Category: Personal

It all comes down to this, huh? Well, shit – I haven’t felt very inspired to do much this week. My job has sucked me dry, and all I could do last night was watch clips of The Family Guy on YouTube. I don’t have cable TV, and I’ve only managed to see a few episodes of the show over the years. I didn’t realize how fucking hilarious it is. I found this bit particularly side-splitting:

Kids… What can you say, except that they’re a bunch of lying little shit-heads.

One of my patients left the Adolescent Chemical Dependency Unit today, moving on to a long-term treatment center and leaving behind a trail of bold-faced, stone-cold lies. This kid lied about everything, from having a child to losing his buddies in a car accident to being beaten up by gang members. Of course, I’m used to being lied to, as anyone would be who deals with drug abusers and criminals. But sometimes it can be a bit much.

My wife has been dealing with this too, teaching her first ever class at the university. Several students have forged doctors’ excuses to account for absences, and a few have blatantly plagiarized papers from the internet. I have no sympathy whatsoever for these kids. They’ve probably been getting over on their parents for years and have never developed a sense of responsibility or had to face the logical consequences of their behavior. These kids seem to expect authority figures to look the other way, or at worst proffer a slap on the wrist. As far as I’m concerned, this just robs them of an opportunity to learn the rules of the big game.

Last night I gave my now former patient a little assignment. I asked him to write me a one-page paper on “What life would be like if you always told the truth?” He was supposed to turn it in to me when I came in this morning, but when I asked him for it, he said it was “too hard.” Maybe it was, but now he has another six to twelve months to think about it. I will too.

I like Ze Frank. There are inside jokes that the “new viewer” will have trouble making sense of, but once you get past that aspect of “The Show,” it’s just plain funny. It is to me, anyway. Ze is somewhere around my age, and we’re both from Upstate New York. And we both think the word “poop” is funny.

I know what you’re thinking, that like, everyday is a challenge and like, we need to seize it and all, and so like, the Seven Challenges are like, the days of the week that we need to, you know, seize and stuff.

Come on now, that’s crazy talk, especially considering that “you,” i.e. the reader of this blog, is likely no one else but “me,” the writer of this blog and, of course, “I” know damned well what I mean by the Seven Challenges.

Two long days of psychological training can make one a little loopy. So, the Seven Challenges is a conceptual framework, like the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, that has been “empirically demonstrated” to be effective in treating teenagers for substance abuse and substance dependence. As a model and a tool to use in working with my patients, I was impressed with the Seven Challenges approach. It takes into account the developmental capacities of teens and places a great emphasis on “meeting teens where they’re at.” So, in essence, the focus is not trying to get kids to quit drugs, it is rather to help kids think deeply about their lives and to encourage them to make thoughtful, informed, and committed decisions about their lives. And I’m down with that, yo. But, of course, there’s more to the story. Yes, we must always brace ourselves for the dreaded politics.

You see, the State Department of Corrections (our biggest referral source) is not only using the Seven Challenges approach in their Drug Court program, they also have started referring more kids to our competitors because those facilities have recently been “Seven Challenge certified.” So, after two grueling days of training, our facility is now certifiable. But here’s the thing. The folks who run the SC licensing racket are marketing themselves as an “empirically validated” approach, and in order to “preserve the fidelity” of the program they insist, per the licensing agreement, that the Seven Challenges program not be used in conjunction with other treatment philosophies, such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.

This is when I get crazy, because I’m an educator and a therapist, not a fucking businessman. I have no problem integrating the essence of the Twelve Step approach within the framework of the Seven Challenges program. In fact, I feel that I have a responsibility to do so, because many of my patients are sent home to rural counties where Twelve Step meetings will be their only support system option. But now I have to worry about breaking some licensing agreement that has nothing to do with therapy and everything to do with people making money.

I hate dogma and I hate when capitalism corrupts science. But there you have it. I’ve always been the sort who takes what’s useful and what makes sense to me and then flushes the rest. So, when I work with kids I don’t make claims about what is true or not true about drugs, drug use, or life. I give them information, perspectives, and the arguments and evidence used to support various claims, then I help them to think everything through and to take an honest look at themselves and their lives. My challenge now is to find the best way to continue to do this within the existing political constrains.

I work Saturdays through Wednesdays, mostly evenings, so the waves of slight depression begin churning about this time every Saturday morning. Back to work already? What did I accomplish on my days off? I get so many big ideas in my head, like this “do what’s important every day” thing, only to find my enthusiasm peter out after a short while. It’s the story of my life in many ways. I get all fired up about something, then make some grand declaration about how I’m going to put my new realization into action, like when Homer Simpson vows to “live life to the fullest” after his brush with blowfish poisoning. Well, in short order Homer is back on the sofa watching bowling on TV and stuffing his face with pork rinds. And me, well, I’m back to staring at the computer screen for way too long, while my guitar and meditation bench and books and spanish tapes and weight set and most of my other “best intentions” collect another layer of dust. Mmm, dust…

I’ve never been a very political animal. If you ask me what I think, I’ll tell you, but I tend to be passive in the political arena. Lately though, I feel an internal shift in this regard. I’m getting more and more worked up over “the state of things.” More and more I feel the need to take a stand, state my opinion with conviction. In a way, I have George W. Bush to thank for this, because he represents (in my mind, anyway) the two things that arouse my ire to a fever pitch: Stupidity and Fundamentalism.

I’m sure I’ll have more to say about this in the coming days and weeks, but as far as I’m concerned, the most destructive, dangerous forces in the universe right now are fundamentalist religion (especially Christianity and Islam) and psychological ignorance. Of course, the two go together like Taco Bell and indigestion.

It’s been a treat for me to see Former President Bill Clinton giving interviews on the news lately. He was the first politician I ever voted for, and although I was very disappointed by his disgraceful indiscretions while in office, I am thrilled to hear a voice out there that makes a little sense, that makes use of and appreciates open-ended thinking, discussion and learning. These are things the idiot and the fundamentalist simply and simple-mindedly will not tolerate.

Finished up the work week without much ado. Now I must hastily pack and get to bed so that I’ll be refreshed for the ten hour drive to Little Rock. The iPod is charged and ready for road-trippin’. Copious amounts of coffee are set for brewing and consumption. Socks and underwear — check. Suits, shirts, ties, shoes, belt — check. Toiletries — check. Affable demeanor, idle conversation talking points — check. Lap-top charged up and in carrying case — Doh!