What Do You Think About the Career of Helping People Overcome Drug Addiction

[Joseph Maynor]

Curious.  Let's discuss.

Please read this first:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_rehabilitation

Edited December 19, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Nahm]

@Joseph Maynor illusion can’t give any why’s

[Source_Mystic]

I can tell you I worked in a transitional living shelter for a 2  years  and helped ran five programs from non-residential  to the apartment program , An extensive  in house 18 mouth  program , groups of almost every kind from training to emotional support.  The list goes on and on. I Thought I wanted to  go into psychology and help people in  that way.   So I placed myself in a real world environment to explore that. I would not trade that experience for anything it was amazing. But I learned several things.  

If you can do this I applaud you.  I can tell you that the amount of emotional, physical , mental and spiritual energy it takes to work in that field is Eminence. There is a reason suicide is higher in therapist psychologist and psychiatric disciplines.  

Addiction is a constant in every persons life in one way or another.  You will get great insight into this aspect of life. That includes the simple fact that until the person hits their rock bottom they will not succeed. They have to make that choice  themselves  and until they do no meaningful work will be done. That being said you have to support everyone like that is the case even when they fail. Relapse is not just part of the process it has to be taken into concentration on a daily basses. 

I loved my time doing this type of work I would not trade the experience for anything. I met some of the most caring genuine people that ran these programs. I  also experienced burnout and saw it in others on a semi-regular basis. It is more destructive than you could know. So anyone that wants or is thinking of doing this kind of work I would tell them to do the same thing I did get in this field in a real way.

• Even Before that make sure your own emotional,  mental, physical and spiritual life  are rock solid otherwise your setting yourself up to fail as well as those you could potability help.

Second you better find a way to decompress and compartmentalize your life. I know it sounds like I am trying to discourage you.  I am not people that can navigate all the challenges and pitfalls of this  field are needed and ones that can stay healthy and happy are rare. Maybe you are one of the people that are needed with the rare  constitution to do this long term. 

Get into field get your hands dirty and see what you are in for and start to develop strategy's  and ways to cope and adapt.  I would recommend at the least  one year commitment at the most a two year commitment to really know what you are dedicating the rest of your life too.

I can tell you after two years my delusion that I wanted to dedicate my life to psychology and helping other people in this way dissolved. My drive to help others did not change I just go about it differently now.

Good luck

 

Edited December 21, 2017 by Source_Mystic

[Markus]

I'm curious what you yourself think, since you're asking the question. 

[Nahm]

@Joseph Maynor maybe there’s a wide open market of help with addiction accords the board - as in, not specifically drug addiction?

[Leo Gura]

It will be pretty big downer on you working with people like that.

But, hey, someone's gotta do it. And for some people that might be the prefect niche. Probably people who have gone through that kind of thing themselves.

[JustinS]

@Joseph Maynor

Gabor Mate is great. Oh and ayahuasca is great too.  

[Edvard]

@Leo Gura «But, hey, someone's gotta do it.»

If that's an argument (which I don't disagree with), then why are you so opposed to a military career (in of itself, of course. I'm not talking about legitimate hostile nations)? Or have your views about this changed?

Edited December 22, 2017 by Edvard

[Leo Gura]

@Edvard I'm not really opposed to anything. You are free to murder people if you want. Such is reality.

[Edvard]

@Leo Gura Remember this? If that was not opposition, I don't know what to call it. People here were on my case back then.

Now, I don't know if "murdering people" is the correct definition of acting in self defence, which military not always is merely doing. But the principle of it, and that goes for many countries, is that it's for protecting the citizens and set of values for the country, which are just basic human needs. You and I live by conceptual values in nature. So goes for any purpose. You want to protect your purpose. You don't want to die before mission is completed. If someone tries to spoil your mission, you would go a long way in preventing them from doing it, or what? 

You believe that you need food in order to live, although you can't "know" that in the ultimate sense. You would kill people in self-defence, although in principle, death is a joke, right? Today, law and military has it's function. Maybe we won't "need" it in the future. I say "need", because indeed it is relative. You could dismantle the US military tomorrow (completely) and let Kim Jong Un take over and tell you what to do instead. No problem, I guess.

Edited December 22, 2017 by Edvard

[Nahm]

@Edvard have you done a satisfying amount of research into these things? The reasons for recent ‘wars’, etc?  Just curious what you’ve found. 

[h inandout]

@Edvard You're still waiting for external validation from an 'argument' you had six months ago.  Who is telling you to join the army?  Who is telling you that you are so small that you need someone else to make it okay for you to join the army?  

[h inandout]

@Joseph Maynor I suspect you have a very stabilizing disposition (maybe I'm wrong...).  If you do, you probably won't get caught up in the drama of someone else's mess.   And when someone figures out that life can be both simple and beautiful, you can be there for them.  

[Edvard]

5 hours ago, Nahm said:

@Edvard have you done a satisfying amount of research into these things? The reasons for recent ‘wars’, etc?  Just curious what you’ve found. 

I know about several wars, and I don't claim to be over average educated on them, nor do I need that to make this point (I have however completed one year mandatory service in Norway). Of course, with a military you have the power to do many horrific and unconscious things. You could debate whether joining lets say the US military makes sense in light of the way they have handled war through the decades. With that said, we just live in a world with a lesser and greater evil, which is to say lower and higher (less low) consciousness. We don't wanna go back. No country is at turquise, so by its very nature you will find more or less egoic behavior in any group of people, which makes military inevitably a dangerous thing. However, the only argmument for not having a military, in of itself, is to accept the greater evil to take over the values of the lesser evil and by that effect your life.

It's about values. If you live in the US, Leo does, think about, what are you greatful for? Free speech? Equality for women? Democracy? The ability to love same sex without being punished for it? Not being burned at the stakes? These are values that are constently under pressure by countries lower in spiral dynamics, and would not have won its way today without past bloodshed. The North Korean state loves its totalitarian ideology. It would do any thing to spread that to the rest of the world. By dismantling the military you say that that is fine. Yet you're happy to enjoy all the goods that follows from being a citizen of the US, or whatever country. The funny thing is that here you wanna talk about the ultimate utopic sense, where death is a joke, and unconditional happiness, even though the very theme of life purpose in itself is relative. With North Korean values your alternatives for life purpose would look very different. With Nazi values, maybe you're fine with being a jew, if you so much suddenly wanna talk ultimately again. Ultimately, we might as well kill ourselves. It gets absurd. So what do you wanna talk about here? Ultimate or relative. Relatively speaking, the US with its allies is the lesser evil of the world, yet by its very nature also has to consist of evil, because ego hasn't vanished from any society. So by that, you can discuss, what horrible things, or what useful things are the US military doing? As said, I would need to research this a lot, and I don't know if you really have the big picture here either. Regardless, my point is that relatively speaking, given what we value, SOMEONE's gotta do it, being it that we are talking about a legitimate hostile nation attacking, if we wanna put that as a minimum requirement for the use of military power. «Someone's gotta do it», was Leo's argument in seeming to be one reason for a worthwhile life purpose. Anyway, for some reason he said it. Again, if Nazi Germany approches your cities with tanks (blitz krieg), let me guess which side your gonna root for...

Edited December 24, 2017 by Edvard

[Edvard]

11 hours ago, h inandout said:

@Edvard You're still waiting for external validation from an 'argument' you had six months ago.  Who is telling you to join the army?  Who is telling you that you are so small that you need someone else to make it okay for you to join the army?  

I'm not really looking for «validation». I'm just curious to what I have missed, if anything at all. What do you want me to do here? Not contemplate? People I respect in many ways advice me not to join (not saying this is the main reason for this post. I'm at university now). We are discussing life purpose here, and you guys tell me military is a very, very unconscious thing, so you «shouldn't» join it. My point is that military is not less conscious than other parts of society, it's just that it's the arena where the unconscious nature of humanity is the most destructive. What I'm doing is contemplating, asking myself: «what is and what isn't an optional life purpose for me»? Cuz I haven't found it yet.

Also, people on this site know more of my opinions now, hopefully putting this discussion in a more proper context.

Edited December 24, 2017 by Edvard

[h inandout]

@Edvard I haven't really followed you, but I can speak from my perspective.  I haven't found my life purpose yet either.   But, you are definitely seeking external validation for your fascination with the military.  You are stuck on it.  Here is some validation: I worked with a military man on developing low-income housing for a Montana reservation in our Engineering for Developing Communities class.  He was very organized, and thoughtful.  He had been to Afganistan to do whatever support tasks he was doing there, but I never really asked about it.  I've also met military people who are VERY CLEARLY going through unaddressed PTSD symptoms.  Who know what they saw or what they did, but it is often clear that they do not know how to feel about it and are in denial about their need for counseling.  Watch documentaries to understand it more fully every day.  Try to not get stuck in one opinion or the other.  That way, you can choose for yourself both globally and momentarily whether or not you are making the right decision.  You can guide yourself.  You individually might actually need to go see a war or join the military in order to decide what kind of role you can and are willing to play.  Read some Thich Nhat Hanh.  He speaks a lot about how monks meditated their way out of the war in Vietnam.  It is really impressive.  In the US, buddhists used to be just as reviled as the terrorists are now.  Here is a letter that he wrote to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. about the self-immolating monks.  http://www.aavw.org/special_features/letters_thich_abstract02.html