Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Before my current job, I worked as an admissions counselor in a drug and alcohol rehab for 3 ½ years. I hated the job for a lot of reasons only one of them because I had to hear horrible, heart-breaking stories about people and their loved ones dealing with addiction. It was very hard for me to not take home the residual stress from hearing and documenting these stories day after day, never mind the times we had to call the police because the person on the other end of the phone was about to end their life. I heard a lot of ugly things people did because they were under the influence of drugs or because they needed to get a fix so bad they would do literally anything. And, I didn’t just hear the stories over the phone, I met the individuals when they came into the facility on the worst day of their lives; the day they entered rehab. Some new patients came in so high or so hung-over they could not complete the necessary paperwork for admission. A few people were experiencing the DT’s so bad they had to be sent to the local hospital because their state was more emergent than our small medical staff could handle. I wish I could remember as many success stories as I can the terrible ones, but working in admissions we saw more of the pain and less of the recovery.





While I did go through the drinking phase in college, I never participated in any other indulgences as a teen or young adult. My first experience with people around me smoking pot was when I was in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua. I was invited to a birthday party for a volunteer I didn’t really know but a bunch of my friends were going and so I decided to tag along. We were having a good time, dancing, playing music, having a few drinks, when someone arrived with marijuana. I thought I could just ignore it, keep dancing and everything would be fine, but it soon became apparent that I was going to be the only one not imbibing. So, I left. I walked back to the volunteer’s place (thankfully, the party was being held at her friend’s house). I got myself ready for bed and climbed into the large bed I would be sharing with 2 other women. When the rest of the gang got back, they were high and acting juvenile. They all climbed into the bed with me but wouldn’t settle down and sleep, so it made for a very long and unpleasant night.





You can call me a prude or too conservative, or whatever but I am not a proponent of cannabis. I am also not a fan of drinking copious amounts of alcohol or illicit drug use either. I have seen the destruction of these vices and don’t want to share those similar fates. And I certainly don’t want to be around people using, smoking, drinking to intoxication. I ran into two incidents over the holiday where drug use was happening and I had the little ones with me. The first incident I didn’t know about until afterwards. The second we walked in on, sort of uninvited. I felt uncomfortable and I didn’t want the little ones to be there, but had to complete a task and try not to make a big deal out of it because it’s “just pot.” I find this is a hard thing to navigate – I don’t choose to participate and don’t want to be around it, yet it is thrust upon me due to things outside of my control. And, I don’t live in a state where recreational use is legal, so there’s that added pressure to not be around it for me. As much as it bothered me to walk into a house full of stinky pot smoke, it bothered me even more to know it was happening right under my nose without me knowing about it. Knowing it half the battle, it allows me to make the choice to stay or go. I hate knowing the little children were exposed to this at such a young age and I hope they won’t remember the occasion.    


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