Vocational Recovery as Part of Recovery from a Life of Crime

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I discussed this issue with my friend, Adam W who is a member of A A. He had some advise that falls outside the president's area of expertise. He said that many new AA members have this problem. It's not uncommon for a newcomer to have a recent arrest and maybe even a long string of convictions and jail sentences. Many of them successfully deal with the problem by either working for guys they meet at meetings and come to trust or by starting small businesses themselves. House painting, gardening, pool service and construction day worker are some of the most common vocational choices. As they become established and achieve some financial security a move can be made into more traditional pathways. But it requires commitment and willingness to start at the very bottom and work hard.
Attendance at meetings opens up opportunities to make contacts or receive guidance from others who have been through the same thing. And if the ex-felon addict is not willing to spend a lot of time at meetings or some kind of rehab activity they might as well get ready for that next trip to jail. This is an area where government is not on your side. So you have to be on your own side and seek out sympathetic individuals who will be of help.
Adam also shared some info about the early history and organizational struggles of AA that might give some insight into the Tea Party movement. Maybe I will be able to write about that at some future date.

Normal?

The pole dancer in the previous post reminds of a funny story. Three or four years ago I was working in a chemical dependency unit. There was a new patient in the nurse’s station talking to myself and John, the charge nurse. As is common for alcoholics this early in recovery, he was explaining to us that he was not an alcoholic. In fact, he maintained that he was normal and was not sure how it could have happened that he could have ended up undergoing detox. He was gay. And he was telling us a little about his life to prove how normal he was. He said that some of his problems must have arisen from someone being injured on the pole. “What pole?” I enquired. And it turned out that he had a stripper pole in his front room. John and I were polite enough to not laugh too much. But we had to point out that if someone has a stripper pole in his front room anything he says about how normal he is cannot be taken very seriously