Wow. Another year in the books. I cannot believe how fast this year has flown by. I ended last year with an exciting new job starting in 2015. I also had some goals that I wanted to work toward. Little did I know that my job would be pretty consuming (in a good way), so many of my goals went to the wayside. The goals are, however, not forgotten, just on hold.

The year did start off on the rough side. I almost lost my current job because of a license technicality. My employer and I had all assumed that my transfer from Minnesota to Wisconsin would have been seamless. I hold the highest degree available in the field and had passed the national exam back in March 2014. We had both called and received the same answer that I would be just fine. Well, long story short - it wasn't and my future was seriously in question. Those few months were quite the test on my sobriety. I did make it through. I could tell, though, that it had some effect on my attitude about being in the field for several months after that. I really started to question if I had done the right thing by going into the field. I was shaken and feeling weak. I wondered if one situation could shake my confidence in my ability to stay sober, then should I really be teaching others about how to get onto the road of recovery? It took awhile, but I got back into the game. 

In April, I took on a new job role as a substance abuse counselor in the local county jail. I was terrified. I was concerned about how to be firm yet empathetic. I wasn't sure if I had a clue how to counsel folks that were incarcerated. It took about 30 days. I fell in love with that part of my job. The women that I counsel in that setting are in a very unique point in their lives. Many have had treatment in the past and several have been in and out of jail for years. There is such an honesty and rawness about this environment. Most everything they are feeling come out in our sessions. There is so much honesty in what I hear. It is an amazing opportunity to dig deep and look at addiction. When I thought about going into this field, the experience I had in the jail is what I had been hoping to find. You can often find me telling people how much I "love going to jail". I was moved into this role because of my licensing issues and it was absolutely the best thing that happened for me.

As the year rolled on, I was invited to come back to the University of Minnesota as part of the on-call organ donation team. It is part of the job that I used to do when I worked full time. The last time I had been on call was 2012. It was one of my favorite parts of my job. I get to call people and tell them that an organ is available. I get all the adrenaline rush of coordinating things. I was a bit apprehensive to start because it had been awhile and the call shifts are 24 hours for 2-3 days. Initially, I had agreed to do one weekend over the 4th of July. I felt like I was back in my element. I was back doing something I felt really confident at. It was a bit of a change from working full time in substance abuse counseling where I feel like, most days, I have no clue what I am doing. One weekend turned into several months of call. I picked up way more than I should have. Part of it was money, the other part was feeling very confident in what I was doing.

I let myself get out of balance. For a few months, I was working two high burn out positions and it was starting to take its toll. I was tired and getting sort of crabby. I had people from just about every facet of my life telling me to take it easy and quit working so much. I finally listened. I am down to 1 weekend per month, with nothing scheduled in January and 1 weekend in February. I am still grateful to have the opportunity to work in that area. I love transplant. A LOT. I know that I could not do that work full time anymore. I think just being able to dip my toes in every so often will keep me happy.

I also got the opportunity this year to do several different trainings. I got a week's training in substance abuse prevention which was so fascinating. I have a lot of learn in the area of prevention and home that things will settle down a little bit in my job to spend some more quality time in that area. Also, I was asked to join the drug court team which has been amazingly interesting. I believe very much in drug courts. By being a part of this team, I was offered the opportunity to get another week of training in MRT (Moral Reconation Therapy) which deals with criminal thinking. While there are several parallels between addictive thinking and criminal thinking, there are some pretty interesting differences which when brought together can yield some pretty dramatic outcomes, unfortunately mostly negative. With that training, it has enhanced my experience in the jail. 

As the year ends, overall, I am pretty satisfied with how the year went. There were definitely some ups and downs. I struggled some with depressive symptoms. I managed to get on top of that pretty quickly so the issues were short lived. The holidays have become my favorite time of year. This year was certainly not a disappointment! I enjoy the time with my family and have this opportunity each year to be reminded of how grateful and lucky I am.

At the time when my teenage angst was heightening, Stone Temple Pilots were topping the charts. You bet that I had the CD and it travelled with me to college and happens to remain in the small collection of CDs I still have today. Then Velvet Revolver, etc.  I followed Scott Weiland's  career. He died in my  state of Minnesota not long ago. A death that really came as no big surprise to me. Sadly, it was no surprise.

I read the letter from his ex-wife and it really struck home to me the amount that family members suffer at the cost of our disease. I agreed with all that she had to say. So, this blog is not to glorify his death or his behavior. Rather, it is an opportunity to talk about yet another high profile death and the struggles of recovery. Maybe this is a time to talk about the "rule of thirds" I learned while in graduate school. 1/3 of people with substance abuse issues will just stop and walk away, 1/3 of people will require some type of intervention to quit and will go back and forth between active addiction and recovery and 1/3 of people will never stop.  4 years ago, I could have told you that Mr. Weiland was going to fall into the category of the folks who will never stop. 

I have to tell you that I can't totally imagine the ravages that addiction causes to family members. Addicts and alcoholics have to be the most frustrating individuals in the world. We were "normal" once, with dreams, personality, a future. Then we present one day, wrecked, doing the opposite of all our dreams, making horrible decisions, protecting our drug over everything. We land in jail, rehab, in the hospital and on the streets. Addiction plays out in such a behavioral type of way with sick thinking that promotes denial, lying and stealing all in the name of the high. 

So, why do we do this? I do believe that addiction is a disease. Those of us that suffer from addiction have a bit of a different brain. When drugs enter our system, our reward center of our brain becomes corrupted. The part of the brain that is concerned with our survival starts to give our mixed signals telling us that the drug come before everything - EVERYTHING - eating, sleeping, etc. When I am sober, my logical part of my brain sees the consequences of my actions. My reward center always is thinking of pleasurable things to do. If that part of my brain was in charge all day long, I would be doing all sorts of irrational things for a quick 15 seconds of joy. My logical part of the brain overrides and sets up some reasonable patterns in my life (aka, I won't jump into traffic to get a piece of candy that looks good). In active addiction, the communication from the logical part of the brain is diminished. The reward center is overriding the logical part of the brain - requesting that big #1 drug/alcohol is the priority. Do anything to get it. That is the disease part of addiction. We now understand the communication pattern and how the brain is reacting to drugs.

Here is the hard thing about addiction. In my first stint in rehab, I learned about the disease process and what was going on. It was REALLY nice to know that all these horrible decisions that I was making was part of a process in the brain that is well understood. For the last 5 years of my addiction, I just thought I was bat-shit crazy. I had hoped that I would be diagnosed with something that would explain how messed up I felt beyond intoxication. Well, I was diagnosed with it - alcoholism. I sure as hell didn't like that but going through the diagnostic criteria, I certainly fit every single one. 

So, Mr. Weiland and I were both offered opportunities for rehab. I went 1 time in 2007 and twice in 2010. Mr. Weiland went quite a few more times than I did. I got into recovery. He didn't make it there. Why? We know what is going on the brain. I begged and pleaded to get into treatment and relapsed within a few months? We understand addiction more now than ever yet people are dying at a higher rate. By 2020, addiction is going to be the biggest public health crisis in America. What is going on? If I wanted to get better so badly, why didn't I?

In my opinion, it comes down to each individual to make a decision about recovery. Even though I participated in a program to monitor my recovery, I always had the option to use. I still have the option to use. I finally got to a place where my fear of a life without using was less scary than the life I was living. It took some time to make the effort to commit to change everything about my life in order to get into recovery. It's not easy. It took awhile to learn all the things I needed to watch out for. No one can get me sober except for me. No one can keep sober except for me. 

In the past 5 years of recovery, I have seen several people that fall into each of the 1/3rds. I have seen people just up and walk away from drugs and alcohol. Part of me gets jealous from time to time when I see that. I had to fight like hell for my recovery. I am grateful, though, that not everyone needs to fight so hard to obtain a new lifestyle. I am happy they made a decision to live a better and happier life without drugs and alcohol. 

I see many people who need help. I see people who keep trying, again and again, pulling time together and relapsing again. I admire, always, that they continue to return to meetings, continue to reach out and continue to return to treatment. In the deepest part of their souls, they are fighting for their lives. They are working to try to find the path that works. I was on the lower end of average for treatment. I had 3 rounds, on average it takes 5-6 times of treatment. Each time I learned something more, got a new perspective and got new skills. I can't say I will be recovery forever, because I just don't know that. But, I will do my best ev

The final third, however, are the most heartbreaking. I see people like Scott Weiland walk through my door at work. I have seen people bring someone like Scott Weiland into a meeting. I see people that are literally dying of addiction right before my eyes. In transplant, I saw more than my fair share of people die from liver failure. I hear through my clients of friends of theirs who died of an overdose. I read in the paper on a near weekly basis of people dying from drunk driving. As a treatment provider and a person in the recovery community, I don't believe in giving up. However, the advice that I often give family members now is to love from a distance. Professionally, I have to do this as well. I can send a prayer and hope that maybe something changes for them. I need to be realistic too. There are plenty of people who suffer from other disease processes that choose not to get well. People with diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol that do not make any life changes to support the management of their disease process ultimately succumbing to the complications. Those suffering from the disease of addiction are not different although it can be hard to see it that way because of the behavioral way that addiction plays out. 

So, this is the third or fourth entry I have written about a famous person. A few years ago, I wondered who failed Whitney Houston. Did treatment fail her? Did her family and friends fail her because they knew she was using and didn't intervene? Did she fail herself because she was in treatment enough times to know the path she was going down? Then, Philip Seymour Hoffman. I wondered why such a talent had to die alone under terrible circumstances. Then, Robin Williams. His suicide ended up being related to a dementia process that led to impulsivity and a very ugly terminal diagnosis. Regardless, he did start a conversation about recovery and mental illness. Now, Scott Weiland. My perspective on recovery and getting well has changed quite a bit. The more I am involved with addiction on a professional level, the more I realize we have a long way to go in providing treatment for addiction. That bottom 1/3rd is not hopeless and helpless. As a field, we haven't found how to tap into the motivation of the individual to see recovery as a viable option.

To end this very long rant, I respect the decision of Scott's ex-wife to remove herself and shield her children from the chaos of addiction. She was very right - his children deserved at least some effort and he did not make the decision to commit to that. When an addict or alcoholic chooses not to change, that is their choice; however, this person should not be surprised when the family distances themselves. One of the basic rules of recovery is that we cannot control things that are out of control. The choices and thoughts of other people definitely fall into the category of things that we can't change. We especially cannot change a person that does not want to be changed.