My Life in the Women’s Halfway House, Part II: The Rules

“Well hello! So you made it from Colorado!” the director practically sang to me as she walked briskly from her office into the entryway. “I’m Astrid – the one who spoke to you two weeks ago. I am so glad you are here! Must’ve been some trip! Two days by train?” Astrid’s voice was bizarre and seizure inducing. It alternated between jumping and dropping an octave practically ever third word. “Yes, um, thanks. Glad to be here,” I lied as best as I could.

“You must be absolutely exhausted! We’ll try to get you settled in as quickly as possible. I have your paperwork and orientation binder ready! I just need to search your bags and go over the house structure and rules with you first, and then I’ll show you to your room.” Her schizophrenic tone was unsettling. I was starting to suspect that she used this voice in order to distract me from the disturbing fact that she was about to dig through my underwear to look for crack.

“Oh, and I see that Dolores told you about the no shoes rule – so that’s good. Here, while I pull out the legal forms, why don’t you go through your things and gather any prescription or over the counter medications you might have packed – we need to hold onto all of those things for you. If you need any medications, Nanette, your house mother, will administer them to you at the time you take them. We keep them locked up in the office for safety purposes at all other times,” Astrid explained.

Safety purposes? What does that mean? Like, Attack of the Tylenol PM or something? I found this rule to be confusing and I had some questions. It could not possibly mean that I was not allowed to carry around Advil like she was making it sound.

“So, are we allowed to have any medications on us – like if I get sick or have a headache or something? Like Advil?” I asked. “No, no we hold onto all our residents’ meds. If you get sick you are permitted to take Thera-Flu, but that is it and we keep that in the office. We will give you Ibuprofen for a headache or any other pain issues. Also, if you take prescription medications, we will eventually need to see a paper scrip from your doctor for verification and we will handle all of those, too. But, you aren’t allowed to have any drugs on your person at any times unless they have been given to you in advance of a day pass,” she explained.

None of this made any sense. I mean, where is the risk in carrying around an antibiotic? Are my pills somehow going to go rogue, grow arms, and then attempt to strangle me to death? Doubtful. This rule felt so strange. Plus, what the hell was a “day pass?” She had just made it sound like I needed some sort of permission to be gone for the day or something.

“You also should know that over the counters with any kind of mood-altering properties are not allowed to be taken at any time during your stay here – no Nyquil, Dayquil, etc. If you are caught with these kinds of meds, you’ll be asked to leave. We have a zero tolerance policy for alcohol and drugs – and this, of course, includes any legal medications that might have mind-altering properties. Oh, and I believe we discussed this, but, just as a reminder, we do reserve the right to conduct random UA’s and breathalyzers and to search your room at any time,” she said sternly. “The sobriety of our women is our number one safety concern. And you girls need to learn responsibility when it comes to your medications.”

Again, these rules really confused me. I had done nothing to make her think that I could not manage to refrain from drinking or using drugs without the threat of their sampling my bodily fluids. Plus, I wasn’t planning on OD’ing on some sort of over-the-counter pain reliever. Furthermore, what was that whole “you girls need to learn responsibility” comment about? She could not have been more condescending if she tried. Condescension aside, what bothered me most about this comment was that, in labeling the residents as “you girls” and making sweeping generalizations about our abilities to be responsible, Astrid drew a very clear line in the sand. And “we girls” were on the untrustworthy, deviant side of it, and she was on the civilized and reputable side of it. Her comment was a slap in the face.

Nevertheless, I kept my growing uneasiness to myself. “Okay, so are cough drops okay?” I asked, genuinely needing clarification. I did not want to find myself homeless in San Francisco over a cough drop – even if, in this moment, homelessness seemed like it would’ve been a step up from living in this house. “Of course cough drops are fine, so long as they don’t have any alcohol in them” she shot back curtly, as if she thought I was trying to be difficult or mock her draconian meds policies. I was a bit startled that Astrid so abruptly switched from sing-talking mode to normal talking mode. And my surprise came out in my response to this new stern/reactive version of Astrid. “Oh, I would never use an alcohol cough drop,” was all I could say, despite seriously doubting the fact that such a thing even existed.

It was during this first exchange surrounding the house’s rules on medications that I realized that the in-person Astrid was a little different than the over the phone Astrid I had spoken to a few weeks prior.

I first spoke to Astrid about two weeks prior to embarking on my journey to San Francisco. The house protocol required Astrid to conduct a mandatory interview with me over the phone in order to make sure I was an acceptable fit for the house and before I could be accepted into its program. During this phone interview, Astrid described what my life would be like in the house and gave me a general description of the typical house resident. Of course, because our phone interview was only about twenty minutes long, she really only had time to tell me about the house in broad terms. After our phone interview, I understood that life in the house would be a bit more structured environment than the kind I was used to, but it sounded definitely manageable.

Over the phone Astrid was warm and genuine. I really liked her. She made me feel very good about moving halfway across the country to live in a sober women’s home with 13 strangers. However, our brief conversation about the house’s medication rules had given me enough information to conclude that I did not like the real-life Astrid and I definitely did not trust her.

As an initial matter, I got the feeling that in-person Astrid looked down on the girls in the house, myself included. Additionally, I could tell that in-person Astrid was a bit sensitive and quick to perceive that others were threatening her authority. I got a strong sense that she was insecure in her role as the lead authority figure for the house. It has always been my experience that authority figures who are afflicted with insecurities and who are, consequently, hypersensitive to perceived attacks on their authority, are dangerous and unpredictable. They’re the kind of people who you have to always be careful with – keep a safe distance, never get too comfortable, and do not trust them. You need to watch out because, if there’s a convenient bus around, you’ll find yourself under it in two seconds. I filed all of these observations away in my brain in my new “Astrid” file and proceeded through the rest of my orientation accordingly.

Unfortunately, given my gut read on her, I now realized that I could not ask the question I most desperately wanted to ask – what were my new roommates like? Additionally, in light of the fact that she was registering as a Phony McFake in my brain, I began wondering if Astrid had been totally honest when describing the house’s program and residents to me during our phone interview.

A few weeks earlier, I was given the impression that my time in San Francisco would find me taking yoga classes with my roommates and meditating in circles while holding hands. We’d cook nutritious meals together and maybe I’d even lose weight. I was imagining eating homemade sushi with my future roommates and sharing the details of our most recent past-life regression hypnotherapy sessions and giggling and delighting in our beautiful sober lives. Were my ideas about what this experience would look like all totally off? I was now even more nervous than before I had arrived at the house.

I did not express any of these troubling concerns out loud, though. Instead, I silently fished out my one medication – a bottle of Advil – and handed it over. “Good. Now let’s go over the rules.”

The next hour and a half saw me trying to absorb the weekly schedule for the house and the many, many rules that would come to govern every contour, nook, cranny, and detail of my life from that moment forward up until the time when I finally moved out.

First there was the house schedule and it was daunting. The schedule was incredibly structured and restrictive. Monday through Thursday, I was to be home from my future full-time job for dinner by 6 pm. If I was late, I would be put on restriction. When you are on restriction, you are not allowed to leave the house at all except to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and, even then, you must have another resident with you when you go. Nanette, our house mother, was in charge of preparing dinner on weekdays. Friday through Sunday we were on our own.

And mandatory dinner was just the beginning of our weekday evenings. After dinner on Mondays we had to attend the in-house AA meeting from 7 – 8 pm that was open to women in the public. Tuesday nights we had group therapy with a certified addictions counselor who had been coming to the house on a weekly basis for over five years. On Wednesday nights, all of us were required to attend a specific AA women’s meeting a few blocks from the house.

Thursday night we had yet another AA meeting at the house, but this one was just us residents. During Thursday’s meeting, we were to read from AA literature and relate the reading to the events of our lives that week. Finally, Sunday nights were reserved for the house meeting. The house meeting was when we would get together to discuss house issues, assign who would perform which chores for the following week (as an aside, I managed to call dibs on the “cleaning all of the bathrooms in the house” chore EVERY house meeting during my tenure at the house – this sounds gross, but, secretly, it’s the easiest chore there is and no one but me ever figured that out), and air any grievances we might have with one another in a mediated setting. Finally, on Friday and Saturday nights we were free, although we were strongly encouraged to use this time to attend, you guessed it, AA meetings.

And speaking of AA, we were to attend an AA meeting every day for the first ninety days we were at the house and five per week thereafter. But, we weren’t trusted to fulfill this daily requirement on our own, though, so the house required us to provide evidence of our attendance.

Every week we were given a lined piece of paper that served as our “meeting log.” Following each meeting we attended, we were to get the leader of the meeting to write the name of the specific AA meeting and the leader’s signature confirming that we did, indeed, go to the meeting documented by our meeting logs. Meeting logs were to be turned in every Sunday night in order to be reviewed by Nanette. Failure to attend the requisite number of meetings would render you liable for restriction or for being expelled from the house.

Additionally, we were required to provide the house with proof that we had obtained an AA sponsor, an AA service commitment, and that we were actively working the AA steps within two weeks of arriving at the house. If you are unfamiliar with AA and what all of that means, it essentially means that you had to take up residence in AA’s butthole and entrench yourself in there as deeply as possible.

There were even more fun rules designed to save the residents from themselves. Every time I left the house, I was to “sign out” in a binder that was kept on a table by the front door, stating my name, where I were going, and when I would return. Likewise, when I returned, I was to “sign in” in order to document that I was back in the house. Failure to either sign in or out would land you on restriction. Curfew was 9 pm Sunday through Thursday and 10 pm on weekends. Violating this generous curfew would, of course, land you on restriction.

In general, the rules seemed to be designed to ensure that the residents would spend a lot of time at the house and a lot of time with each other – especially in the beginning. For example, for the first month, you could not leave the house without having another resident with you. And, even when you had accumulated some time under your belt at the house, you still could only be away for a maximum of four hours, aside from when you were working. I guess their logic behind the four-hour rule was designed to anticipate and prevent the kinds of bad things that happened in Disney’s Cinderella. Except, in this house, they did not expect you to turn into a pumpkin after four hours outside of the house. Instead, you would immediately start giving out blowjobs in exchange for heroin.

However, chin up buttercup. Things wouldn’t always be so grim, Astrid explained. If, after three months, I had proven that I was sufficiently responsible, I could receive an “all-day pass.” This meant I would be allowed to be away from the house from the morning all the way up until curfew. And, even better, if I managed to exhibit good behavior for four months, I would possibly be eligible for an overnight pass. Both types of passes were granted only once per week and only after you submitted a detailed request that included where you were going, who you would be with, what you were planning on doing, and detailed contact information.

Finally, there were the house’s rules governing employment. As far as employment went, I was expected to obtain full-time employment as soon as possible and provide proof of such to Astrid. Until I obtained a full-time job, I had to engage in a full-time job search. I would be required to provide evidence of this job search by submitting to the house mother, Nanette, a detailed form listing every job I applied for that day, at what time, and in what location.

If I did not submit a minimum of 6 applications or resumes a day during my job search, I would be placed on restriction. During my job search, I would be required to call into the house and check-in with Nanette every two hours informing her of my location and activities. After I obtained full-time employment, the every two-hour check-in call rule no longer applied, but I would still be encouraged to check-in during my lunch hour. Last, but certainly not least, I could only search for jobs that would not interfere with the requirements that I be home for dinner by 6 pm and that I attend all of the nightly meetings or therapy sessions.

By the end of orientation, I was a little stunned by the extent of the house’s control over me and many of the rules made me incredibly uncomfortable. I could not think of a time, even when I was a little child, when my life had been governed by such an extensive list of rigid rules. Even when I was fetus I was allowed to be away from my house for more than four hours! I did not know how I would survive the coming months. I prayed that, given how much time I was going to have to spend with them, my new roommates would be normal. So many dismal thoughts were swirling around my head.

However, while my mind was abuzz with a seemingly infinite number of questions and conclusions as I attempted to absorb everything that had just been relayed to me, one thing I did not think of was the fact that maybe each and every rule enacted by this house was warranted – either because I would directly benefit from following the rule or because the rule would ensure that my roommates were not doing things such as using the house as a prostitution home-base (which happened more than once, for the record) or smuggling drugs into the house by shoving meth-filled water balloons up their vaginas (again, not an isolated incident). What I should have appreciated in that moment is that my number one most important question – what were my roommates like? – had already been answered by Astrid over the course of the last hour and a half. It’s just that she answered not by uttering a single sentence, but by explaining an hour and a half’s worth of absurd and bizarre rules that, to me, were totally foreign.

Why does any organization have rules? Because it needs to establish that certain things are okay and certain things are not okay when operating within the organization. Why does an organization address specific not okay things in its rules? Because people associated with the organization have done said not okay things with some regularity and these specific not okay things are routine threats to said organization. The last time I checked, churches don’t have rules providing that church attendees will be randomly subjected to urine analyses during church services. We had that rule for a reason. And that fact, somehow, totally escaped me.