08/10/2025
We see you 🌻
I know the exact dose it takes to sedate a body trembling from withdrawal. But last Tuesday, I learned how silence can shatter a doctor who thought they’d seen it all.
His name was Jason. On my intake form, he was “Male, 36, Alcohol Use Disorder, Detox Phase I.” I spent eight minutes with him that morning. Eight minutes to check his vitals, assess his tremors, prescribe thiamine, and record twenty-three data points in his file. He tried to tell me something — a slurred, halting story about his daughter. I nodded, said, “We’ll talk when you’re stronger,” and moved on. There’s no billing code for when you’re stronger.
Jason signed himself out the next day and was found unresponsive that evening. He left without taking any of his stuff with. As a nurse packed away his few belongings, she handed me a crumpled drawing from his locker — a stick figure family under a crooked sun, labeled “Daddy.”
It hit harder than any emergency I’ve ever worked. I knew his blood alcohol level and liver enzymes. I knew his detox protocol and his history of relapse. But I didn’t know his daughter’s name, or that she still drew pictures for him. I hadn’t treated Jason. I had managed a condition. And in doing so, I’d forgotten the man inside it.
The next day, I bought a small, black notebook. It felt like defiance.
My first patient was Gloria, mid-40s, benzodiazepine dependence. I did my exam, checked her withdrawal scale, adjusted her taper. Then I stopped at the door.
“Gloria,” I said, “tell me one thing about yourself that isn’t in this file.”
She blinked, then smiled weakly. “I used to be a florist,” she said. “I could make any bouquet look like a love letter.”
I wrote it down. Gloria: Makes flowers speak.
And I kept doing it.
Marcus: Plays guitar to stay sober one more night.
Anne: Bakes bread every Sunday for the neighbors who never knew she drank.
Thabo: Was clean for seven years before his brother’s overdose broke something in him.
The burnout I’d carried like armor began to crack. Before each session, I’d look at my notes. I wasn’t meeting “Methamphetamine Dependence, Room 5.” I was meeting Thabo — a man trying to outlive his guilt. And they felt it too. Their eyes met mine more often. They spoke with less shame. They felt seen.
Then came Nate. Twenty-one. He**in. Refusing to attend group. Labeled “resistant.” In our world, that’s shorthand for we’ve stopped hoping.
I walked in and left my tablet outside. We sat in silence for nearly two minutes. Then I said, “Those sketches on your arm — yours?”
He looked up, wary. “Yeah.”
“They’re good,” I said. “You study art?”
He shrugged. “Used to. Before I got hooked.”
We talked about line work, color, design. Not a word about he**in. When I left, he said, quietly, “I’ll go to group tomorrow.”
That night, I opened my notebook. Nate: Draws what he wants his life to look like.
The system I work in tracks every dose, every symptom, every relapse. It tells the story of how people fall apart.
My notebook tells the story of how they’re trying to come back.
We are trained to treat addiction as data and leave the connection to the Psychologists and Social Workers, but recovery is built on connection. And in a world drowning in protocols, sometimes the most healing thing you can say isn’t clinical.
It’s simple.
“I see you.”
☎ For more information:
MyRehab East: +27(0) 72 794 5130
MyRehab North: +27(0) 72 209 8352
https://myrehab.co.za/private-addiction-centre/kempton-park/rehab-treatment-centres-near-kempton-park-2/
