[1229] Hard Mode

This will be an exercise in perspective keeping related to a recent saga/drama involving the sober-living house I’m attempting to establish.

Let’s start with math. There are 8 beds we’re charging $150 a week for. There are 4 partners. If things go perfectly, I stand to make roughly $12,400 from this house a year. My yearly bills are sitting around $11,000 if I’m including things like home and car insurance (still not health insurance), have SNAP (ha!), and don’t drive much (basically impossible).

I start that way so you know whatever you hear about other ways I’m spending money, or problems I’m trying to solve, it’s not coming from an explicitly greedy, entitled, or that kind of privileged place. I’m not shuffling other people’s money around like a literal lord. I’m not so far removed from our program participants’ needs that I’m ambivalent about when things blow up or what it would take to have  a long-term stable and sober environment.

All 4 partners worked at an IOP program together. 3 are therapists, I’m a CADAC II, and have all my DCS/social work experience. We all have to agree on who is admitted. We talk at least every week and throughout the group chat about our clients and what to look out for. We had at least 4 months of regular interactions with the people we selected to move in at the start 2 months ago.

Our clients are still in “early recovery,” which means there are often a host of emotional, psychological, social, etc. problems that are still pretty hot. 3, 6, or 10 to 12 months of sobriety does not mean you’ve straightened out your core issues even if you’ve hit a personal best or it was a struggle the entire time. These issues can be compounded by negligent programs, but all on their own they often cause the lion’s share of any horror story you hear when things break down interpersonally.

Remember how much I said I’d make if things went perfectly? We’ve had 5 people move in. 3 of them have been, or will soon be, discharged. Off to a great start. Of those 5, 2 are looking like a relapse combined with fraternization. It’s a bad idea to get into any kind of romantic relationship in recovery for dozens of reasons that most should be able to intuit. How many sober relationships do you know are going that well?

Both of our recent discharge situations have involved me ending up at the house in the middle of the night. I’ve had to get packed up and moved out way too many things that shouldn’t have been allowed in the house in the first place. I’ll have to part ways with someone I was hoping to train in more of a leadership capacity. I’ll be saying goodbye to a client who was as good as you can ask for in IOP.  If you don’t keep sane and emotionally stable, it’s the endlessly gut-wrenching nature of this world where your literal hand-picked evidence-based examples of people who “should” be able to do better will surprise you. Your expertise and experience, combined, does not matter.

Or, that’s what it looks and feels like initially. What it means to be human is infinitely iterative in its ways to find methods for creative destruction or construction. There’s literally no way to predict what someone will do around any given individual or with the opportunities you try to create. You always have to return to the things you can control. I can provide a bed, a warm house, people with an observed, even limited, history of doing the work and dispositions that have coped well. I don’t know what tomorrow brings. I don’t know a micro shift might topple the psychological building.

As it stands, I have 2 people missing. One male, one female, and it appears the male is impersonating the female, perhaps stealing her phone days ago. She’s got an unexplained gash on her arm. I’ve heard a story where a stranger intervened when he was allegedly talking aggressively towards her, knocking him out. I’ve got reports from other housemates just as confused about the major atypical shifts in mood and word choices in brief interactions. Missing person’s reports are getting filed. Family states away are worried. 3 days ago, these were 2 of the highest performing and accountable people we’d invited to the house.

While writing the last paragraph one of my partners texted that she’s currently speaking with the female.

As things have played out, I got screenshots of conversations about their budding relationship, a relapse from him, and a “don’t tell!” message from her about what they’ve been doing for at least a week and a half.

For anyone not familiar with the world of addiction, there’s about 10 absolute “no” things that must be accounted for if you’re going to be successful in recovery or in your relationship to a client as a counselor or case manager. Lying? Hell no. Vague/cagey and cryptic texts? Nope. Relationship that’s even remotely flirty? No no no. A reluctance to relay problems like a missing phone, house disagreement, or needs? That’s a form of lying in concealing. Being unable/unwilling to screen? No one in your circle of contacts can get a hold of you? Finding time to be “bored” when you’re not working nor apparently job searching?

You will always always always think to yourself as a responsible and accountable person that “more” could or should be done. You are not ultimately responsible for anyone else’s actions.

As the hours have ticked by, and I’ve added more verbiage to our program contract, this increasingly looks like an isolated, mildly-elevated, wildly aberrant yet at once cliche story of the chaos and contradictions of addiction. It’s certainly not the first “crisis” I’ve navigated, and all of the tools I teach I also employed. I wrote as it happened. I patiently worked with relevant supports. I acted in the best way I could for any given moment. I’m not blaming myself for introducing the two individuals to each other anymore than I’m taking credit for the couples still together who met at my college parties.

I can rely on me to identify and execute a course of action. I can’t know what’s in anyone’s heart. I can’t predict the future. I can say, “It’s time to go” and look for the next person to make the offer to. If there’s anything truer than how quickly circumstances can change when you’re in any form of social work, I don’t know what it is. Lives come and go in many forms in an instant. Do you know where you exist in that infinite transition? I do.