Discouraging

Sometimes you kind of want to tell them to go fuck themselves. The clients that is. Some kid smuggled in a cell phone. He called his dealer and met him out at the edge of the property. He came back with a syringe and some heroin. He started sharing it around with some other kids.

Of course, they got caught. The case managers said, "Tell us what happened. We'll call it a relapse and let you stay and finish the program".

The kids got all hard. There was this one kid that I kind of liked. He went into a big routine about how he "wasn't raised to be a snitch". I'll give him credit. He was practically born in jail. His whole family is some kind of dope dealers. Still, he was being an asshole. I tried telling him, "This isn't a fuckin' prison you know. It's a fuckin' hospital. When they ask you what happened they want to know what went wrong, not who to punish".

He didn't get it. He wanted to go home, see his daughter and hang out with a bunch of old punks. That's what he said. When I dropped him at his grandparent's house he ran in the door to talk to his cousin, who sells heroin.

There was another kid who picked a fight over something. I can't even remember what. He was all tatted up and had piercings all over. He came on like a hard gangster. He wasn't scared of prison. You pay a cost for this lifestyle and he didn't mind paying. I had to take him home. Home turned out to be in a gated community on a golf course. You could fit two of my house into the garage. Fuck the police. Yo.

There was a very angry and obviously crazy young man. I had just come from driving almost 400 miles and dropping off Mr. Gated Community Gangster. On the way back I witnessed a terrible accident. I was told that I'd have to drive the angry young man to the bank so he could get money to buy cigarettes. It turns out he didn't have a bank account and he didn't have any ID. Somehow he managed to cash a check from his grandma but no one would sell him cigarettes. He got mad at me because I didn't want to buy his cigarettes for him. One of the case managers tried to tell me it was my job to "serve the clients". Fuck that. When I got sober I was told my job was to serve other people. I will not coddle a belligerent addict. That's not service and it's not teaching them about service.

I went to pick up some guy in a lovely, wealthy old mining town in the mountains. He had a sweet little house and a beautiful wife. He was a mumbling grey blur on the couch. He was smoking medical marijuana in a vaporizer. He was drunk as hell. He kept insisting that he couldn't leave until he had some more "medicine".  All the way back in he kept telling me about his rights. He had a right to smoke marijuana in the center. He had a right to keep his cell phone so he could check in with his wife every ten minutes, which he did throughout the ride in. He had a bunch of other rights. When he got to the center they gave him valium to keep him from convulsing and dying while he was drying out. He slept for two days. On the third day he woke up and demanded his marijuana. He was told he couldn't have it. He called his wife and left.

I dropped a really sweet, likable guy off at home. He was excited about his new, sober life. Two weeks later he was drinking all day, every day. He wasn't eating either. He begged to be allow back in. I went back and got him. He was a little sheepish, pretty drunk and as sweet and likable as ever. Two days later he became incoherent and his already swollen stomach started swelling up alarmingly. He's in the hospital with all kinds of holes in his guts. He's probably going to die in the next day or two. What a fucking waste.

I could use a big success story. I know this is a J-O-B but I want to believe. Even though I know what the odds are, I want to see someone get what is being offered and go on to live. It happens from time to time. It doesn't seem to have happened lately.