Life of a Substance Abuse Counselor

As many of you know, I am a substance abuse counselor. I am so desperatly trying to get my Kansas Social Work liscense. I work in Missouri, but since we are right on the state line, we get cllients from both Kansas and Missouri. And the state of Kansas requires you to have your social work license. Anyway...I have worked with addicts now for two years. It has been two of the most interesting years of my life. I go to work everyday not knowing what to expect. When I think it's going to be a calm day, it's crazy. When I am prepared for a crazy day, it's very calm. So, I never know. I always come home with these crazy stories of what my clients say or do and Laura always cracks up. I thought I would share some of these stories with you. Some of them are really funny, some are sad and some are gross.

1) At my last job I worked in an outpatient drug/alcohol treatment center. Part of my crappy job title was to assist the client's with transportation. There were a couple that I would pick up on my way in and actually enjoyed their company. Others, I dreaded picking them up. There was this one client that was court ordered to come to treatment. Which meant, he was still in denial of his problem. He didn't show up for group one day and my supervisor sent me out to pick him up. His wife (who was a drug user as well) let me in and then went back to the bedroom where she was sleeping. This client was in the kitchen overdosing. I couldn't believe the wife didn't notice or didn't care. The client came to enough to say he didn't want to go the hospital via an ambulance. So, my supervisor suggested I take him in the company van. I could not get this client's wife to hurry up and go. She wanted to put on her make-up, brush her hair. I felt like saying, "you stupid bitch, your husband is about to die...let's go". It was a 20 minute drive to the hospital. It was the scariest drive of my life. I was afraid he was either going to die in the van or throw up. Both would have been very tramatic for me.

2) A few weeks after I started my current job I had a homeless client come in for an assessment. (he was court ordered) We completed the 1 1/2 hour assessment and when I came back to my office after we were done I noticed he had peed in the chair. It was so gross. My place of employment did not have any gloves for me to use to clean the chair. Well, I did the best I could, but still managed to come down with a nasty virus one week later. Infact, this was the sickest I had been as an adult. 1 trip to Urgent Care, 1 trip to the ER, and one visit to the doctor and a 103.4 fever. I was sick. When I got back to work after missing one week of work, they had scrubed down my office and thrown that nasty chair away.

3) I once had a client come in for an assessment. (can't remember who sent her her) She had her 3 year old son with her. He was pretty good during the assessment,but still a little wild. At the end of the assessment I watched a very interesting conversation between Mother and child. Here it is..word for word..
"Mommy..what happens if you do drugs?"
"Well, that's not good"
"What happens if you don't do drugs?"
"Well, if you don't do drugs then that is very good"
After a few second pause...
"Mommy, you are no good."
I about died when this child who was only 3 was able to pick up that his Mother was doing drugs . I did feel bad for the Mother because that's not something you want to hear your child say in front of another person, let alone the person doing your drug/alcohol assessment.

4) Just recently I had a person call on the phone who was afraid to fly. I don't know why they would call my agency when it is clear in our agency name that we deal mainly with drugs/alcohol. Not really knowing what to tell this person to do since they were leaving on their trip 3 days later and I was not sure who they should call..I said something like, "Ma'am, I am not sure who you could call at this last minute." The person on the other end, who I thought was female said, "how do you know that the person who calls in is male or female". Really not knowing what to say to that I said, "well, the recepitionist said there was a female on the phone that needed to talk. Are you not female?" And this was his/her (still not sure) response.."well, if she said I was female, then I will take her word for it."

It's amazing some of the things I hear on the phone and in person. I do not drink that often (maybe once a year), but there are days when I leave here wanting to do nothing, but drink.

On a sidenote..at lunch today I went to Walgreens to get something and I noticed a person with the Salvation Army ringing a bell. I saw the thing to put the money in, but did not see the person. I looked around and saw him sitting all hunched over about 40 feeet away from the his stand. I thought that was odd, but continued into Walgreens. On my way out I noticed he was not moving and he had dropped the bell. I went up to him and asked him if he was alright. No response. I said it a little louder and he woke up and yelled and pointed, "over there". I guess he thought I was wanting to donate some money. I asked him if he was ok and that it looked like he was intoxicated. He said, no he was fine. Needless to say, I got on my cellphone and called Salvaation Army and they said they were going to send someone out to remove him from his post. I guess he just started celebrating the holidays a little early.