Chris Christie

Okay, short rant...promise.

The discharge planning and referral process for individuals in recovery from substance abuse is shit. Politicians seem to be in agreement with the idea that "we need to address this drug epidemic" but they fail the system and the people they are claiming to help by introducing them to a vicious cycle.

A person abusing a substance comes to the decision (one they are sometimes forced into) to seek help. They call a facility or two or twenty and are introduced to there first obstacle, The insurance question. And while we all hope to believe we each have equal opportunities for treatment, if your insurance is through the state, Medicaid/Medicare... you will likely find yourself being either turned away or forced to be included on long wait lists or told to seek state and county funding. One could imagine how dried up those resources are. Okay, so you finally find a place that accepts Medicaid/ or by some miraculous chance you are provided with state/county funding. You enter treatment. Detox is 3-5 days Short term Rehab 10-14. Residential you are looking at 28 days. Some long term facilities are 60-90 days. The rare possibility that one finds a 6 month to 9 month program...well congrats to you. There are so few programs that when a person leaves the initial detoxification, they are immediately thrown back to the wolves. They have no chance. Its a shitty thought....And so the cycle remains, the person seeks help, obtains brief relief and then back to the communities and environments that they sought to leave.

Awakening takes Work

When we are young we are taught to throw pennies into mall fountains, wish on shooting stars and "believe in the power of our dreams". I, myself am an early disciple of Disney Movie frivolity. All of this uncontrived intention with one glaring flaw...Wishes don't just come true... At least for me, I spend each moment wishing for a different body, family, income, job, hobbies the list goes on. The biggest thing that I don't do is try to engage in the "doing" that's so necessary a part of getting to or obtaining of the things I really want.  I want to be a photographer. I want to be a writer. I want people to read my writing and feel something from it. I want people to call me a wise sage with infinite wisdom. (egomaniac no?). I want to start a food critic blog called "RED" with my boyfriend. I want to purchase a boat (nothing fancy). I want to live near the shore or in the woods, not in New Jersey. I want to be fit. I want to give back. I want to write letters to politicians for the advocacy of the mentally ill. I want to have more money and travel more. I want to open up a coffee shop and source my coffee beans- by going to different countries and taste-test.  

I read a sentence from Moby Dick at 1am and asked my sleepy boyfriend to read it too- 

"Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. When ever I find myself growing grim about the mouth;whenever it is a damp drizzly November in my soul;whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; an especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street and methodically knocking peoples hats off---then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball-----I quietly take...to.. the.. ship..." 

What a romantic few sentences. This idea of boredom with current circumstance, the necessity to pick up and go, has been and undetachable piece of my spirit....I look at my routine, what is, and how my wants are not lining up with what is, and I feel the urge to "quietly take to the ship". Said another way from a new favorite writer... Anais Nin-

"You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book, or you take a trip, and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom,death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. they work in offices. they drive a car. They picnic with there families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death. Some never awaken"

Both of these quotes have to do with awakening..which equal parts frightens and motivates me. First comes the realization of dissatisfaction,boredom and then fear that It will always be this way. Second comes the excitement of possibility and the motivation to begin the work of expanding one's self.

So thats were I am....I gotta start writing, I gotta start taking pictures again. I gotta keep planning wonderful trips with my friend.