clooney voted most handsome man in America. Details to follow.

Ten thousand bottles of Wild Turkey delivered to Ankara.

The world awaits the news of who will become the ten-million and first registered nurse.

Satan makes plans to burn down Knotsberry Farm."

James was amused. So was I, but I doubted that any of my sleepy comrades would make the connection between the whiskey and the capital of Turkey. But I gotta say, it cracked me up.

"Thank you for sharing, Steven,” James said. But you haven’t told us how you are feeling this morning. Did you sleep well? What is your goal for the day? Any plans?”

“Why, thank you very much,” Steven responded. Then he took a wild detour. “I have an IQ of 185, but I am very mean. I was even mean as a child. When my mother tried to breastfeed me, I would bite her nipples very hard. She threw me in the trash can 27 times.”

I bit my lip. God, this guy was a treasure.

Wanting to laugh, but knowing better, James said, “Thank you, Steven. Why don’t we move on? Who would like to go next? How about you, Alyssa? Would you like to share?”

Alyssa was probably in her mid-thirties, but she looked older. Because of the several thin lines surrounding her lips, I surmised she was a smoker. Her mousy brown hair hung limply to her shoulders. She twirled it nervously and cleared her throat.

“I’m Alyssa, and my anxiety level is ten. So is my depression. My suicide thoughts are an eight, and I have no thoughts of hurting anyone else. Last night I slept for six hours straight, and it was the first time in five months that I didn’t have any nightmares about my boyfriend.”

I learned later that Alyssa was upside-down on her mortgage and had not made a payment since her boyfriend’s suicide. Someone asked her about her boyfriend. Alyssa frowned.

James interrupted. “Alyssa, you don’t need to say anything about your boyfriend.”

“That’s okay, I’ll tell you what happened. Five months ago, my boyfriend pointed a .357 Magnum in my face and pulled the trigger. For some reason, the gun didn’t go off. Then he put the gun to his head and blew his brains all over the living room. I had to get one of those crime-scene cleaning companies to clean up the . . . um . . . blood and stuff.”

Someone asked, “And you’re still living there? Why?”

Idiot, I thought.

"Because I own the house and have nowhere else to go.”

Everyone was quiet, and the silence was excruciating. I decided to go next.

“My name is Rob. My anxiety and depression are both ten. I have no suicidal thoughts.”

That wasn't exactly true, but admitting to suicidal thoughts bought you a longer stay at the hospital.

I continued. “I have no thoughts of harming anyone. I slept about six hours off and on. My goal is to attend every meeting and try to be positive, except when I talk about A.A.”

I was surprised when Mary let out a laugh.

James asked, “Mary, would you like to go next?”

She was still laughing when she answered that she would.

“Oooh boy! My name is Mary. My anxiety is two, depression five. Got maybe an hour of sleep. Not suicidal, not homicidal. My goal is to try to come out of my shell. Thanks for saying that about A.A., Robert. It’s like you read my mind. I hate A.A. too. I’ve had two sponsors, and they both fired me because they said that I was addicted to psych meds. They were the ones who were addicted. Addicted to A.A.

“One sponsor had the nerve to tell me, ‘If you choose to take psych meds, then you’re not truly in recovery.’

“’Choose to take psych meds? Hunh? You think I choose to take psych meds?’

“Then she said, ‘If you’re taking psych meds, you shouldn’t even bother celebrating your sobriety anniversary.’

“The fucking bitch. She said ‘psych meds equal no sobriety.’

“I told her, ‘If I weren’t taking psych meds, you would be the first person I’d kill.’”

Steven saw his opportunity and ran with it.

“She’s drunk and on drugs, and uncooperative. I’ll call security.”

That floored me. I hadn’t felt so good in a very long time.

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Jumping to the End: A Lifetime Struggle with Mental Illness and Alcoholism will be released by Apprentice House Press on May 5, 2026. It can now be pre-ordered on Amazon books and on Bookshop.org.

Robert Rickelman — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

May is National Mental Health Awareness Month, and April is National Alcoholism Awareness Month.

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