"No-no-no, no-no-NO." The last "no" reached a crescendo, leaving no doubt he didn't like the idea. Caring for the sick and the elderly and the homeless and the refugees was one thing.
But, the addicts?
"One thing you've got to understand here," he said. "If I had it my way, I'd cut all the addicts off from all welfare. They should take drug tests to get welfare. I don't cotton to giving them hand outs. They're where they are of their own choosing."
"Bless them, the same," I said.
"Bless them?!" He spat on the ground. "What kind of Christmas gift you thinking of giving them, anyway?"
The idea was to give gifts to all the less fortunate of the world -- gifts that would lift them out of their problems. So, the gift for the homeless would be to solve homelessness. The gift for the war-ravaged would remove them from war. And so forth. More or less, solved all the world's problems for Christmas.
I tried to explain that to him.
"Well you won't solve this problem," he said. "You'd have to get the whole world to quit taking drugs and alcohol, and that ain't gunna happen."
I smiled. I knew he was right.
Still, getting as near to an answer as possible seemed worth it, so I sat there thinking.
"I'll tell you what we'll do," I said, even though I hadn't yet come up with an answer, and was stabbing in the dark as we spoke, trying to come up with something.
When I didn't continue, he looked up at me. "Yeh? Go ahead," he said, almost mocking me, sensing that I didn't have an answer.
Suddenly, my memory rushed with thoughts. I had thought this through once in the past. At least, I'd thought through alcoholism, and it might be that drug addiction is not much different.
"Jim," I said, for that was his name. "Alcoholism is a disability. Being on drugs is a disability. What do we do with people who are disabled?"
There was no answer from him.
"We put them in care centers and we take care of them." I paused. "Sometimes, they stay there for the rest of their lives. Sometimes, they need that care for the rest of their lives." I paused, then continued. "It seems to me, all our alcohol-treatment centers are treat-and-release facilities, not permanent homes. May I suggest, alcoholism is a disability. With that in mind, consider that when it comes to other disabilities, the patient can be placed in a care center for life. Why not the alcoholic?
"I have seen more than one person go into the Volunteers of America treatment center, then come out and return right back to drinking. Permanent solutions might require permanent care. No, not every situation requires permanent care. There are times when the alcoholic will be released, either of his own choice, or because he is healthy enough to leave."
Jim was fidgeting, shaking in anger. He didn't like the idea of coddling the alcoholics and drug addicts. "You going to pay for this with taxpayer dollars?" he asked.
I smiled. "Hope not. Government can't afford that. My thought is that we not give them something for free, whenever we can avoid it. For the most part, and maybe for the all part, they can work. Whether we place them in community jobs during the day and have them return to the center at night, or whether we have jobs for them right in the treatment centers, let them work."
I then told him that just putting them in the treatment centers was only a part of what needed to be done. I explained that we must follow the rules of change, the rules that govern change.
"You must give them hope, of course," I said. "You must give them belief. They must see that recovery is something that can be achieved. They must see it is possible to become sober. Tell them stories of people who have achieved it.
"You must build a dream in them, Tell them how wonderful it will be. Remind them how great it is to have a good job, or a lovely wife, if there is hope to find a wife. Remind them of the things they had when they were sober. Build in them a desire, a dream, a want.
"Encourage them. Take every small victory and hail it. If they stay sober long enough to read 10 pages in a good book, praise them. If they water the lawn, praise them. Praise the victories.
"Love them. It is said, love is the most powerful force in the world. Express your love. Shower them with it. Make it a sure thing that your love does not go unnoticed.
"Surround them with as many good influences as you can find. Good music? If you can, then get them listening to, and enjoying music that champions good things. If Elvis Presley's 'In the Ghetto' teaches them to care for the poor, then that is noble music, and might help shape them.
"Good music, good movies, good entertainment -- these things can help persuade them to do that which is good. Reading the scriptures. Reading good books. Whatever they will latch onto that is a good influence, encourage it. Going to church? If they will go, encourage it.
"Good influences also means removing them from friends who drink, and friends who party, and friends who aren't so good. It means, taking pornography out of their lives. It means, placing them in a good environment.
"Give them an example, someone to look up to, someone to pattern their life after.
"Lead them through the steps of repentance, which are nothing if not rules of change. One, is that they recognize what they are doing. If they are sneaking out to buy a bottle of liquor each night, help them get to the point where they are honest about it. If they are drunk, but insist they are not, work with them to get them to where they will confess they are drunk.
"Get them to restore those things that are lost, when you can. If their drunkenness is leading them to hurt others, help them see as much, and encourage them to treat those people better. Encourage them to go back to those they have hurt, and seek to make amends.
"Help them forgive themselves. Don't hang their drunkenness over them. Don't treat them in a condemning way. If they sense you are condemning, they might continue to condemn themselves.
"Give them peace. For those of you who are religious, consider Christ's promise, 'My peace I give unto you.' He was seeking to change people, and it is noteworthy that he made having peace part of the way he went about changing them.
"Educate them. Teach them about alcoholism. Let them become experts on what leads to it, and what harms it bears, and how they can escape it.
"Give them alternatives. Give them other things to be involved with other than alcohol. Fill their lives with other activities, if you can. If they will work, get them into a job.
"Give them incentives, rewards for when they stay sober.
"Lastly, and probably as important as anything, give them a place to practice being sober. Practice is one of the most basic principles of change. A person who wants to be a good football player, practices. A person who wants to become a good singer, practices. Likewise, if the drunk wants to become sober, he must practice. I don't know that anything is achieved without practice. In caring for the drunk, this is perhaps where the alcohol treatment center comes into play. There, they are deprived of the alcohol, and they practice being sober. Game day, though, doesn't come until they are released from the treatment facility.
"Give them agency. You might think placing them in a detox center is the opposite of that. It is not. When they are deep into their alcoholism, that is when they are without agency. That is when they have no choice. They are addicted. They are servants to their bottles. They are not in their normal minds. So, sometimes it is that they need someone to help them out of their prison. Just as a child is ever watched to see that he does the right things, until reaching an age when they can make choices on their own, so it is with the drunk. He must be watched over to see that he does not drink until he has been sober enough long enough to make the choice for himself.
"The alcoholic needs to be freed from the bottle, before he is free to make his own choices."
Finally, I pulled up. I'd listed all the things I thought would help. As I ended, I thought on how the goal was to solve the addiction problem, to bring an end to it, and to wrap it as a present and place it under the Christmas tree that Christmas Day 2017. I thought how in this case, although you cannot get everyone off drugs and alcohol, you can come up with the best way to handle the problem.
I slipped the gift into a box, wrapped it in wrapping paper, and placed it under the tree.
No comments:
Post a Comment