Tag Archives: AA

The $1300 Pee Test

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I lived abroad for one year once, and during that time I learned to appreciate the perks of having been born and raised in the U.S. Engaging in a healthy discussion about opposing viewpoints, for instance, didn’t really happen in my host country. Opportunities for women’s advancement, as well, were certainly lacking in my host country as compared to the U.S.

Then there’s that “purple mountains’ majesty”—it exists.   I used to live on one of those old, East Coast mountains, along those ranges that change color with the seasons and even the time of day. Sometimes they do look purple, in certain shadow. In the U.S., one can drive a car for twenty-four hours, from those old ranges in the east to the newer ones out west, and still be in the U.S., and not even near a coastline.  That’s kind of awesome.

But I’m already running out material…

What else? Well, lines certainly aren’t long, not by third-world standards, anyway. You can wait in some semblance of a line in the U.S. and eventually get to the end of it and receive some kind of answer to your question (unless it’s the Department of Motor Vehicles). The answer isn’t always satisfactory, but you get one.

And that’s how far I got in my “perks of living the U.S. inventory” before settling for not-so-third-worldish line organization. There’s something wrong with this picture. Obviously, there is, or I wouldn’t be struggling to come up with five perks of living here, the fifth one being kind of a non-perk because one can compare any social or cultural institution to the worst the world has to offer, but that doesn’t make said institution an efficient one or even a good one.

It must be my mood today that got me thinking about how many things actually suck about living in the U.S. I’ve been attending the odd assortment of AA and SMART recovery meetings, the latter being a free hour or so of cognitive behavioral therapy, which definitely appeals to my pragmatic side. I’m following through with what I said I would do and getting help. Isn’t that what my closest friends and family have suggested I do for twenty years or more? To get help?

Yesterday, I got a bill in the mail for the remaining costs of that sham of a treatment center I visited for one evaluation. I was in the place for three hours—I took a breathalyzer and a pee test, then I talked to a zombie doctor for another hour or so, and then I received a summons to arrive at 9:00 sharp the next morning for five weeks of treatment. After paying an initial $160 upfront, the remaining costs of that afternoon, after my insurance kicked in a healthy sum, was $605. That pee test alone cost $1300.

This treatment center represents my view of how the U.S. works. There’s a lot of wealth floating around, and our business and institutions thrive on it—charging insurance companies $1300 for pee tests and whatnot.   The desire to “get help” in the U.S. is as profitable for some as the desire to buy the latest electronics—it’s big business. But desiring mental well-being for your own health and the sake of others around you really shouldn’t be a desire like buying the latest Samsung. It’s a need, not a desire. In the U.S., however, where everything’s for sale, there is very little difference between our basic needs and our base desires. Nothing is free, except for maybe groups like AA, and unsolicited advice from acquaintances.

In the U.S., if you’re not born into a family or a community that can provide you with opportunities, or if you’re not savvy, you will sink. Many of us do. And many of us drown. Getting that bill for the remaining costs of a $1300 pee test yesterday clearly drove that point home. Knowing that I potentially got screwed by this treatment center is enough to make me want to buy a box wine and check out for the remainder of my weekend. Perhaps last week I would have done that.

But this week, not so much. Perhaps it’s the week of sobriety whispering in my ear, “There’s so much more than anger.”  I’m going to do a few searches and make a few phone calls. Perhaps the $1300 pee test is an error.  Meantime, I still have my five perks, like the purple mountains’ majesty.  It’s a lovely morning.

 

Instead of reading this, you should probably be following the news…

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Kool Aid Man… but the news is terrifying, so let’s talk about the state of mental health treatment in the United States instead:

I gave it a shot. I dutifully called up a recommended treatment center, I filled out a stack of papers and answered hundreds of questions about my personal habits. I gave them everything except my social security number, which they asked for, but which I declined to give. And what did I get in return? A bad, bad feeling in my gut.

That’s how it began anyway, with a bad feeling in my gut. Since this brief encounter with a profit-motivated addiction treatment facility, my feelings have evolved.

Have you ever felt that mixture of sadness, foolishness, and indignation after you’ve realized that someone is just trying to sell you the Kool Aid?

(It stings much worse when the peddler is a friend—For instance, I have a very good friend who started getting weird about a year ago, seemed to be trying too hard to make me happy. I attended one of her life coaching sessions, mainly to show my support for her newfound bliss, and I thought it was quite useful. Fast forward about six months, and I’m on the phone with her, trying to explain my need for peace, and she offers me a special private life coaching series, taught by hers truly, for the low price of $3000. Enter bad, bad feeling in the my gut—but I digress…)

 

I think the majority of mental health professionals in the U.S. mean well, but they’re just little people in a much bigger, much more powerful system. I think this judgey humorless robot doctor who now possesses a lengthy checklist that vaguely represents a lifetime of my impulsive behavior and alcohol and even sometimes drug use probably means well, but to put this whole stream-of-consciousness post into simpler terms, “She don’t know me.”

After getting steamrolled through her reductive questionnaire, which now, unfortunately, will become a part of my permanent record—there to fuck me if I want to buy life insurance or join the police force or what-have-you in the future—I waited in a very calming room on a very cushy couch while she scuttled off down the hall to consult with some other “professionals” with administrative-type titles about a recommended treatment plan for me. I never actually saw these people who attempted to decide my fate, and now I wonder if they existed at all. Perhaps, my charmless robot doctor just took a trip to the loo and read a magazine for a half an hour while I wondered about gravity of my “condition.”

When she recommended a treatment plan, a very expensive and time-consuming plan that would require me to spend every day of the next five weeks attending group therapy and doing yoga at the center—this is after I explicitly told her that if she recommended such a plan, I would not do it, that if she couldn’t offer a less-intrusive outpatient program, then we were just wasting our time (and my money)—I told her I needed time to think about it and discuss it with my husband.

Dr. Robot then handed me another stack of papers and told me I could discuss my decision with some other professional (whom I had never met and whose phone number I never received) when I came back next morning for “processing.” Man, this bitch was itching for my signature.

As you probably already figured out, I didn’t sign and I never went back. Like the time I slipped out of that weird job interview in the nondescript office building, but unlike the time I bought the timeshare, I didn’t drink the Kool Aid.

Sadly, I think that if this doctor had been more charming (or possessed any people skills at all), I might be sitting in a costly treatment center right now, costing my family so much more money than just insurance deductibles for child care and animal boarding, losing a potential new job, and losing and the job I already have because I’d be scheduled to do yoga at same time I was scheduled to teach. Since my stepkids’ mom is in charge of the neighborhood social committee, everyone I know would also know I was in rehab. NOPE, nope, nope. I’ll explore other options.

Even AA is starting to look good to me right now. Those people might be trying to sell me an ideology that I don’t entirely agree with, but they’re not asking for my money. I’d rather join a cult for free than join a group therapy treatment that costs thousands of dollars.

Ah, the things in this country that should be a part of our basic rights as human beings—basic health care, mental health care, addiction treatment—are all treats for the wealthy… But I digress again, and if you’d read this far, I’ve already taken too much of your precious time.  Thank you, and Namaste.