Finishing Strong

I am currently in the last week of my internship which will be completed on Friday. I finished up with semester classes on Monday. Guess what? It's almost over...this journey of trial and error, success and failures. It's done, well in 48 hours, it will all be done. 

I haven't been the most model student for the past two semesters. I found myself taking advantage of relaxed policies and lack of consequences for my behavior. I am, however, finishing strong. What I had completed in the past 2 weeks was what I used to do. I didn't want to go to class or to work or to my internship and I did anyway. There was no arguing with myself or talking myself out of not going, I just did, whether I wanted to or not. Boy, I missed this "me". A LOT. Where did it go? More importantly, how did I get it back in case I lose is again in the future?

When my therapist and I were trying to working through these issues of noncompliance and lack of caring about much of anything, she asked me what kept me going for the past several years. There was an element of hope and excitement that I felt like I lost. I was so excited to start school and became quickly disappointed with the experience. So, I lost that drive and excitement right there. The further along in my program. the less and less competent I felt about myself choosing to become a drug & alcohol counselor. I questioned myself over and over again - did I make the right decision? If I didn't- what do I do now? 

I think if I had to do the whole process over again, I would maybe have allowed myself a little more time in recovery before I started school. I think I failed to realize the personal impact this particular master's program would have on me. I knew that I would be staring myself in the face everyday, so there was no real surprise there. Throughout the course of the academics, it became another journey to know myself. I don't think I was ready for that. My school told us in our orientation, "you are not here to become a glorified sponsor, you are here to be trained as a clinician." That didn't strike me as too odd since I hear about that same thing when I entered nursing school. The caring and kindness is the reason many of us were there, but we were there to learn a series of skills to provide specific care to individuals.

I feel like I travelled a personal journey while in nursing school. I was just naturally good at the academics in those classes. I was an absorbent sponge and sucked up every last detail I could about anything related to nursing. I found myself getting excited of having a career where I could be a kind person and get paid for it too. Sounds romantic, doesn't it? Well, a fairy tail would be a good description of what I learned the minute I graduated from nursing school. Welcome to nursing, here are your 30+ patients, you have 1 week for orientation which is little to nothing. You will pass approximately 450 pills first thing in the morning. You have no time to sit and talk with people because you just don't have the time. Sigh....it was a hard lesson and I think in the long haul it made me have a tougher skin when it comes to patient care. It's not that I don't care, I just have to be efficient and I can't do that AND be the kind a gentle person I had dreamed of being. 

I guess I sort of forgot about this experience as I entered this phase of my life. My recovery is something so deeply personal. I nearly died from alcoholism. If I were still drinking today like I was then, I would be in BIG trouble. It was the darkest secret I kept under wraps for more than 12 years. I destroyed most everything around me to keep this secret and felt a sense of reawakening when I finally got into treatment. That moment of clarity and hope is a feeling that I hod on to dearly. I never want to forget what it is like to reach out for help and when I did, I was met with 100% full and absolute support. I never want to forget what it felt like to regain hope after having lost it. I want to remain proud of what I accomplished when recovery is not what happens in so many cases of addiction.

So, maybe I had this romanticized idea of what I thought I could so in this program or with this education. I did not feel down when clients left or relapsed. I certainly never took that personally. I guess I just never understood exactly what made me so upset for the past 2 semesters. I am proud of my recovery and I will never not talk about it. It's what I live on a daily basis now. It is now intertwined into the fabric of who and what I am today. Part of the issue, I think, is that maybe my recovery wasn't at the right place just yet to engage in something so personal. I  have written in previous blogs that I feel like I have something big to offer in this field. I told myself in treatment a million times, I am never going to become a counselor. Why the heck would I want to take care of people just like me? The calling came after a year of recovery. I fy eel a constant need to continue to grow. Schooling was my next big adventure. I had always wanted my masters. Honestly, I looked at 10 other programs before actually looking into this one - MBA, MBA in healthcare administration, MA - Organizational Management, MA-Healthcare Structure, going back to RN school, etc. etc. Oddly, when it came time to fill out the applications, I could never answer the essay questions about why I was pursing this education. I wondered if they would accept "Because I want a master's degree....." and no plan beyond that. 

When I found this program, I immediately went to the essay section. Guess what, I answered all three questions in about 15 minutes. I felt driven, compelled even to get into this program. Again, because I believe I heard a calling. I still feel that calling today but the calling sometimes gets drowned out my own voice of insecurity and fear. What God did for me today was reissue that calling in a louder way than my own voice could ever overpower. The counselor that I worked under had a mini-graduation for me today. Each of my clients went around the circle and said something to me to encourage me on my journey forward. "Julie, there is such an authenticity about you...." "Every group when we come in you are smiling and it's hard to be in a bad mood...." "I feel like you are down on our level, grabbing a shovel, helping us dig through our shit..." "We are really going to miss you....." "You are just the real deal...." 13 men brought me to tears in my final group with them today. I have been plagued by my own insecurities and self-doubt to have realized that I do have an impact on these guys. I don't solve their problems, I don't rock their foundations in life, I deal in hope. Even though there were days I hated driving there, I never let them know that. I greeted them with a smile and wanted them to know that I cared even if I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I thanked them all and went home for the first time tonight feeling a sense of revival about  

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