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The work is good because it helps you pass the malilla. During the late summer of 1999, I landed at the Rescue Mission of El Paso. The mission is located right across the river from Colonia Felipe Angeles in Juárez. After Laura dropped me off at the bridge, I walked to El Paso and checked into the mission. Upon my arrival, I completed an intake interview with a counselor there named Klaus. Klaus ran a recovery program at the mission, so I admitted to him that I was strung out and would surely be sicker than hell by morning. That night I slept fairly well, but the next day, the withdrawal caught up with me. An ambulance took me from the mission to Providence Memorial Hospital. An English doctor in the emergency room there told me in disgust that in his country, junkies got locked up in jail and had to kick cold turkey. While he seemed to think that I deserved the same treatment, he did give me something that calmed me down for a while. I called Klaus, and he picked me up in front of the hospital. Whatever medicine they gave me temporarily relieved my withdrawal pains, so I was able to eat dinner at the mission, attend a recovery group, and sleep that night. The next day, I was sick again, and I took another ambulance ride, this time to Thomason Hospital. The doctors there gave me another shot of some medicine that enabled me to sleep that night. That evening , the mission sent a van to pick me up and take me back. The next few days were hell. I couldn’t sleep, my whole body hurt, and I got up in the middle of the night and took a shower just to calm my aching bones. The medicine that the hospitals gave me helped me ride through this withdrawal because it allowed me to eat and sleep during the first two days. That reprieve had given me enough energy to fight through the rest of the withdrawal. It normally takes about a month to withFour A s s i m i l at ion s 46 Border Junkies draw and begin to feel somewhat normal again. I didn’t leave the mission at all for the following week and slept only about two hours a night. During that time, I limped around the mission like a senior citizen . I felt old, my bones hurt, and I didn’t have any idea what my next move would be. A few days later, one of my friends from Juárez showed up at the mission. It was Marcos from Felipe Angeles. I knew Marcos from the days when I had lived with Laura and hung around with Víctor. Marcos and I had shot dope together, but compared to me, he looked clean and in good health. Marcos was happy to see me, and he helped me sort out some of the madness and confusion that I was going through. He told me that he had detoxed cold turkey at the mission before and that I should just take it easy for a few more days. Once I felt better, he would see whether he could get me a job working with him. Marcos worked construction, and it seemed odd that as sick as I was, I was actually looking forward to the prospect of working as a helper on a construction crew. The idea gave me something to aim for, something that could get me up and out of that place, something that would put money in my pockets. Marcos encouraged me to eat and to force myself to push on through this stage of my withdrawal. I still didn’t have all of my energy back yet, but the thought of doing something new gave me the drive I needed to keep on going. Yet I knew that before I could go to work anywhere, I needed to be able to at least accomplish the daily routine required by the mission. The Rescue Mission is the kind of place where people never plan to end up. Life just throws them for a few rounds, and they take a fall and wind up there. Once, back when I was a truck driver for North American Van Lines, I picked up a small shipment at what later became the mission; a local moving company had used the building to store furniture . Since I had been...

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