Page 15 - SilverLinings Issue 5

No better ambassador. (A former patient’s story.)
Anthony Salvati is a volunteer 12-step program group leader at Silver Hill Hospital, but he knows what it is like to be on the other side as a participant.
Anthony Salvati is a volunteer 12-step program leader at Silver Hill Hospital. His affable demeanor endears Anthony to those in the group session.
But Anthony wasn’t always the one giving the council and guidance. Nearly two decades ago, Anthony was one of the participants. He came to Silver Hill Hospital addicted to drugs and alcohol. He was so inspired by the treatment and the group sessions that he told himself he would be a group leader one day. Now retired, Anthony is making good on his word as he drives more than an hour each way to lead group sessions on weekends.
Since his treatment at Silver Hill Hospital, Anthony has been sober for 19 years. He loves to golf, enjoys time with his wife, and is living a peaceful retirement.
But Anthony’s life wasn’t always like that. He had to hit his own low point first.
That day came on November 3, 2003, when he stood in his brother-in-law’s backyard with a large rock in his hand. Anthony knew his brother-in-law recently had surgery and suspected he had some extra painkillers he could give to Anthony. When his brother-in-law did not answer the door, Anthony was going to take matters into his own hands. Anthony was addicted, and he was desperate.
But he did not smash a window with the rock. Instead, he dropped the rock and drove himself to the nearest emergency room.
“I looked at that rock, dropped it to the ground and said, ‘What the hell is this? I’m going to break into someone’s house?’ That’s not the type of person I am,” Anthony recalls. “I couldn’t do it. Whatever moral fiber I had left wouldn’t let me do it.”
After a night in the ER, the hospital discharged Anthony and recommended outpatient therapy. Anthony knew his situation was dire and insisted on a longer stay in the ER,
even though he knew the withdrawal symptoms were going to be harsh.
“I thought, if I leave now, I’ll be dead in two weeks,” Anthony says. “So, I went back. I knew I would have been just another statistic that fell through the cracks.”
After a few tough nights in the ER, Anthony checked into Silver Hill Hospital. He stayed the first night in the Acute Care Unit for observation. The ACU stay was necessary because Anthony said he had considered driving into a tree at 70 miles per hour instead of driving to the hospital that fateful night.
Anthony went to Klingenstein House for the duration of his stay at Silver Hill. At the time, Klingenstein House was for addiction services. It was where Anthony heard a story that changed his life.
A group session leader who looked healthy and happy shared his story of addiction. He said he was an investment banker in New York City but was also an alcoholic. One night, the group leader said, he woke up in Central Park covered in newspapers.
“I couldn’t put that guy in that scenario. I just couldn’t,” Anthony said. “It was so far removed from the person I was seeing. I thought to myself, I’d like to be like that again.”
Anthony said he had an interesting life before drugs and alcohol took over. He loved music and went to dozens of concerts with his friends. He was good at sports and liked to read. Anthony took his first drink at age 14 to celebrate finishing eighth grade.
“That feeling I got from my first taste of alcohol, I kind of chased that feeling for the rest of my life,” he says.
Anthony continued to pursue his interests, finished school, got married and landed a job at Yale. All the while, drugs and alcohol remained a part of his life. As Anthony says, anything he did “co-existed” with his addiction.
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SILVER LININGS MAGAZINE | ISSUE FIVE | 2022