Meth: a Ticking Timebomb Gone Viral

Never Judge a Book by its Cover

Last night, I attended my first group session. The facilitator, Vicki, is a qualified Psychoanalyst, but wasn't there on official business and only wanted to talk to the group and ask questions...hang on...now that's a good shrink...not only did she begin to find out what makes us tick without us even knowing about it, but she waved the $200 per hour fee normal shrinks charge (normal, I will discuss with her next week).

Now, back to the serious business of quitting drugs.

I arrived early and thought I would edit some old writing on my phone, logged into WDC then halfway through the edit, Vicki arrived and called me and the other victim...I mean client, Alec, into the conference room. The room could have fit twenty or more people around the large oblong table, so the three of us settled in at one end and did the niceties. As I was the newbie and Alec had been before, Vicki went straight for my jugular...which given the short timeframe we have available, I appreciated very much.

Vicki then moved onto Alec and then back to me...we had a good rapport, and all felt comfortable when the door opened forty-five minutes into the one and a half-hour session and in walked a fellow who looked like he had had a hard life...skinny with a severely pockmarked face, old clothes with holes and to me, appeared high. His name is Tracy or Tracey...not sure about the spelling because I haven't met a male Tracey before.

It was obvious Vicki knew him, ignoring him for the next five minutes and in my mind, this guy didn't belong to 'our' little group. Eventually, she included the intruder and when he began to speak..to tell the group about his week...I felt shame for prejudging him as some old wino junkie who had no right to be there with us.

Tracey has been clean for 63 days...he drinks some alcohol but he wasn't drunk and I saw no signs he had any in his system. He told us of the people at the pub who know he is trying to clean himself up asking him to go outside for a pipe to get him back on the meth...he used to go with them because it made him feel included...like they were friends, but in time, he realised they just wanted to sell him drugs and that they were just dropkicks (Australian for users and idiots). He was proud of himself for resisting and so were we...then, the three of us and Vicki got to work in the final few minutes making our plans and declaring our goals for the following week.

I said goodbye and on the way out, I saw Tracey and he waved and asked if I would be coming back next week...I waved back and said that I would definitely see him then.

Learning, always learning...appearances don't mean shit...it's attitudes and a desire for a better life that counts in this battle I wage, along with people of all walks of life...we all deserve a chance and I think that was the most important thing I took away from my first session.