I wish I could say I went in undercover as a reporter. That’s not the case. I was a bona fide patient. Gosnold. Detox. After a month of wine and depression that were the result of accumulated hits to ego and body, the dam broke and I spiraled downward.

On the brink, my friends and family rallied and got me to a bed at the facility in Falmouth. After two days of sleeping, my blood alcohol level went from .28 (highly dangerous) to 0. That’s when the learning began. I was brought into the general population. The crazy funny thing that happened was I had just gotten off six months of crutches and canes, and was finally walking after getting a new hip. They gave me a drug to prevent alcohol-induced seizures (librium) that rendered my legs useless. They gave me a walker. Maybe I was supposed to be the test guy for walking aides this year. So I entered the group shuffling along with the walker. But the circumstance opened my eyes to what happens there among the alcoholics, the junkies, the opioid addicts and others: Extreme compassion.

Everywhere I shuffled there was always a willing hand to open a door, get a plate of food, move a chair. People watch out for each other here. There is a reason for that, they all are suffering. Not just suffering of the mind but more suffering of the body. Withdrawal. The first prerequisite in this path is courage. The second, strength. Most of the group were under 30, men and women. These were the heavy drug users, heroin, opioids, etc. A majority of them had been through this before, so coming in they knew what they were getting into. Or trying to get out of.

In the main lounge there were people kicking just about everything, and usually there were three or four people lying on couches seemingly comatose. The people around kept a steady watch and occasionally went to the person to ask if they needed anything. There was no judgment here and the person on the couch could feel safe, surrounded by compatriots.

Islanders going about their routines may hear of the opioid crisis or see a homeless alcoholic on the street or a skinny crackhead at Cumby’s — and that is the extent of their exposure. Sadly oftentimes these people are labeled as miscreants. “How could they do that to themselves, that could never happen to me.”

At Gosnold there is a courtyard where people are allowed to smoke. In the courtyard you heard and traded stories.

“What are you here for?”

“Booze.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“How’s it going?”

“Getting better, been here four days, came in with a .28”

“I got you beat, I was .30”

“Death’s door man, what were you drinking?”

“A handle a day, vodka, for a couple of weeks. You?”

“I’ve been on a wine bender for a month.”

“How you doing?”

“Better.”

The stories are not all what you would think, often laced with self-deprecating humor. Like the three women sitting around recalling all the techniques they used to get booze, or how they hid it, how much they drank. They laugh and laugh. It is a healing, honest laughter, one of acceptance and no longer needing to hide anything. They are among compatriots.

I could relate to the alcohol stories, those generated mostly by people of a certain age, like myself. But the stories of the kids amazed and perplexed me. Growing up in the sixties and seventies, heavy drug use was more or less limited to hippies and bikers and inner city junkies. Here there were well-dressed and well-spoken people. Everyone mingled and all were in various stages of disrepair. One of the components of getting off drugs is to use drugs, stepping down slowly. But often the secondary drugs cause illness, like the librium for me. It wasn’t uncommon to be sitting around the picnic table one day with a guy who was up, though not running, who the next day would find himself at his place at the table stretched out, head in hands, only to surface once in awhile.

“Hey man, can I bum a butt?”

“Sure man, here you go.”

They talked of needles, perks, benzos. Often I had no idea what they were talking about, so I would ask and the answers were always honest, open and frank. I was a comrade. When I went in I was in a pretty scary state, and people saw. And after four days or so, back on my feet though propped up with my walking device as I shuffled through the hallway, invariably people would say: “Wow, you’re looking much better!” That felt good but made me wonder what the state of my near devastation really looked like. One of the lessons in all this was humility — and again the compassion that everyone had for each other. The girl who walked around like a zombie for days with a friend accompanying her was greeted by all with kindness. One day she seemed better and I was next to her and someone cracked a joke and she smiled. I hadn’t had much contact with her but to say hello in passing, and those times it wasn’t clear if she heard me, but this time I leaned toward her and said: “So nice to see you smile.” She replied with a broader smile.

A big part of the experience are large and small group meetings, often with an emphasis on AA. Topics range from the science of addiction to spirituality — meant to be nonsecular but leaning toward a Christian perspective. After AA meetings we held hands and said the Our Father, a prayer I have long said over and over again as meditation. We find solace where we can, but it was clear that secular religion was a stumbling block for some. We were given popsicle sticks with words like courage, triggers and honesty. One girl got her stick and the group leader asked her what it said.

“This one is definitely the wrong one for me,” she said. “It’s crap. Spirituality.” And she threw her stick on the table in front of her. I couldn’t help but speak up, because being a spirit in a body has long been something I have contemplated and studied. My entry was with Catholicism, and with experience I have come to know that God is a word that throws people off. I also have come to know that we are all expressions of a creator, a source unknowable except by just being. But I wander . . . so I piped up and told the girl what I have come to know in hopes that it would help her.

“You are a spirit, forget all the religions, forget all that, that’s all over, you’re a spirit and that’s all there is to it. We aren’t humans having a spiritual experience, we’re spirits having a human experience.”

In her circle she hadn’t heard that before, and from her slump on the couch she thanked me. It was evident that the patients were all strong and loving spirits, we all had just hit some huge bumps in the road. One morning I did wax secular. I thought that if Jesus was here he would most likely be hanging out with these people. I mentioned it to a woman nearby and she said, “I’m very spiritual and I think Jesus is here.” It reminded us of the poster of a single person’s footprints in the sand. The person says to Jesus, why did you abandon me? And Jesus replies, I didn’t abandon you, those are my footsteps as I carried you.

On the Cape and Islands, as in many isolated regions in the world, winters are long, quiet and financially stressful. Alcohol is prevalent and often joked about. It’s accepted. The people that escape this most readily tend to be those with avocations that require solitude, such as artists — people who have recognized their passions and pursue them. I have many passions, but they were usurped as I said by ego and depression and alcohol, and they were slipping away. That’s what I noticed here. The kids’ passions were more centered on getting high. I shared this in the group, saying:

“Find your passion, even if you are using, look around and see what interests you and go for it. Don’t be afraid to take the leap. None of us were born knowing how to do anything and there is no such thing as a mistake, what was that saying by Edison inventing the light bulb?” Someone supplied the answer: “I didn’t fail 10,000 times, I found 10,000 ways how not to do it.”

Many people I met have been in detox numerous times and still have the strength to come back. Alcohol and drugs surely are strong demons, the exorcism of which takes more than a priest. It takes a community, a safe place of nonjudgment and proper medical treatment. And it doesn’t hurt when the food is restaurant quality.

Gosnold is such a place and my time there not only put me on a healing path but taught me more about human kindness and understanding, which I hadn’t expected.

As I left, I realized that I too had lost my passion, mainly for music — so I decided to sing a song for the folks in the courtyard. It was a song about lost love and whaling ships. When I was through someone came up and told me I had to sing to the group that was meeting soon. Bags packed, ready to blast off into a new life, I went to the main lounge and announced: “Okay people, I’m off but I have a song for you.” I sang the song again, this time to the whole group, holding back tears and at the same time finding joy. As I went down the hall to check out, I ran into one of the staff.

“How you doing man, ” he asked.

“Better.” I replied.

Joe Keenan is a musician, writer, baker and roofer living in West Tisbury.