Moving on

Moving on...

I'm changing the focus of this blog...

Why? Because the circumstances of my life have changed and I want this blog to reflect that. After twenty four years I left the halfway house and retired. My gratitude for the opportunity to have lived and worked there runs wide and deep. I felt that one way I could pay the place back, was to hang around and help carry the work forward. And I did, for far longer than I ever stayed at any other job in my life. Plus, a Fall hurricane had destroyed the place I lived a few months before my retirement date, so it seemed like the universe was telling me that big changes were afoot and I'd better get used to it.

When you leave a job that's been the center of your work for so long, what fills the hole? Hurricane Matthew had obliterated my beloved garden, so a friend gave me an allotment in his, near my new home. So for a few months, instead of clocking in to work every day, I showed up at the plot to dig dirt and mulch and plant perennials. By the way, if you're looking for a gardening quick fix, perennials are NOT the answer. They arrive from the nursery so tiny and frail, and they need a lot of effort and time invested in them to get them to finally take root and take off. Sort of like this new life of mine.

Always loving to write, and knowing nothing about the craft of it, I treated myself to a creative writing correspondence course. For nine months I studied short story elements, viewpoint and characters, descriptions and settings, story arcs, structure and scenes, revision, and fiction marketing. Every time I learned something I had to take an exam and write a short piece to prove I'd mastered the concepts.

I made a grade of 95 for the course. But what inspired me the most was the feedback from the instructors. Their encouragement, praise, and helpful criticism for my fumbling efforts made the whole experience very rewarding -- and pointed me to my next step forward.

Which was to return to formal schooling at an online college. I'd started a degree forty one years ago, in 1969, and abandoned it in 1976. Actually, I dropped out after discovering my true major -- partying -- but that's a subject for another blog.

Now I'm a full-time English Major. Lordy, wouldn't one of my heroes, Garrison Keillor, crack a smile over that! One of the trickiest parts of it is just allowing myself, at my age, the permission to be there and do it. At sixty-five I am definitely the oldest dog in some of my classes. One of the reasons I chose this university's online program, was a press release they published when one of their students, a ninety-four year old grandmother, finished her Bachelor of Arts degree. The university president flew to Florida to personally deliver her diploma.

So, while some people recline in the sun after retirement, like lazy dogs sleeping in the afternoon yard, others like that Florida grandmother, take the plunge to learn new things. And succeed. That's what I want.

The only question you have to ask about a man at a halfway house

To say that the population of a halfway house is diverse is putting it mildly.

In fact, outside of the common desire to recover, most residents have very little in common.  Addiction is an “equal opportunity” disease that cuts across all socio-economic classes, so it’s not surprising that our residents come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, and from all walks of life. Most of the time the only thing that this polycultural group shares in common is that they find themselves temporarily at the same halfway house.

Being the inherently stubborn and self-centered people that addicts usually are, conflicts can arise, and “buttin’ heads” is common. Pity the poor staff member who has to ride herd on this unruly bunch, and mediate the disputes that can arise, sometimes over the most trivial things.  I once observed that a small boxing ring in the back yard and two pairs of gloves would make an effective solution!

The house manager and I were discussing that sort of situation today on the front porch.  Of the twelve men in residence, all but one seemed to be willing to get along.  His attitude was so prickly that one or two of the new admissions had supposedly been scared away when they found themselves rooming with him, and the other residents were complaining about him. I was surprised to hear it, since my experience with him had been mostly positive. I reminded the manager that none of us might know what unknown things might bew stressing him out. “True,” he replied “but the house rules make it very plain that he has to cooperate with the other residents and staff, and I am just about ready to let him go.”

And he was right, the house rules make it very clear that you have to at least cooperate with the other people here, whether you like them or not.  After all, a halfway house is a peer community, with emphasis on the community.  “I don’t really understand it either,” the house manager said, “because he’s been here a while, and when he first got here, he was as good a resident as we ever had. It’s like he has some sort of death wish, and he’s just trying to get kicked out.”

At that point I had an “aha!” moment, because I’d seen similar situations many times before. Sometimes when a man feels in his heart that it really is time to leave the halfway house, he just can’t bring himself to simply say “Well, I’m done here, so goodbye and good luck ya’ll.” After all, there are no bars on the door – as our old director Ray used to remind us -- “The front door swings both ways, you walked in here through it and you can just as easily walk out of the same door.” But for some men, taking the direct responsibility for making that decision is too hard. Their behavior gets worse and worse until they are finally asked to leave. Sometimes it’s more comfortable to see yourself as a victim. Sometimes you have to make that decision for a man, he’s just not able to make it for himself.

So when do you need to do a man a favor, and let him go?  There’s a simple question you can use, the answer to which will tell you all that you need to know:

Is the house better off with him or without him?

Twelve Thousand Two Hundred and Twenty Five Reasons to Say “Thank You”

In an earlier blog I wrote “No halfway house can survive without the support of the community in which it sits.”  Nothing demonstrates this principle in  the case of Christian Fellowship Home better than the success of our annual Telethon fundraiser, held yesterday.

First our regional television station WHIG, is to be thanked for providing the production facility and air-time without which there would be no Telethon. Sandra Smith, owner and manager, and technical experts Edward Greene and Lee Pritchitt, went many times the extra mile.

Then our corporate sponsors: local businesses who make investments in the Telethon before it's any where near ready to go on the air. We gratefully thank Rocky Mount Engine Plant, Ivan Price Graphic Design, Turn-key Storage, Steve Felton at Ameriprise Financial, COECO Business Systems, John Hackney Agency, Stallings Oil Company, Eagle Transport, Don’s Body Shop, and E. Norman Davis.

The public face of our Telethon is the on-air host team, expertly led by Jean Almand Kitchin, who was joined by Ginny Mohrbutter, Amanda Bell, Lennette Britt, and Gus Tulloss. Some of our best faith-based community leadership served as guest hosts: including Bishop Shelton Daniel, and Pastors Jodie Wright, and Larry Curtis. Also donating time before the cameras were Tom Betts, Kim Hickerson, Joe Goarck, and Marva Scott.

You can't have a Telethon without a phone bank. Ours was manned by Denise Simon, Christy Skojec Taylor, and Gerald Warner -- all of Express Personnel -- who excitedly waved purple pom-poms and cheered every time a pledge call came in.  Back end financial work was capably manned by CFH Board members Vanessa Whitaker, and Rick and Sandra Thomason. 

Entertainment and talent interludes were provided by the Word Tabernacle Men’s Choir, Tiffany Hill, Terrapin’s Group, and the Sapony Creek band while current house resident Tony Williams performed Gospel selections as well as gave his testimony about being at the Men’s Home.

Thanks are also due to Men’s Home Manager Alton Lynn, and the current and former residents who shared their experiences both publicly and anonymously.

The result of all this effort by all of these people was astounding: pledges of support this year in the amount of $12,225.00, and a six year cumulative total raised from our Telethon of $81,990.00 And that’s a whole lot of reasons to be thankful about the generosity of our twin county community, twelve thousand two hundred and twenty five of ‘em, to be exact!

Will all of you who are drug addicts or alcoholics, please raise you hands?

Of course, I didn't expect a lot of you to raise your hands -- but if some of you did, please get up with me privately, as I may have some experience strength and hope that will perhaps be useful to you!

But I will bet one thing: I 'll bet that every one of you reading this knows somebody with that problem, maybe a family member, someone you worked with, a neighbor, somebody who goes to your church, someone you knew at school. That's how widespread the problem is. That's how pervasively it saturates our modern culture from top to bottom.

Those of us who work with addiction consider it an "Equal Opportunity" disease. Because it doesn't matter what family you were born into, it doesn't matter how much money you make, or how far you succeeded in school, or what color you are, what culture you embrace, or what side of the tracks you happened to be born on.

It takes courage, determination, treatment, luck, support, and help from the Almighty to successfully beat addiction. For forty years the halfway house at Christian Fellowship Home has been helping newly recovered men to beat the odds and lead productive lives. It doesn't succeed with all men, but it works for a lot of them. I know because I am one of those men.

From time to time our halfway house program reaches out to the world at large for contributions. This weekend will be one of those times as we broadcast our 6^th annual Telethon. The live, three hour show, carried on our local cable station WHIG TV, will feature testimonials from residents, endorsements from community leaders, and entertaining music featuring local talent. You can call in during the show and make a pledge, or use othe PayPal link on our website donations page, www.cfhrockymountnc.com, to make a contribution. 

No contribution is too small for us to appreciate. An $85 contribution for instance, will provide a whole week of complete support services for a newly admitted indigent resident. A $40 gift will allow us to take care of the co-pay to get a resident to the local clinic for emergency medical or dental services.  A $10 pledge will cover the generic cost of needed medications for men coming to us out of treatment centers and detox units. We are an IRS registered 501 (c) 3 charity, so your contributions are tax deductible, and our financial information is available to review on Guidestar.com at:

 http://www.guidestar.org/organizations/56-1218951/christian-felloship-home-nash-edgecombe-counties.aspx

Please consider helping us fulfill our mission of helping newly recovered substance abusers beat the odds and live productive, sober lives.

Building community, one garden at a time

“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” – Audrey Hepburn

No halfway house can survive without the support of the community it sits in and serves. The community support doesn’t often happen automatically -- it takes real effort on the part of the halfway house to be seen by the community as an asset. Sometimes halfway houses are seen as less than welcome presences in their neighborhoods.  This is usually the result of carelessness: sometimes on the part of the residents who live there and sometimes on the part of the employees who manage the house.

Christian Fellowship Home’s mission statement demands that we be seen as an asset to our neighborhood, which is a mixed used area adjacent to the center core of the city. It’s a neighborhood in flux, trying hard to recover from many years of “white flight” and urban decay and neglect.  The newest group of stakeholders, residential single-family property owners, has a vision of eventual gentrification that doesn’t always mesh with the present day reality of absentee landlords, rental properties, and a sizeable number of people in poverty.

In an effort to improve conditions and move the quality of living in our neighborhoods forward, our town has developed neighborhood associations.

The Villa Place Neighborhood Association represents the neighborhood where our halfway house sits, and we have tried hard to be a good neighbor to it.  Our residents pick up litter on Grace Street regularly through the Keep America Beautiful program.  They keep our buildings and grounds neat and maintained. At the yearly neighborhood association festival, we sponsor a food pantry, staffed by residents.

When Martin P. lived at the men’s home he discovered a passion for gardening.  He liked taking care of the yard so much that the house manager assigned him the chore permanently. He filled the flower beds around the house with flowers of all kinds, many of them bought at his own expense. He moved out when he got his own place and continued his work on the grounds as a volunteer, and does so to this day.

That’s how Martin met Ms. Barbara Johnson, the president of the neighborhood association. The association had been given the space for a community garden  in a vacant lot two blocks down, and after seeing his handiwork with the house beds, Ms. Johnson wanted his input and help on “fixing up” the community garden, which had an official sign to announce it’s presence, and very little else.

So a wonderful idea was born – to transform the empty lot into a miniature urban green space, with ornamental plantings and a central paved area to sit in. Martin drew up a master plan and a materials list with prices to estimate the cost.  But how was the project to be funded?

Lakeside Baptist Church had done several work projects to improve the Men’s Home over the years, including projects that had components like patio paving and flower bed construction. Would they be interested in adopting the Villa Place Community Garden as a work project?

It took a few months to work out the details, but Senior Pastor Jodie Wright’s congregation embraced the project, undertook the funding of materials, and even contributed a lovely new detail – they would construct and install a mini-library in the central paved area, with books on urban gardening, do-it-yourself home fix up projects, and other titles suited to our neighborhood. Our garden would be a garden of the mind and spirit as well as plants! The vision for our community garden was complete.

The city government, of course, had to give their green light on the project as well. Last night, the three of us – Martin, Ms. Barbara, and me, sat somewhat nervously in the planning department’s big committee room, while the Historic Preservation Commission reviewed our plans and asked questions.  And we got their approval! With our Certificate of Appropriateness in hand, our project was truly on the way!

So on a Saturday morning in early November, volunteers will meet to build the little park, and celebrate a useful and beautiful improvement to our neighborhood’s landscape. But we’ll also be celebrating something else: the synergy that can come together for the good of all when a halfway house, a neighborhood association and a church’s congregation all pull together to make the world a slightly better place.

The cat's name was what??!!?

“A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may
hide their feelings, but a cat does not.”   --  Ernest Hemingway

“Relapse.” The cat’s name was “Relapse.”

Animals aren't usually found at a halfway house. A resident usually has enough to do with trying to be responsible for himself to a limited degree, so taking responsibility for the care and feeding of animals is usually beyond them. All halfway houses don’t have the fenced in yards or kennel space or budgeted dollars for the food and medical care required to keep a pet.  Most halfway houses don’t want the hassle of keeping a pet inside either. It’s a tragic end for the pet if a man who has gotten one relapses and leaves. Then the animal usually ends up at the animal shelter, with very little chance of survival.

But there was one cat, which took up residence at our halfway house, and he was a most remarkable animal.  One day the director came into the staff room with what looked like a small grey fur glove in his hands.

“What you got there?” we asked.

“It’s a cat, I got him at a yard sale.”

He turned the small grey ball loose and it streaked promptly under my bed, where no amount of coaxing could convince it to come out.

And there he stayed; ignoring the treats I tried to lure him out with.

After a couple of days, he poked his nose out and meowed. I brought him some canned food and a dish of water.  After he ate, he jumped up on the bed, purred a couple of times and curled into a tiny ball for a nap.

I guess after that he felt he was home. 

For a month or two, he was just “the cat” and then someone decided he should have a name. After analyzing his daily habits, we decided to call him “Relapse.” -- because he didn't go to any recovery meetings, he didn't do any chores around the house, he wouldn't get a job and wouldn't pay any fees, and he slept all day and stayed out late at night. On at least one occasion his name turned out to be a liability though. One man had gotten fond of the cat, had bought him some special treat at the Dollar Store and couldn't find the cat to give it to him. He stood at the back door and hollered for him, loud as he could, again and again -- until he realized that standing on the back steps of a halfway house and hollering “Relapse! Relapse! Relapse!” at the top of your lungs was probably not the best thing to do!

Relapse was a smart cat, and quickly figured out that the house cook was the man to watch for tasty things to eat and treats. And he quickly learned that the director, Ray, who loved to tease and scare him, was best avoided. Every time he heard Ray’s cowboy boots clumping down the hallway, he skedaddled.

Relapse was one of the only beings on earth who ever got the best of our director, Ray, who was willing to buy his cat food – only not the kind that Relapse preferred. Instead Ray would find the cheapest brand available and bring it home.

“He’s not going to eat that, Ray.”

“The hell he won’t. If he gets hungry enough he’ll eat it. Stop feeding him scraps and you’ll see.”

It was hard for me to cut out the extra treats I’d been enjoying fixing for my little buddy, but Ray was the boss, so I did as I was told.

Relapse took one look at what was in his bowl, and turned away.  And every day he would look at the bowl and turn away with the patient dignity of a Buddhist monk. Ray came in the kitchen day after to day to check.

“Has he eaten it yet?”

“No, Ray.”

Finally, even Ray had to give in. The day he came home from shopping for groceries with Relapse’s favorite brand of kibble, I knew the cat had won.  “Damn fool cat will probably starve himself to death,” Ray said gruffly, as he threw away the cheap food and refilled the bowl with the better brand.  After that, the cat got a lot more respect from Ray.

Some of the men didn't like him, but many of them did. Some of them found they could love the cat at a time when it was difficult to love themselves or anyone else, and they would sit stroking him for hours, or laughing as he chased a crumpled up paper ball u p and down the hallway. Some would object to a cat in the house at all. “I’m allergic to cats,” one of the new men said to Ray the day he was admitted. “That’s too bad,” Ray replied, “because the cat was here before you were.”

He was a peculiar cat in some ways. We all hoped he would be a good mouser, but Relapse had no interest in hunting rodents, and if he saw a mouse, he promptly hid under the bed. Squirrels either. There were plenty of squirrels living in the seven old pecan trees that ringed the house, and when one of them got inside, we all thought that Relapse would make short work of him. Relapse dove promptly under the bed and stayed there, until a couple of us herded the bewildered squirrel down the hallway and out the front door.

I wanted to take him to the vet to for shots and neutering, but Ray said it would cost too much. I reminded him that neutering would make the cat much less likely to spray in the house when he got older. That much Ray conceded. “Tell you what,” he said, “I’ll pick up the tab for getting him fixed, and you pay for the shots.”  The vet shook her head after Relapse’s preliminary screenings were finished. Her professional opinion was that it wasn't worth giving him any vaccinations.

 “This cat has feline leukemia,” She said. “Vaccinating him would be a waste of your money.”  “Humor me Doc,” She looked at me like I was crazy. “ This cat will probably not live out the year. It’s pointless.” “Let’s just give him the shots anyway,” I said. “I’ll pay for them.”  So she did.

Relapse stubbornly refused to die from his leukemia, and as I took him back to the vet year after year for his checkup, I couldn't resist ribbing her a little. “Yeah, Doc,” I said, eight years later. “This is the cat, you said wouldn't last a year!” We both laughed, and Relapse, who had grown into a big fine specimen, just lay on the exam table and purred. It's amazing how a little love and some care can help a cat (or a man) beat the odds.

That cat lived 13 years, and so entrenched himself into the daily life of the halfway house, that there are men who still ask about him and remember him to this day.

Time eventually ran out for ole Relapse, just as it must for all of us sooner or later. When he got so old and sick that all he could do was sleep and barely eat, one of the residents who had taken a shine to him took him into his room and tenderly nursed him through his last days until the end. Those of us who loved you, Relapse, salute you; for you were as much a resident of our halfway house as any human who ever walked through the door.

The job you love to hate but hate to leave…

“ I am like a man pursued by a bear,” said the prioress, “ and who carries twelve small children on his back, and a horsefly settles on his face. He might like to knock off the horsefly, but how can he? --For with both hands he supports the children, and if he stops to put the children down the bear will catch up with him.”  Sylvia Townsend Warner “The Corner That Held Them” 1948

What started as a temporary (I thought!) job as the house cook at Christian Fellowship Home has lengthened for me into a twenty year commitment to the place, and those twenty years have passed more quickly than I care to admit. There are jobs that enrich you, jobs that inspire you, and jobs that ennoble you; some people have even managed to find all three benefits in a single employment situation.  That’s definitely been the case for me here, although there have been enough “horseflies” and “bears” thrown in along the way to make it interesting! I can only conclude one thing – it takes a special kind of idiot to work at a halfway house.

A halfway house owned and operated by an individual may be different, but the ones that are sponsored by small local non-profit charitable organizations like ours depend primarily on funding and donations, and those can swell, ebb, and wane according to the circumstances of the community’s economy like tides under the phases of the moon. Some people actually think that there is money to be made in operating a halfway house, as one well-meaning but naive lady breathlessly told me over the phone one day. Her plan was to open a halfway house using nothing but available grant money, which she was convinced was abundantly plentiful and going begging -- unclaimed funding that was just hanging around unpicked like ripe fruit in an abandoned orchard. She was convinced too that the residents who came to her would all gladly contribute, paying their fees promptly and responsibly --and holding hands and singing Kumbaya as well I guess!

Reality check: the residents are probably the least reliable source of funding you can depend on. I mean, really, who comes out of treatment, or off a long disastrous binge with an improved credit score?

In most halfway house operations, money is in short supply. In spite of that, many people have the idea that working in one is a lucrative position that pays exorbitantly well. Our annual budget of slightly more than $100K earmarks approximately $45K for salaries and wages, and we have three employees. You do the math.

Finding the money to keep the lights on with is challenging enough, but dealing with the residents is just as challenging.  Very few end up at a halfway house because they want to be there. Most of us got there because we had absolutely no other viable alternative. When he first arrives, the new man is battling all sorts of devastating feelings about his recent addictive crisis and the consequences of it. That doesn’t always make for pleasant social interaction right off the bat, and is one reason that a lot of the newly recovered relapse in the first 90 days of new found sobriety. Then there’s what I call the “Thank you/screw you” complex. The first couple of weeks or months a resident is usually constantly sharing how glad he is to be there but later on nothing the house does suits him and gratitude has flown out the window.

And don’t be looking for a lot of positive strokes from the people you work for either, there aren’t many employee of the month appreciation award  programs at any of the halfway houses I know.  Your bosses, the board of directors, may not be practicing addicts and alcoholics, but they are sometimes going to bring the same amount of “personalities before principles” to the situation that the residents do!  To paraphrase the Conductor’s Lament:

            I do not get to drive the train,

            I cannot ring the bell,

            But let the dam thing jump the tracks

            And see who catches hell!” – author unknown

So why do I keep going to work day after day at this halfway house? There are several reasons. To see the light of sustainable recovery come in to the eyes of a man who was convinced it was impossible for him to get sober is a wonderful thing to experience. To share the daily task of staying sober and clean with other men who are facing the same challenges I am gives me the strength to endure.  To know that there would be a hole in the fabric of our community if the house disappeared (as several of the eastern North Carolina halfway houses already have) helps give me the determination to carry it forward. But for me, there’s an even more fundamental benefit from working here that I never found at any other place of employment--

It’s the only job I’ve ever had that I could stay sober doing.