we did in our free time. For that moment in our driveway, we felt as if we’d figured things out, which was a relief. We were ready to embrace change, no matter how difficult the road that lay ahead.
But then the full weight of what that decision implied fell upon us.
As much as we would like to say that we were so moved by my experience in rehab and the idea of taking control over our lives that we instantly knew our lifelong passion, it wouldn’t be the truth. We didn’t decide to open rehabilitation centers as we were driving back to Las Vegas from Southern California. What we were most passionate about was rebuilding our lives and our marriage.
We were just two people heading back from a rehab center to a clean start, determined not to let the clubs and money and destructive lifestyle we’d fallen into reclaim us. But I was still my father’s right-hand man, employed at a nightclub, and as much as I didn’t want to live that life anymore, I had no idea what life I did want. And sharing this with my father, a man who would likely take such an admission as an act of weakness, was simply not an option that I saw as viable. I was terrified to return to work, but terrified not to.
I’d been home for only a couple of days when I found myself standing on the floor of Dylan’s, surrounded by the more than 1,500 people celebrating New Year’s Eve, 2001. All night I had been wondering what the hell I was doing there. I felt beaten and trapped. I watched the smiles and laughter of the people partying around me, and as the night wore on, it became clear to me that it was all fake, a big lie. I don’t know, perhaps I was projecting my issues onto them, but at that moment, it occurred to me that very few of those people were honestly happy. As I watched the ball begin to drop in Times Square on the big-screen TVs on every wall, and heard the seconds counting down to the beginning of a brand-new year, I felt my fear of separating from my father’s business eroding in the face of the fear I felt about spending another year in that place. Nothing, nothing, not the threat of my often-violent and temperamental father, not the threat of financial ruin, not the uncertainty about my future career or the potential estrangement from my family, none of it was worth living like this, in the midst of that toxic environment. I had to GET OUT. Immediately.
Meanwhile, Lisa was facing her own fears as the clock ticked down to midnight and she walked the Vegas Strip in uniform with her fellow officers that New Year’s Eve. The crowds, hundreds of thousands strong, could have easily been dangerous enough, but Lisa’s fears had more to do with what was happening to me, a very newly recovering alcoholic, in a nightclub, on this night in which it seemed the entire world was focused on drinking and partying. She knew I had to get out of the nightclub business, because all it would have taken was doing one celebratory shot with a customer to drag me back. She carried a knot of worry around in her stomach all night.
After the night wound down and the sun began to rise, our shifts came to an end and it was time to finally clock out. When we were both home safe and sound from our jobs, she was surprised, relieved, excited, and nervous to learn of my decision on the morning of New Year’s Day to begin my extracting myself from my father’s business. We made the decision that morning to start fresh.
This was it. We didn’t know what we were going to do, but we did know that if we didn’t act right then and there, we might never get out. We spent New Year’s Day joyfully brainstorming the possibilities that might await us. It felt somehow taboo for me to consider doing anything else besides working in my dad’s nightclub business, or for Lisa not to be a commissioned officer, but yet it also felt so right, so thrilling to realize that a whole world of possibilities was out there for the taking. Lisa and I just threw everything that popped into our heads onto the table for discussion that day, no holds barred.
SIDEBAR:
Your environment can be
supportive or destructive
to who you are and
what you want to do.
If you want to change,
you get to look at your
environment and make
it one that supports you.
Then, in a flash, my discussion with Spencer popped into my mind – Spencer, the former restaurateur who decided to open rehab centers when he realized that the restaurant business no longer suited his sobriety.
Could that have been a sign? Did we dare to dream a similar life for ourselves? Yes, we did. Because as soon as I shared the memory of that conversation out loud with Lisa, we both grew silent and looked at each other, completely serious. We recognized what felt like a calling. After all, we knew what it was like for other people grappling with addiction, and we also knew what their loved ones were going through. The puzzle pieces of our lives all seemed to come together right at that moment, and we could see how everything that had happened to us might have happened for a reason.
Because of course it made sense. I had done rehab several times, I knew what worked and what didn’t. Lisa and I had both known the pain of addiction, the difficulty in returning to life sober, the systems that must be in place to stay clean and sober. It would be incredibly rewarding to share what we knew in order to keep others on the straight and narrow, to give families back the peace that Lisa and I were just coming to know and love.
We made the decision to sleep on it, and to call Spencer the next morning. I did, first thing. I shared with what we had been experiencing—my feeling of being trapped at the nightclubs and my certainty that, spiritually, it would be suicide for me to continue to work there. I told him how it was just a matter of time before I succumbed to that environment again. I shared how Lisa felt the same way, and was in full support of my decision to leave.
I told Spencer that we wanted to be part of the solution, and could no longer be part of the problem. Then, I asked Spencer if he could teach me about the rehab business, and told him I would appreciate his support and guidance.
“Are you serious about this?” he asked me.
I assured him that, yes, I was absolutely serious.
“Well, okay, great!” he said. “Be in my office Monday morning.”
Without any idea where Spencer was leading us or whether there was a hidden agenda, I drove back to Southern California to meet with him and gather every little bit of insight and advice I possibly could from this man who had walked the same path that Lisa and I wanted to embark on.
Our meeting lasted all of ten minutes, during which time he handed me a stack of policy and procedure manuals for his rehab centers, and said, “Here. This is how you open a treatment center.” In fact, he shared proprietary information with me, to the dismay of his staff.
“Getting licensed is one of the hardest things to do in this business,” he said, handing me some more paperwork. “Here’s how you do it.” I stood there, gracious but in shock, holding the growing stack of 3-ring binders Spencer’s kept piling on me. When he’d handed over everything, he said, in a tone that sounded as if he were giving an order to an employee, “I want you to fly to Florida to see my treatment center there. Okay? I’ll be there in a few days, so I’ll see you there and we can talk some more.” And without so much as a handshake to wish me well, he was out the door to his next appointment.
“How’d it go?” Lisa asked me when I returned home later that
