It's hard and unpredictable.
People are messy and, when in crisis, can generate huge amounts of chaos. But just because it's difficult doesn't mean that we give up or worse, play the spectator.
No, each person has great value... no matter how mad we are at them. And helping them is a worthy endeavor if you count yourself among those who follow Jesus (Matt 25:31ff).
When someone is in crisis (drugs, alcohol, transitioning from prison to free world) here are the principles we equip or our folks with and demand of those we're helping (aka 'the deal'):
For our Folks
No matter how much you love, how strong your personality, or the amount of resource (housing, job, etc...) you bring to bear on an individual, if he/she doesn't 'will' to get better, then they won't. They aren't ready. To protect ourselves and increase the number of people we can help, we communicate early and often:
"As soon as we become more interested in your success / sobriety than you are, we're done".
This does not mean that we drop a guy or gal just because they make a bad choice. In fact I'm often surprised by how many bad choices some folks can string together. At times we could help the guy most by instructing them to 'just do the opposite of what you would normally do'. But if we get to the point where they no longer are seeking to change/grow, then we're out. Some come back and we start over, but we don't enable.
For those we seek to help
The non-negotiables for an individual to enter our aftercare program are:
- Active Member of Alcoholics Anonymous
- Active Member of Celebrate Recovery (must find a sponsor in either AA or CR)
- Active Member of our church
Each of these points, we think, has healthy expectations of, and seeks to influence vital behaviors in participating members.
In the next post I'll explain why we've chosen these (after much debate) and why we recommend to this course of action to those we consult.
