One year came and went and, ultimately, Eddie graduated from the residential treatment program, and came home. And within a week of his return, Sandy contacted me and asked whether I would resume my never-ending counseling process with her and her husband. As you might imagine, in spite of my former client’s graduation from the addictions program, I suggested they seek counseling elsewhere. To which suggestion Sandy was adamant that I understood them and their needs, and would I agree to her proposal this one last time.
I reluctantly agreed.
And as with all my clients with a history of addiction, I devised an accountability contract which contained a series of stipulations to which Eddie was required to accent. He agreed.
And as with each counseling session of this type, I began the meeting with several questions related to the ongoing fulfillment of our contract. I suppose Eddie and Sandy had completed three or four rather mundane sessions when I began the subsequent one with a rather repetitive question.
“Eddie, have you used any illegal substances since I last saw you?”
To which Eddie responded,
“Uh, well…yes. I admit it. I spent my entire paycheck this week on crack cocaine.”
The idiocy of the scenario ran quickly through my mind. A full year in residential treatment, and two weeks out he’d fallen into the same manhole from which he’d sprung.
Eddie had hardly admitted his poor behavior when I did something I had never done before, and have never done since.
I sprang to my feet in a rage, and screamed,
“Get out of my office! And don’t come back! I never want to see you again!”
I can tell you that Eddie and Sandy sheepishly got up from the sofa upon which they sat, and shamefully found their way out the door.
Afterward
And speaking of finding one’s way out the door, you may have thought it odd when I opted to leave the virtuoso piano-playing chicken (and his fine-feathered, headless friend) behind, and transcending said barnyard animals chose to address the topic of God’s most magnificent creation; man. (A very disappointing man, to be sure).
How very strange that a chicken can learn to play a piano, without so much as an error or flaw, while far too many men and women voluntarily surrender God’s best and fondest plans for their lives, and reminiscent of that definition of insanity crash their ships onto the rugged rocks from whence the proverbial sirens sing the song they have sung from time immemorial.
By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 56. Copyright pending
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