The Whole Picture

An Introduction

If you’re reading this, you probably know that I’m working on a manuscript. I’ve made a lot of headway with it in the past week or so. Among other things, I wrote a solid draft of an introduction, which follows. My goal was to tell the reader a bit about myself, and to explain what led me to this project.

Enjoy,

---

Late one Saturday night,

in early September of 1996, I sat in the lounge area of the medical unit at a rehab in West Palm Beach, Florida, and watched a movie with the middle-aged man who worked overnights there, on the weekends.

I arrived about an hour before, escorted by my mother, with whom I boarded a flight from Indianapolis that afternoon. The day before, I nearly drank myself to death.

---

Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash

---

Having been arrested for public intoxication in the twilight of Friday evening, I began that day in jail. I spent one sleepless night in a concrete cell, surrounded by other drunks, pondering what my life had become; understanding that what I was doing with it, at 23 years of age, was not working. As that day ended, and Saturday night faded into Sunday morning, I watched Mister Holland’s Opus with that man, Tim, in this substance abuse treatment facility a thousand miles from home.

It was a time when there was a Blockbuster in every strip mall, and as I sat at a little table, doing my intake paperwork with the detox nurse, Tim, a behavioral health tech, approached me as he made his hourly rounds through the unit.

“Hey, Tom,” he said, “on the weekends, we rent movies for the patients. We have a couple to choose from. If you’re up for it, we could watch one of them, once you finish your paperwork and get settled.”

“Sure,” I nodded.

The other option was a horror movie. At the time, my life resembled one, so I had no interest in watching another. Instead, I chose the film about another man whose life became nothing like he wanted, let alone envisioned. Even at the time, it seemed prophetic.