[ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ]	Outpatient rehab, to me, was the biggest joke and the biggest waste of money. I tried my hardest to keep from laughing through the group meetings, the one-on-ones, the group prayer. And these addicts ate it all up with a heroin-melting spoon. They close their eyes and join hands and prayed to G-d for strength, and said that they know he hears their prayers. I just looked down and try not to say anything. “Let’s talk about the root of your drug problem,” the counselor remarked during a one-on-one session. I squirmed on the uncomfortable couch and resented the counselor for getting to sit in the comfortable recliner. The wall behind her was lined with books and I started wondering if she had actually read them all, or used them now, or if they were just for show. “Can you pinpoint a specific moment or event that led you to start smoking?” She twirled her pencil between her thumb and index finger and then brought it down to her yellow legal pad. “What strayed you from G-d’s path in the first place?” I didn’t understand why it always had to be about something more. Why couldn’t it just be that I tried it, I liked it, and wanted to do it all the time? People don’t ask gum chewers, “What is the root of your gum chewing?” “I was trying to reach enlightenment.” I replied trying my hardest to keep a straight face. “I wanted to get high, to get closer to G-d.” She sighed and gave me a disappointing stare. “If you don’t want help, then I can’t help you. You have to start taking this seriously.” She jotted something down on her legal pad. I didn’t know what she was writing, but it wasn’t anything good. But I could care less. I smoked, I got caught, and this was my punishment. I just wanted to do it and get it over with and move on. There wasn’t a “root” to my drug problem, a deeper problem that I was escaping from. Or at least at that point I didn’t think there was. I thought I was going to meet G-d at some point during my time there. A couple weeks later, when the need for weed was too much to take and I chased a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of Jack. When my eyes grew heavy and I felt the life being sucked from me as my heart stopped beating. And I saw myself rising up, getting higher, and going to G-d. Then I fell for what seemed like a thousand feet and landed in a hospital bed with doctors all around me. And I cursed and screamed and saw my mom in the doorway and called her a bitch for finding me and bringing me back, “I was there!” And the doctors shoved charcoal in my mouth to shut me up and I vomited onto the floor.