Tomorrow

I meet one of my two "clients" tomorrow.

I am now a Life Skills Trainer. These two young women – 13 and 17 – live in Foster Homes and have some developmental issues. Reading over their Individual Service Plans, I can see I will be doing something unlike most of the other jobs I’ve had in the past.

This is going to be interesting. I am not a "health care professional", and my job doesn’t require any college degrees, although I have one in Social Sciences. I have had some experience with adults on this spectrum; alcohol abuse is not all that much different than dealing with developmentally disabled people.

I’m not sure "what to do" tomorrow, so I’ll play it by ear and see what I need to do, and I’ll be myself.

As for my drunk friend, well, it was sort of appalling to hear Saturday that she didn’t remember much of our last meeting. I had taken her out for a "short time" (which meant, of course, that we closed down the bar). She didn’t remember my job news, or that I had kept her from ordering that second double vodka tonic (she didn’t need to drink ANY more).

"This time I’m really going to change!"

You may have heard something like this before: She knows that booze is BAD for her; she knows she has to control it – hopefully just eliminate it all together from her life. She has discovered that her boy friend’s health care will pay for detox/recovery, and today she has an appointment with a rehab house. She knows that Out-Patient treatment is a poor choice; she want to do residential recovery, to get away from any temptation.

She is determined to go through with this plan, and I say "hooray!" because I haven’t heard that determination before.

***

It is, however, an "excuse" to "go out in a blaze of glory". In other words, it’s "drink more now because there won’t be any soon".

Not the best option, I don’t think, but, well, half a loaf is better than none, right?

***

The plan WAS to begin treatment in August, but then the bf paid for a plane ticket to Sacramento, California, where her father lives; she feels she needs to see her step-mom while she still can.

It is also an excuse not to begin treatment right away, so I’m not really thrilled about it, but she is, and I guess that’s ok, even if it is putting off the rehab.

***

I am probably "enabling" her, by escorting her out drinking, and there were 3 times in a row when she passed out in a bar on me (and the second time, the whole bar helped me or watched me as I struggled to get her out to my car, oh joy), but the next time when I didn’t escort her, she passed out in the restroom and got locked in a bar after closing time, a drunks fantasy. Alone in a bar, locked in and afraid to call for help? Of course she poured herself a couple of drinks.

Yeah, I’m probably an "enabler" but I’m not the one giving her drinking money, that’s her bf. Mixed signals there!

***

The other person I’ve been looking after is, ironically, her ex-husband. He was in a motorcycle wreck at the end of March, and broke or damaged a lot of his body. His recovery has been very quick, actually, and he’s moving around like, if you didn’t know about the wreck, you wouldn’t guess he had been in one. He’s back to driving his Mustang, and his son, who moved up here from Eugene, is getting ready to move out and in with his girlfriend from Seattle. My biker friend doesn’t need 24/7 attention anymore and hasn’t for some time.

***

If I can deal with drunks and bikers, I can deal with developmentally disabled kids.

(let’s hope those aren’t "Famous Last Words")

 

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