My Life in the Women’s Halfway House, Part I: Making my Way to San Francisco

It was around 6:30 am on a cold morning in early May when my mom and my stepdad Mike took me to the train station in downtown Denver. I was half-asleep on the drive both because of the early hour and because I was trying to block out the reality of my life that morning. Once we got to the station, I would be boarding a train that would ultimately deposit me in San Francisco, California. All in all, the trip would take roughly two days. And I was not looking forward to it.

We arrived at the train station around 7:15 am and my mom and Mike helped me carry inside the two suitcases I had packed a few days before the trip. I fought back tears as my mom and Mike waved and said goodbye to me in the terminal and headed back to their car. When they were finally out of view, I was hit with a rush of overwhelming loneliness and gripping fear. I was twenty-one years old. For the most part, I had led a life in which I was comfortably nestled between the walls of either small private schools or small private liberal arts colleges. Now, I was headed to a big city where I knew no one. And I would be living with thirteen roommates who I knew nothing about.

It gave me a little comfort to remember that I had actually been to San Francisco once before. I was seven and we were taking a family vacation. My memories of the trip are fairly limited and mainly consist of driving down that really curvy steep street, taking a tour of Alcatraz, and having the urge to go to the bathroom throughout the entire week we were there. This last memory is so powerful that, even now, the thought of San Francisco makes my bladder quiver.

I had a good thirty minutes to kill before I could board my train that morning, so I sat on the church pews that served as benches in the main lobby of the terminal. When I look back on that moment now – me sitting on the wooden benches in Denver’s Union Station – I see a profoundly lost and scared girl. It’s an image that makes me wish I could duplicate myself and time travel back to sit with my twenty-one year old self while she waited for the train. I wish I could assure her that it was going to be okay.

But that morning, I was desperately worried that nothing would ever be okay again. I got out my journal and began writing down all of my worries in order to occupy myself. How had this happened? How did I get here? I started out so much better. Just ten years earlier, I was good. I was not supposed to turn out like this. Ugh. The only thing more palpable than my fear and loneliness in that moment was my confusion. Where did I go so wrong?

Fortunately, I did not get to indulge in my worry for too long. Soon my train was arriving and the boarding call was announced over the loudspeakers. I wiped away the tears that had been pooling in my eyes, grabbed my two suitcases and my backpack, and headed to the tracks. As I stood in line to board the train, I wondered how my mom and Mike could be doing this to me. How could they leave me here to go head off to some unknown place with unknown people for an unknown period of time? Looking back some 16 years later, I can see that they probably were asking themselves the same thing. My circumstances certainly looked weird and were in stark contrast to what most other kids my age were doing. But, I am pretty sure that, somewhere inside of my mom, she knew I needed to do this.

I finally boarded the train and made my way to my assigned seat. My mom and Mike had been generous when purchasing my train ticket and they got me a sleeper car so I could lie down during the nighttime parts of the journey. After getting settled in, I took one of the ten boxes of cigarettes I had stashed in my backpack the night before and headed out to find the smoking car. I had recently taken up smoking. This proved to be a really smart decision in light of this train trip. I had decided that the only way I was going to get through the next two days would be by chain smoking with fellow smokers in the smoking car. And, as it turns out, this is exactly what I did for the next two days as I was traveling across the country.

At around 11:30 in the morning two days later, the train finally pulled into the station in downtown San Francisco. I looked out the window and saw the city. There was so much color, life, activity, energy and it was everywhere. Things were spinning and I was experiencing sensory overload. I was becoming really dizzy. Not helping matters was the fact that I smelled horrible. After spending two days in the smoking car on a train, you emerge with a scent that is maybe like what an ashtray who has just finished having makeup sex with a sweaty arm pit would smell like.

After getting off the train and collecting my suitcases, I took off my backpack and unzipped the front pocket. I grabbed the folded up piece of yellow legal paper tucked safely at the bottom of the pocket. I unfolded the paper to look up the address and directions for where I was supposed to go. Luckily, upon exiting the train I had spotted a line of cabs waiting for passengers.

“Yes, could you please take me to 837 18^th Avenue?” I asked the cab driver. “Oh, out in the Richmond district huh?” he responded. “I guess so. I am not really familiar with this area,” I said like a deer in the headlights. “Oh, well, in that case, welcome to the city. You’ll like the Richmond district. It’s nice and, uh, a little slower out there,” he explained. “Oh okay. Uhh … good. That’s good.” I said eyes huge and glazed over. The cab driver could sense I was definitely out of my element. “Well, don’t worry. We’ll get you where you’re going” he said as turned on his blinker and pulled onto King Street.

About forty-five minutes later, we pulled up in front of a beautiful three-story Victorian house. The house was baby blue with a pink and white trim and it had a large front porch with five or six steps that led down to the sidewalk. “Here you go. 837 18^th Avenue.” “Yes, I guess this is it” I said hesitantly. After the driver took my suitcases out of the trunk and carried them up the steps for me, I handed him some cash and thanked him for the ride and his kindness. “Oh no problem. Enjoy San Francisco,” he replied. And, just as he was pulling away, he stuck his head of the driver’s side window and looked at me. “Good luck!” he said with enthusiasm. “Thank you!” I said, mustering more enthusiasm than I had in days. I knew I would be needing some luck.

Well, so this is it, I thought. I stood in front of the Victorian and knew I had no choice but to walk up the front steps where my bags were waiting for me. I took a deep breath and headed up. I rang the doorbell and waited. A minute later, the door swung open.

“Who are you?!” said the approximately three-hundred pound African American woman who was standing in front of me dressed in a full length tropical print mumu. “Ummm. I’m Julie. I am supposed to move in here today.” I replied a little surprised. “Oh, well girl you better get in here then! They stop taking new girls early on Fridays,” the woman said. “I’m Dolores. Been here about three weeks. Just trying to get off paper, you know? My lawyer Johnny Cochran is helping me right now and you’ll see. I’m not going back to prison – no sir.” “Oh, okay. Well that’s good,” I said trying to be as normal as possible in light of the fact that she had just claimed that the attorney for the O.J. Simpson trial was her personal representative. “And did I hear her say prison?” I wondered. The reality of my circumstances was sinking in.

“Oh, you’ll want to leave those right there” Dolores told me as I was bringing in my two suitcases. “Leave em by the office. They’re going to want to search those before they let you take them upstairs to your room.” Ouch – another reality stab to the stomach. Other than the airport, I had never been anywhere where the people in charge have to search your belongings upon your arrival. What did this even mean? Did people bring dangerous things into this house? Hard drugs (which I had never even seen)? Weapons?

“Oh, and last thing. Take your shoes off. No shoes allowed in the house. I’ll get Astrid and she’ll get you all checked in okay” Dolores said as she walked down the hall out of the entryway. “Oh, Okay. Uh … Thank you so much Dolores,” I said trying not to show that inside my circuitry was melting down.

I stood in the entryway waiting for the director for what seemed like an eternity. In this time, I was fidgety and trying to figure out what to do with my arms. I was hoping that the director was as nice in person as she seemed over the phone a few weeks earlier. I wasn’t sure what to expect from her or from anyone for that matter. The only thing I knew in that moment was that I was not happy to be in San Francisco.

I know what you may be thinking – San Francisco is great! Yes, San Francisco is great if you legitimately live in San Francisco. It is also great if you are legitimately visiting San Francisco. But I was doing neither of these things. You see, I was in San Francisco not because it was a great city to visit or live in, but because it was anywhere other than where I had been living before.

A funny thing happens when you go to an alcohol and drug rehab and you are twenty-one years old. The counselors consider you to be particularly high-risk for relapse when you are this young and they all but require you to commit to living in “secondary sober housing” for six to twelve months after you’ve graduated from the 28-day treatment program. They also put the fear of God into you that terrible things will happen if you immediately return to the environment in which you last drank or used drugs.

Because I wanted to get this right, for me, my counselors’ admonition meant taking a sabbatical from my little bubble liberal arts college life and heading out to San Francisco to live in women’s sober living house for a minimum of six months. That’s why I was in San Francisco and why I was standing in the entryway of this house. It was my new sober living digs for at least the next six months. And Dolores was one of my new thirteen roommates.

However, this particular sober living house, I would come to learn, was a bit different in real life than what it claimed to be on its website. It would more aptly be described as a halfway house rather than a sober living home. This house was not so much a place where women come together to learn how to live well-balanced, mindful, healthy sober lives – practicing yoga together and sipping chamomile tea. As it turns out, this house was primarily for women who were coming directly from prison for drug crimes or who were trying to dodge spending time in prison for committing drug crimes. For this reason, while I stood in the entryway waiting for Astrid to go over my paperwork and search my bags, I can say with wholehearted certainty that I was quite incorrect in thinking things could not get any weirder. Little did I know, things were just getting started.