About two weeks ago a client came up to me and said, :"Hey redbone how are you?" I had not heard that in years. My father grew up in LA, Lower Arkansas, he was just a poor kid in a poor family. The folks in that part of the country had a classification of people that basically meant you were dirt poor and it was "redbone" My father taught me that only a true redbone could call another by that name or it was offensive.
Having said this about 6 years ago these four traansients show up one morning and they were dirty beyond belief. One of them said, "Hey Shay we'ins from ova dar in Lousiana, an we was drunk and hopped this black snake, (a train carrying coal), we'ins was goin to Ft Smith Arkasas and we figured the balck snake would take us'in tha're...we 'bout the time we'ins get to Ft Smith we was sober and the train was going about 60 miles an hr so we just held on, the fust place that there black snake stopped was he'ar, where is we xactly?" I laughed and told them Poplar Bluff MO and the one looked at the other three and said, "aint that a pile O'sumptin, like a bunch of dumb redbones we ended up four states (sic) away!" After they sowerd the coal dust off of them they looked human.
They all joined the program and gradually left one by one until they were all gone. All these years later the one who was talking walks up to me and reminds me of my heritage. Sad to say the other three were dead, one, (his brother), overdosed on drugs and the other two were killed DWI. He alone was left and was in desperate need of a program. I allowed him on the program and we begin.
The first thing this young man says is he needs to work while doing the program. This is something that never ever works. If a man needs to recover so bad he ends up at our place then he needs to recover more than he needs to work. This young man assured me he had to work to support his wife and two children. I simply pointed out that he had not done so for several years and I think he should get some clean time and then we will see what will happen. After a few days of his story I finally went against my better judgment and let him get a job if he promised to send all the money home to his wife.
The first day at his work he returns with this surly attitude and I question him and he says, "I need to get in a ministry like yours and run it" I told him that after a lot of clean time that is a possibility, at least working at a Rescue Mission. He assured me he was ready, at church that evening he said some odd things that made me wonder about his sobriety. When we returned to the mission I drug tested him and he tested positive for drugs. At this point he is leaving the mission, as he signed a contract with us that informed him that if he used any drugs or alcohol while in our program he would be dismissed. He left the mission and returned a few hours later drunk as a skunk. He was banging on the door, which gave me the opportunity to return to the mission at 3 AM. As I get back I tell him he must leave, he leaves and he returns at 6:30 AM. After being told he must still leave he falls asleep in the Fire Depts flower bed. They called the police who removed him from the property. Later about 10 AM he once again returns and I talk to him he is still inebriated and I tell him he needs to go to bed and I will talk to him when he is sober.
Today I see him at the shelter and he wants to talk and I tell him we are getting ready for a big BBQ and I will see him later on. He then turns sullen and pouty and says, "your the reason I got drunk?" I retorted, "I did?" He proceeded to explain that we allowed a transient in and did not confiscate his psyc meds and because of that he took some of his meds which caused him to fail the drug test, which forced him to go get drunk. So it was my fault that he got drunk.
Since I was the reason for his relapse I did not see how he could he could continue to stay at the shelter as we were the cause of his suffering and relapse.
The sad part is like many of us he wants to blame everyone but ourselves for the addiction that has been created in our life. When we refuse to accept any part of our recovery we will remain in the place where we are. Our recovery needs to be based on the truth of God's Word and that we are free in Christ and that unless we serve the flesh it has no power over us. Our addictions keep us blaming others until there are no others. I refuse to accept the responsibility that I am able to keep or allow someone to fail their sobriety.
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