Ready? Not Ready? For what? To make a change, to embrace making the change with all your heart and mind, since if you are not totally committed to making the change you will fail. This is why the experts say not to make New Year’s resolutions and expect to turn over a new leaf on January 1st. Rather, they say, you should begin whatever it is you want to do when you are mentally ready to change your behaviour and work hard to achieve your goals. Why is this important to realize and take into consideration? Because it is as true for an addiction as it is for starting an exercise program or quitting smoking. It is why it is so crucial to have the facilities (detox, treatment or recovery) available RIGHT THEN, at the point in time when the addict is ready to change from addiction to recovery.

I grew up in an addiction (alcoholic) household which resulted in me having ways of thinking and acting that are the same as if I had and addiction myself. In dealing with these bad mental habits I have learned just how powerful a disease it is. To me it is a disease since it can be passed to others even if they have no addictions. As someone said to me “It is a disease all right, with its own special brand of insanity. Who would choose to live life in the manner of an addict if they were sane.”

Life experience has given me an appreciation of just how powerful addiction is. Empathy and sympathy mean that instead of running you maintain friendships and acquaintances over time, seeing what is happening in people’s lives as a result of their addiction. It is also what causes anger at the lack of resources. You watch someone destroying themselves until they reach a point they can and are ready to make a choice, a choice only they can make for themselves. They reach a point where they want to get out of the cycle of addiction, begin to recover and get on with living. They choose to seek and except help. If they are lucky, there is a spot open and they begin their journey of recovery. To often they are scheduled for a ‘spot’ not available for a week or two weeks. You see them on the day they were scheduled to enter treatment … and they are high and totally in thrall to their addiction again. Any help for this person will have to wait until they themselves cycle to a point they are ready to make a choice and commit to the hard work of recovery.

Addiction is not like cosmetic surgery where one can schedule the procedure when convenient and surgeon and facilities are available. Addiction is more akin to the deadly bacterial infection I picked up at the end of January. In order to survive and live I needed to begin antibiotics immediately. Fortunately the resources for me to live and recover from the bacterial infection were available immediately. This is why facilities and resources need to be available – NOW. If this does not result the most efficient scheduling and use of facilities … to bad, we are talking about saving lives – NOW.

The other day began with me being shanghaied into another ‘conversation’ I was reasonably sure would be neither comfortable not productive. Over recent ‘conversations’ I have come to accept that the way we view the world (and I must acknowledge, I view myself) is different enough that there are points that will never be agreed upon or seen the same way. But to me that is now OK. There was a time when I would have felt compelled to argue until I was proved correct or I would have felt there must be something wrong with me – which is why they would not agree with what I saw as right or I would have felt I must be wrong and must change. These days in acknowledging and accepting the wide differences in people, I have to accept that there are going to be many different views and ways of looking at anything. What I need to guard against is just dismissing these other points of view. These days I take opposing views and run them by friends whose judgment I trust, not because they always agree with me (they have no trouble disagreeing) but because we have a more common frame of reference. In doing this I have had them agree with someone else’s point, but express why in such a way as I could see and understand the point – and adjust my behaviour accordingly. I am still a little more sensitive to feedback from some people than I would like to be, but I am working on getting better. I have come to understand that if a friend offers feedback it does not mean they hate me, just that there is something they want to bring to my attention and have me think about. However, I do not relish a ‘conversation’ I can predict the outcome of going into.

Anyway, the point was raise was that I was and am homeless by choice. Which is a rather interesting and complex statement, containing some truth, some accuracy and a great deal of deception. It is one of those sneaky statements there is no way to safely answer. As if in walking away from my inquisitor I had turned back and asked, “Are you still sexually molesting sheep?”

Choice n.

1. an act or power of choosing
2. the thing chosen
3. alternative
4. preference
5. the best (worthy of being chosen)

What is choice? Remember the news report on the man who had to cut off his own arm to get free, get off the mountain and get the medical attention he needed to live? It would be true and accurate to say that he removed his arm by his own choice. The great deception in this statement lies in the implication that there were any other choices he could have made, that there was a good alternative to choose. What happens when there is no good choice? One is left to choose the least bad or lesser of two (or more) evils. Yes I have chosen not to pursue what for me would have been destructive and unhealthy choices. In this way I can be said to choose to be homeless. What I want to know is why the system lacks alternatives or the flexibility to offer me some choices ‘worthy of being chosen’.

Of course this is one of the points our worldview differs on. “I was homeless, this is how I got out and anyone else only needs do this”. This lumps all the homeless into one big group and as anyone who has read my words knows, I firmly believe there is no one way, no one miracle cure-all for homelessness. This has gotten me accused of thinking I am better than others. Wrong. I just think that I am unique, the result of genetics, experiences and background that no other person exactly shares. If twins, raised together in the same environment turn out to be separate and distinct individuals, I fail to see how one could deny that we each have our own (good and bad) uniqueness. That this uniqueness gives rise to the different needs that must be overcome for each different, unique individual to escape his or her homelessness. I have no interest in just forcing square pegs into round holes, forcing these individuals through a set program to toss them into shelter somewhere and saying solved. Because if one does not acknowledge and address the unique reasons that each individual is homeless they will simple end up on the streets again. Only by overcoming these unique needs can they escape their homelessness.

Two very different world views on people, their behaviours and needs:

One size fits all

vs.

We all have unique differences

In recognizing and accepting that these very different views mean we are not going to agree on any points that depend on these points of view, I tend to see nothing to be gained in replaying arguments. As pointless as arguing about sailing around the world with a person who believes the earth is flat. I know that in not agreeing with the inquisitor and thus abandoning my world view on this matter the D word will be deployed – but a dissertation on denial is for another time and place. I have learned to accept that this point, the very different views of people, means fundamental differences on the way we see ‘homeless’ and ‘choice’. I accept this difference in the way we see the situation. I just wish the inquisitor could accept that I do not agree with him – not is it necessary that I do so.