Marion was doing so much better since she’d cleaned up her act. She hadn’t wrecked any more cars, stolen anything (except for a few minor lifts), hadn’t been arrested, and didn’t do any more coke, heroin, crack, booze, or pot. The new Marion was way too busy for all that.
Her troublesome old friends were out of the picture. There were new friends now, the ones she met at group therapy and meetings. She also had a psychologist and psychiatrist. They weren’t exactly friends per se; they were paid to listen whenever she started to feel something.
Marion had denied, cried, begged, and fought going to rehab for years. It’s a good thing, too. In the old days you actually had to go through withdrawal. From what she could figure, it was pretty ugly with all that sweating, shaking, denying, crying, begging, and fighting. Thank God it was different now. Ever since Betty Ford made rehab popular in the 80s, so many treatment facilities had popped up that they had to compete fiercely for business. Marion arrived at the point of considering rehab just as the pharmaceutical industry got involved and all the ads were about making detox as comfortable as possible. Seems there was a little pill (or two or three) to smooth it out. No pain, no pain. It was just what Marion was looking for.
Not only could Marion have an easy detox, but there was also the choice of prime locations, from Malibu to Belize or Antigua, if the sunny beach scene suited her mood. If she was feeling more natural and outdoorsy, there was Vermont or the Canadian Rockies. And for the completely desperate or ill informed, there were even treatment centers in Vegas or Jersey. The funny thing was that Marion hadn’t had a mood, interest, or feeling in years. She’d been too stoned to notice her surroundings. But there was her image to uphold, so she went to the beach, took her smoothing out pills, and got a great tan.
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