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end of the birthday season
I turned 40 this week and now i am a man. It feels good, i am happy with where i am with my life. Better than i thought it would turn out. I am thankful and greatful and i feel gifted and strong. I’m getting promoted. Same job different title, more money most likely, an extra meeting a week when i can swing it to be part of the administrative team. Sweet. I gave this kickass presentation on my birthday day when the agency rewrote the treatment plan to how i do treatment plans. My team who’ve heard all this before because i am a big believer of the 5 minute workshop, and just give me a chance to pontificate, said i was preaching. And I was. We build on individuals strengths not their problems. We look at problems as “opportunities for development”, to be aware of, not to base your life upon. We ask “if you woke up tomorrow and your life was perfect what would it look like?” It puts us in the Miracle Business instead of the Problem Solving business. I talked about setting goals: significance, achievability, time limited, postively stated,
talking about primates
While writing that last post I got a work call. A client was passed out drunk and there was some homeless guy with more beer locked my co-worker out of the house and wouldn’t let her check on the client. I told her she’d had a long day and to go home and i would get in and check on client and try to talk him into going to detox. Random Dude wouldn’t answer the door and a neighbor filled me in on the scene and got Random Dude to come to the door. I put my business card in the door and told him to let me in and check on client’s safety or i would call the po-pos to do it for me. He let me in my client was safe for the moment, not ready to evict the homeless and go to detox, so i scheduled an appt. for the morning. I could have strong armed him into detox and put smug little random dude on the street but i respect peoples right to choose, even badly. Frankly between you and me most people’s choices seem ill considered to me. Look at the planet and you’ll see what i mean. We broke the weather for god’s sake. I could have justified my ape dominance behavior. Drag the crippled monkey where i wanted him to go. Make the little chimp go sleep in the streets because i could and he defied me. But being aware that most human interaction is chimp politics. Dominance and submissive behavior. I sat on the floor when i talked to the drunk and apologized for intruding to both with my only castigation a fact based account of how they were destroying my client’s life. I called my co-worker to update her on the situation and i said we assertive community treatment not aggressive. I feel like it is easy for me to rationalize almost anything i do to give it at least the appearance of being reasonable. Who said The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance?
a week in review
greetings constant readers. Its been a decent week. I think i am finally over the hump on not being horribly stressed and busy at work all the time. I actually got to leave an hour early on Thursday. Yesterday was strange, two of my clients had relapsed together and one had lost his berth at the homeless shelter because of it so it ate up my whole day finding him a detox bed and talking him into taking it. I had to pretty much drive him a hundred miles but we got ‘er done. Coincidentally it was his one year anniversary in our program. Our first client to make it a year. He’d been clean 4 months prior to this drinking episode his best run ever when he wasn’t in a facility. I have learned to stay positive. When they do well i think, i did this, i’m making a difference. When they fuck up i think, they did this, you can’t succeed for them. It keeps me sane. Later this morning i go out with the realtor and look at some houses. Wish me luck.
End of March Blues
I didn’t give my coat to the homeless guy today, its kind of new and I like it and as I discovered this afternoon, a free or cheap one can’t be had this time of year, for a big guy. He was disappointed we drove out to Wal-Mart and didn’t buy anything. But we don’t really have a budget for “consumables” and we run a lean mean operation. Couldn’t get his diabetes meds either, only heard he needed them this morning, his Medicaid is lapsed and he doesn’t have a script. Best I could do on a Friday is make sure he knows the signs of high and low blood sugar and point out the closest emergency room to the homeless shelter. “And watch your diet too”. Dude didn’t even know who I was at the salvation army, started talking to a clerk thinking he was me, while I was looking at books. It’s a hard old world. He’d just done a 6 month stretch for probation violation for being ornery at the group home and was discharged to the local psych unit for a 2 day stay who apparently discharged him without meds. He’s not accepted at the homeless shelter because they don’t take people straight out of Mid-Mo so he’s there on whats called a “cold cot”. Anyone can stay a night if its shitty outside, but April 1 is on Tuesday and the April Fools joke around here is their ain’t no more “cold cots” till November. Got turned down from the ½ empty long-term dual diagnosis homeless dude program because he’s been clean too long. Damn. Should have smuggled him some crack 2 months ago when he was at the county jail. Now I know for next time. I’d added him onto my schedule for dumping him on my co-worker, but she’s great. Got his psych-meds, cheap. Working on getting his psych records to get him into the homeless shelter program by Monday. She rocks, so I had to put in a little extra effort and work late without getting caught up, and still didn’t score him a jacket. Every appointment went long with a steady flow of calls. It makes my head spin. But it was exciting too. Wrestling with issues of sobriety, being real with really interesting and dynamic personalities but struggling. Good to see big turn arounds, someone excited about recovery and get to pay him back with a passionate presentation at the Medicaid review hearing. Had to slam our programs psych to do it. Point out she’d seen him 9 times and he had 9 diagnoses. Said although I had a lowly masters and was no psychiatrist I’d spent 10 or 20 times longer and new the story and had seen the scene. It was sweet, I hope we win. Had to give up a months worth of food stamps to go for the appeal. I feel totally fried though, all week was like today. Bam its starting out at 8:00 am unless the calls don’t come first and its just jamming every day. 5-6-7 appointments every day, driving to most of them and training 2 new workers and overseeing a third taking crisis calls from most of the case load. Squeezed out a 20 minute lunch today only the 2nd one this week, but I also have 4 days of casenotes to write. Its scaring me to think I got approved for a mortgage this week and am buying a house. For the first time in my life I’ll need to have a job. I won’t be able to just walkaway when it gets too much. Its going to be interesting. I expect I’ll get a lot better at striking a balance. That or my head’ll explode.
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