Thread drift, drug counselors

[lamoncha lover]

Addiction is alive and well. The real play on words is "disease"
The longer clean time I have the less I fall into a believer of disease concept. But no matter..the "cure" is all the same. So if a person, as they heal, wants to believe it is a disease..if it works for them then it's a disease.
If others want to believe it it's not a disease..and that way works for their recovery then that's ok..it's not.
Addiction is a very interesting thing.....Sister pine you have kick started my interest:>)
Wanted to add...most folks with a history of addiction need documented clean time before they are hired to work in the cd field. And if they don't keep that time..they are subject to an early "retirement"
At the halfway house...the cook spent a lot of non structured time with the ladies. she was usually well aware of problems with them long before the counselors.

[plowjockey]

Originally Posted by elevenpoint

Don't know about this as I do not believe in addiction.

Do you think these actions, are just conscious decisions, that these people make night and day, 24x7?

Just curious.

If that's the case, then the world is a much simpler place, than I had thought.

[elevenpoint]

Originally Posted by plowjockey

Do you think these actions, are just conscious decisions, that these people make night and day, 24x7?

Just curious.

If that's the case, then the world is a much simpler place, than I had thought.

I'm not sure....I think if a guy goes to the bar three nights a week and gets drunk, he is going there because he likes it, enjoys being drunk.
I know that I would not do anything however many times a week if I did not enjoy that....I would not go and get beat with a whip....I would not enjoy that.
From a personal perspective, I had a lengthy drinking career that included many a night in jail for various bad behavior and thoroughly enjoyed it...and when I made a decision to move on without that..... it was over.
To answer your question, you make the decision to drink or jam a needle in your arm.....and you can make a decision not to.

[DamnearaFarm]

Originally Posted by elevenpoint

I'm not sure....I think if a guy goes to the bar three nights a week and gets drunk, he is going there because he likes it, enjoys being drunk.
I know that I would not do anything however many times a week if I did not enjoy that....I would not go and get beat with a whip....I would not enjoy that.
From a personal perspective, I had a lengthy drinking career that included many a night in jail for various bad behavior and thoroughly enjoyed it...and when I made a decision to move on without that..... it was over.
To answer your question, you make the decision to drink or jam a needle in your arm.....and you can make a decision not to.

Sure. Until your body has become so accustomed to whatever it is you're using and it either requires more and more to attain that feeling you're after or you need more to control the pain caused by whatever it is that made you start in the first place or you need more to control the pain caused by the drugs/alcohol themselves. It's a vicious circle.

[elevenpoint]

Originally Posted by RamblinRoseRanc

Sure. Until your body has become so accustomed to whatever it is you're using and it either requires more and more to attain that feeling you're after or you need more to control the pain caused by whatever it is that made you start in the first place or you need more to control the pain caused by the drugs/alcohol themselves. It's a vicious circle.

Maybe, more than anything I am probably not qualified to answer that....and this is just my personal opinion.

[momofseven]

Originally Posted by Laura Zone 5

1. In the process of getting clean, they have had a deep (for a lack of better words) Religious experience / Come to Jesus, and it is their way of Praising the Lord for their deliverance, by helping others, be delivered from addiction.

2. They feel a sense of 'giving back'.

3. They feel they can speak to an addict on their level. Maybe out of utter frustration when they were getting clean / staying clean, their counselors really didn't have a firm understanding of where they were coming from and so they really want to help other addicts not go through that same frustration.

4. Because they have been there, done that, and lived. It's what they know, inside and out, from personal living experience

That's the way it is for my nephew. Although he was a "christian" before he went into recovery. BTW, it wasn't for drugs. The program that he was in used the AA recovery and he learned that in order to stay true to his commitment, he needed to give back. So he is a mentor and has done very well with it.

[sisterpine]

All of these responses are about the same responses I hear from the public anywhere. Just goes to show us all how little the general public knows about the disease of addiction. Most of us know it is a big problem and can destroy lives. Most of us know that different programs work for different people and some people never find what they need to get clean.

My personal goal is to be the one who helps addicted persons find the "right" program for themselves. This is hard to do without a guide and can take years for some folks, that is if they dont get discouraged. Just as people who suffer from clinical depression may go though dozens of different med. until they find the one that works for them (and then it may not "stay" working), the journey to "healthy" may be very discouraging and many give up. Just my two cents, sisterpine

[shakeytails in KY]

Originally Posted by Laura Zone 5

1. In the process of getting clean, they have had a deep (for a lack of better words) Religious experience / Come to Jesus, and it is their way of Praising the Lord for their deliverance, by helping others, be delivered from addiction.

2. They feel a sense of 'giving back'.

3. They feel they can speak to an addict on their level. Maybe out of utter frustration when they were getting clean / staying clean, their counselors really didn't have a firm understanding of where they were coming from and so they really want to help other addicts not go through that same frustration.

4. Because they have been there, done that, and lived. It's what they know, inside and out, from personal living experience

This.

I'm a nurse in a psych facility with a CD (chemical dependency) program. There's an awful lot of employees that are in recovery. They understand what our patients are going through. Our head honcho CD therapist/case coordinator has been clean for 17 years IIRC. He doesn't pull any punches and tells his patients the way it is. Every now and then, a patient will ask me if I'm in recovery. Nope. My only addiction is cigarettes, and that doesn't even come close to a drug or alcohol addiction. I drank like a fish in college (and loved it, but after that it was "been there, done that" - no fun anymore in the real world), smoked a little pot (hated it), and still have a drink occasionally. I don't get any less respect, because I don't pretend to have first hand knowledge, and they'd know if I was BS'ing them if I tried. But there's also no way I could truly lead an AA or NA meeting. If you've never been to one, it's an eye-opening experience. Every time I sit in on one, I learn something new.

[DamnearaFarm]

SisPine- I do speak from experience. Former site mgr for an outpatient facility. My location pioneered the first outpatient for juveniles in our area as well.