The Details Matter

One would guess that doing this work for over twenty years renders the thousands of stories one hears as redundant or commonplace. But it never ceased to amaze and startle me when I heard yet another. The details matter; the details of a young woman having both legs broken after being hit with a detached kitchen sink; the details of a five-year-old being labeled hyperactive, and being prescribed psychotropic drugs after he bit the school vice principal; the details in the face of an eighteen-month-old baby girl with absolutely no affect - no tears, no smiles, no emotional affect whatsoever – after never or rarely having been rocked, nurtured, or touched. The details of the woman who came in during the first trimester of her eighth pregnancy, having never had custody of the previous seven babies she’d carried; they were all crack babies and in different foster or adoptive homes. It was a tremendous effort for our team to convince Child Protective Services (and even ourselves) to give her a chance with that baby. The details of all those who went to treatment the first time, and never looked back; as well as the ones who tried fifteen or twenty times to get clean, only to overdose and die a week after leaving the program. The details of that one counselor who had been to prison, used drugs, and had four or five years clean under her belt when she was found trapped inside a car, burned beyond recognition, presumably at the hands of an ex-boyfriend. Her story didn’t even make the local evening news; she was poor, black, and anonymous to everyone but us. The details matter. I spent over twenty years nodded out behind the mask of heroin; five of those were in prison. I don’t regret those years. They are integral threads in the tapestry of my being. What I do regret is how many people were hurt. Throughout those years, everyone who crossed my path was a victim of my crimes, my addiction, my misery and disdain for life. My greatest struggle these days is the loss of youth - the physical loss, not the mental. Youth fades more quickly than one ever thinks possible, and it’s a journey in itself to slowly notice that you’re less able to do things like open bottles, see fine print, garden, wake up pain-free, and stay up past 10:00 p.m. The upside is the wisdom one gains just by virtue of experiencing life. Twenty-four years ago I was lucky enough to find a place – a safe place - where I become conscious rather than unconscious, began practicing good deeds rather than destructive ones. Twenty-four years, filled with all the human emotions I spent so many years trying to avoid or pretend didn’t exist. Before that, my problem was that I had not been relentless in trying to figure out my disdain for life and love for drugs; when I got to a program in 1986, I was a bitter, jaded, cynical dope fiend, facing twenty-eight years back in prison for felony thefts. I had crossed every line I said I wouldn’t, and drawn new ones of self-degradation. I was in the program to beat my felony cases, kick my habit, and get healthy enough to start another run. I soon found, however, this was not going to happen. I was forced to take a brutal, honest look at my life and begin accepting responsibility for it. I am not cynical or angry anymore, and I don’t think I suffered any great injustice. I used to think I had, but have learned that all of my experience makes me who I am. My life is rich with joy, sorrow, pain, laughter, travel, friends, the love of my life, and miracles in my work. It is filled with the wide, exquisite range of the human experience, each year better than the one before it. I work with those who are like I was; to pay the moral debt I owe to the universe, and prevent people from doing harm to themselves and others, particularly their children.