There are days when I find myself forgetting, about addiction treatment. There are days when I catch myself taking it for granted, and forgetting about the journey from where I Was to where I Am: days when it’s almost like addiction treatment never happened; like I’ve never been anything but Healthy; that I didn’t damn near lose every last piece of Me.

Addiction treatment was the best thing that ever happened to me. By a mile. If you or someone you care about is a victim of addiction, you shouldn’t need to be told the truth: shouldn’t need to be told that addiction ruins lives, and that addiction treatment is your last best chance to rediscover the world as you used to know it, and yourself as you used to be.

Someday, if you’re lucky, you’ll catch yourself taking it all for granted. And when you do…pray that you do!…you’ll get down on years to say thank you for having ever had the strength to make addiction treatment work for you.

Those alcohol rehab patients who get better in alcohol rehab centers rediscover life as they used to know it, and themselves as they used to be. Alcohol rehab, when it works, turns the world into a place worth being in, and makes tomorrow a thing worth looking forward to. Alcohol rehab, when it works, makes you forget that alcoholism was ever even real at all.

And it’s hard to imagine that anything could ever be more important than that.

Remember though that no alcoholic can ever hope to get sober without help. Healing takes time, and commitment—two virtues to which alcoholism lays pretty thorough waste. Alcohol rehab centers, as might be expected, are in the business of imposing patience and dedication are on their patients…or at least imposing patience and dedication on their patients until those patients have recovered enough to impose patience and dedication on themselves.

Then, and only then, can alcohol rehab healing really happen. And believe me: If you or someone you care about is a victim of alcoholism, it will be well worth the wait.

Some folks will tell you that the day you check into drug rehab is the first day of the rest of your life. Of course, they leave out the flipside of the equation: Your first day of drug rehab is also the last day of the addict in you.

Every live drug rehab patient is a dead drug addict. It’s a curious way to conceptualize the thing, but it pretty well hits on the truth: When you check into an drug rehab center, you kill—or at least start killing—the old you, the part of yourself that didn’t want to do anything but use, and didn’t want to be anything but high.

Funny how no one ever seems to cry too hard at the funeral.

Drug rehab, when you really get down to it, is as much about dying as it as about being born. Sure, if you’re going to get sober, you’ve got to breathe life into a new you…but you’ve also got to make worm food out the old you, and commit yourself to keeping him buried for good.

Some ghosts, after all, are too scary to ever see the light of day.