Think Dr. Melfi, only much younger, like 24 or 25 years old. This was my therapy apparently. I could barely remember how I had gotten in trouble (and sentenced to therapy), but I was now glad that I had.

I tried avoiding the punishment. I let the answering machine pick-up, although I always did, no matter who the caller. I liked the fact that every caller was forced to listen to my outgoing message, the opening riff of Two of Us — “I ain’t dig a pygmy…” When I finally returned the call to the administrative office, the woman retorted, “Screening your calls, eh?” I didn’t really answer her sarcastic question; I didn’t think I had to. It was my freshman year at Syracuse. I was eighteen years old.

A month or so earlier, I had been caught smoking marijuana in my dorm room. I was with my girlfriend at the time, and my best pal Joe. The lesson is do not smoke joints (or blunts) in dorm rooms, because no matter what you do or how hard you try, the smoke and smell do not go away quickly enough. It’s the paper.

Joe had left the room, but my girlfriend stayed behind. I was probably going to put-in a VHS tape of South Park or something, although it really didn’t matter since her room was down the hall. It was less than ten minutes since Joe left when the door was knocked. You could hear the sternness of the knock, nothing like the random knocking of fellow dorm-floor freshmen, planning some random trip around campus. This was serious. I cannot recall if there was a second knock, but before I had time to react, the voice came. “This is campus police.”

Okay. This is where it pays to be patient, and to play the part. The worst thing anyone could do in a situation like this (and mind you, this was not that serious of a situation: I was in my dorm room, and it smelled like pot; I wasn’t driving, I wasn’t buying or selling, I was just stoned) is over-react and panic. I grabbed what was left of the bag of marijuana — and there was probably a good amount remaining — and hid it in my closet between several layers of bath towels. A person who would’ve over-reacted would likely have thrown their stash out the window in a state of frenzy, but let’s be realistic: the campus police are not going to search your room for something they don’t even know is there. All they know is that when an RA was doing their nightly rounds, one room smelled a lot like marijuana. As far as they know, there is nothing left to be found.

I opened the door and the police walked in and started looking around. There was nothing to be seen but that didn’t stop them from being forceful as they did their job. They didn’t mess with my stuff, they didn’t yell or anything, but they let you know that they meant business, and that is something I have to respect. I noticed the head RAs were waiting in the hallway while the door was open. I didn’t look but I am sure there were plenty of hall-mates watching the happenings from the lounge that was only twenty feet away. Without hesitation, and without really thinking about any of the implications, I invited the two RAs into my room. The female RA had here arms crossed as if she were cold. She thanked me; I shut the door, sat on my bed next to my girlfriend, and waited for whatever was to come to do so.

The cops continued to look around, but whatever they were looking for was obviously not there — at least not in plain sight — so they gave up. “We both obviously know what happened here,” the one cop said to me. I nodded. “So there is no reason to fool around.” He asked me if my girlfriend was with me, and I said that she had just arrived only moments ago. I told him that I was by myself. I don’t think anyone could believe me or my story, that I was smoking a joint by myself in my dorm room, a room that included a second person, but there was nothing he could really do about it. He was in a dorm room that smelled like marijuana. There was no smoke (well, maybe a little, but it was getting drawn out the window as we dealt with this inconvenience), and there certainly was no fire. He told me the drill: that I was going to be written up, that I would have to face disciplinary action that would most likely include some kind of probation, and if I were to be caught again, it would be much worse the next time.

The cop asked me a couple more times if I had been with anyone else. He obviously wanted a larger call sheet, maybe in order to fill a quota, but probably not (this was college, for Christ’s sake). I did not take the bait. Maybe my punishment would have been more lenient, maybe not. I decided to take the fall, it was my room and there was no reason to name anyone who was not there, and I had already made an effort to protect my girlfriend. I thanked the officers and the RAs as they left the room, and the evening ended without incident.

A week or two later the phone started ringing, and the answering machine filled up. For some reason I thought I could simply avoid my duty to serve any punishment. When I finally did return the call, the woman told me to schedule an appointment with Options, the university’s substance abuse program. I decided not to. I was barely past my bout with mononucleosis, and I could not imagine the worst that could happen.

The worst occurred over winter break. I was sitting in the family room of my parents’ house when I heard yelling coming from the kitchen. It was my mother. She had just read in a letter that I was suspended from school. She instantly started threatening to send me to the local public school — the University at Buffalo — which wouldn’t be too bad if it hadn’t meant living at home. I made up a tale about getting caught drinking beer (seemed to be a reasonable storyline), and it took, but it wasn’t for a few days before things would return to normal. In order to lift my suspension I needed to schedule my Options appointment, and that didn’t take long.

I arrived at campus the second semester with a new purpose. I was no longer in the dorm, but instead on the South Campus in a two-story, two-bedroom apartment with my best pal Joe. If nothing else, smoking marijuana became a lot easier. Joe was convinced that the one-year probation was levied because I didn’t take anyone down with me. He was grateful that I stood my ground and took the fall, and I am sure he would have done the same. It was common decency.

My first interview with Dr. Melfi was the most uncomfortable. Not because of the subject matter, but because of my gamble. She asked me if I knew why I was there (in the Options program). Of course I did, it was an easy enough question, but I didn’t think she knew the story. I imagined she had simply received a list of names of people that needed “treatment,” and it was her job to get any details from the patient. So I told her that I was caught drinking beer. Simple enough; it was plausible, and most likely that was why anyone was in this program.

“It says here that you were caught smoking marijuana in your dorm.” Eep. I immediately went into fallback mode: play ignorant. “Oh yea,” I said in a drawn out fashion. I insisted that it was so long ago that I didn’t even remember the event (you know, the event that included cops in my dorm room, a suspension and probation, and a series of appointments in a substance abuse program). She probably didn’t buy it, but that didn’t matter. At least we were past the ugliness, and in the meantime, did I tell you that the therapist was a 24 or 25 year old Dr. Melfi? What a way to break up a Tuesday afternoon in snowy Syracuse.

Over the next several weeks I met with Dr. Melfi, and we talked about marijuana, alcohol and other drugs. The most interesting outcome of the sessions was that Dr. Melfi actually encouraged me to drink more. I remember telling her about the party we had thrown for my nineteenth birthday (on the Friday before Spring Break), the keg we had purchased, and the people that showed up. As far as I could tell, she was genuinely interested in what I was telling her, although the purpose of the program was evident: to stress that I had options.

Early on, she had decided that I did not have a drug (or alcohol) problem. When you think about it, the chances of anyone getting caught smoking marijuana in a dorm room are pretty high (no pun attended). She was much more interested in harder drugs and alcohol than my admitted use marijuana. She asked if anyone in my family had substance abuse issues, and I told her what I knew, which wasn’t much. I knew my older sister was a recovering alcoholic, but I had no idea if my uncles drinking beer and whiskey at family parties were a sign of alcoholism. In many ways, drinking is a harmless way to have a good time.

The sessions eventually came to an end, and I wasn’t sure if I had learned anything. If I had been asked, I may have opted to continue the sessions. Dr. Melfi plainly encouraged me to drink more (since I had told her I would usually smoke rather than drink), and that she agreed that I didn’t have an abuse problem (at that time, at least), even though I had told her the truth about how much marijuana I smoked (which was a lot). I did this religiously by the way, especially with doctors. I never understood the value of lying to doctors.

My probation passed without fanfare and I would never get in trouble again at the University. If I had to do it all over again — get caught freshman year — I think I probably would. Talking with a young Dr. Melfi was more than worth it. I would say that I’d never forget it, but I assume that is obvious.

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