There are two kinds of things that you learn from being in an alcoholic rehabilitation center. One, you learn actual stuff. People tell you things about recovery and you listen to them. Then you try to go apply those things that you learned. But two, you learn quite a bit from the experience itself. Not from what you are told in the groups or in therapy, but simply what you learn from the experience of being in rehab for a while, and everything that comes along with it. Unfortunately for me there were several layers of learning that I had to go through. I did not just go to rehab and “get it” all at once. I had to learn some things the hard way. The people in treatment tried to help me out and give me the shortcut to success, but I was not having it. I was too stubborn to listen the first time. And the second time. But by the third time I had been beat up enough by my disease that I was finally ready to listen. Part of the problem was that I had not yet fully surrendered when I went to those first two …