Broken

Last week when I was at my internship, I got into a conversation with a few folks about my class in graduate school. No surprise to me, about 80% of my classmates are in recovery. Usually folks don't flock to addiction counseling unless they have had some pretty personal experiences with it, whether that be oneself or a close family member or friend. Way back when I went to an information session about the program, the Dean of the School made a couple of comments about how they were hoping to increase the number of students who were not in recovery. His basic message was those in recovery are too fragile and risk relapsing in such a high intensity career. I never cared much for this particular individual but I certainly was going to argue with that logic. In my own recovery, it was not advised for me to return to nursing for the exact same reason. 

Anyway, one of the people I was talking to at my internship said "you have broken people trying to counsel broken people. It doesn't work." I was a little annoyed at this comment mainly because I rarely view myself as broken. Trust me, I went through that already in my life. Now that I understand my addiction and know myself better than I ever have, I would never say that I am broken. This comment has been rolling around in a my head for about a week and I started to wonder what truth I might be sensing in this statement. I have to think that is why I am holding onto it right now. If I totally disbelieved in it, I would easily be able to push it aside. Hmmmm...let's see, broken people trying to help broken people. 

In the state of MN, and most likely nationally too, a person who is applying for a job as a licensed drug and alcohol counselor needs to have 2 years free of chemical issues. Not surprising, most places are fully aware most of their applicants are in recovery. For the safety and protection of the clients, a counselor needs to be clean. Plain and simple. I sort of wonder who came up with the 2 year rule. I started school 2 weeks after my 2 year anniversary of being clean. Throughout my schooling, I have had this nagging feeling that I am not ready for this career change or the topics of discussions hit too close to home. I have been sitting in this general position of being uncomfortable about my recovery ever since I got into this program. Basically, what I realized at this conversation with a fellow student, I believe people who want to do this line of work should really be in recovery for 5+ years.  2 years is way too young in sobriety to tackle a masters level counseling program. Too much of the content hits too close to home. At times, I was wondering if I was doing this for myself or to really change careers. 

The feedback I got from my previous semester placement was about my participation in group. I ran a few groups, but when the main facilitator was there, I was virtually silent. I found myself taking notes and learning more about how to process the steps in life (really in my life). I think I let myself slip into the role of patient because I found the approach so appealing. My assigned counselor was right, I failed to engage in group because I was too busy being the patient. I was able to take more command of individual session and I felt comfortable in that role. I think I struggle in the group setting because I am still working and nurturing my own sobriety. I have been sober for 3.5 years now, but I lived more of my life drunk than sober so in the grand scheme of things, I feel like an infant in terms of my own sobriety. I sit and think, how can I possibly counsel others when I don't feel like I always have the strongest grasp on what I am doing in my own life?

While I don't consider myself a broken person trying to help another broken person, I do consider myself as a person who has suffered from addiction and wants to help others. I remember when I started nursing school. there were very few people who told me that they were in the program because it paid well. For 18 months of training, I don't earn bad money, but if I were doing it only for the money, I would have burned out long ago. When people talked about the reasons to start nursing, mostly it was because they encounters a fabulous nurse during a hard period in their lives or that of a family member. Others talked about personal experiences with a disease and they beat it - now it was time to spread hope to others. I had always wanted to be a nurse. I think nurses are some of the smartest people I know. I like the idea of helping others and being there. After tackling addiction, addiction counseling just seemed like a natural choice. However, in nursing, I had several years to process the illness of my Dad. In the beginning when I was talking to a patient, he reminded me so much of my Dad, I went home and cried for 2 hours. I was in therapy, fortunately....got through that. With addiction counseling, I am only a few years out from the wreckage of my life. I am still building and amending and fighting for that matter. I just think maybe the timing wasn't the best on my part. I certainly don't regret doing what I have done. I will be proud to have earned a masters degree. That was a major life goal for myself. In some way, I feel a little bit better to have pinpointed what has been bothering me so much throughout this process. Because I am so relatively new in recovery, this process, at times, has made me feel like I am broken and I have no business taking care of others who are just as broken as me. 

So, I kindly disagree with my classmate. I don't think there is anything wrong with broken people (if that is how he choses to see people in recovery) working with broken people. The struggle for many of us is trying to work with addiction before we really have our recovery firmly cemented. Choosing this program was a career change. For me, I know what it is like to be in a clinical setting and how that whole thing works. I don't know that I have always engaged in my internships as a clinician. I am still viewing it from the perspective of a patient. Just like my nursing career, I run the risk of intermingling my personal and professional life so that I become one big blob of recovery speech. It's happening on a some level right now. I find myself talking about recovery almost every minute of every day. Heck, I went to get a haircut today and spent the whole time talking to the hairstylist about addiction and how it works from a disease process. The other hairstylist in the place wanted me to help her with smoking. Her client piped in about her friend with a heroin addiction.  I like to talk about my recovery context within my AA crowd and recovering friends. I start to worry myself when it dominates every single aspect of my life. I almost feel like I become one dimensional in some ways. I guess I need to work on some hobbies...

Anyway, I am taking off for Honduras in about 8 hours. I am going to catch a nap. 

Peace out,

Julie

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