For those of you on the neighbor islands, Hawaii Alcohol and Drug abuse Division of Department of Health is now allowing qualified candidates to test for Certified Substance Abuse Counselor exam at University of Hawaii campuses via computer now. One of my grads will the very first to test on the Big Island this way in June.
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2011 was a year for the books, with much inner growth and endurance as the orders of the day.
2012 shines with promise.
A new job, possibly a move to a new home and a new website for Pacific Academy of the Healing Arts.
We are planning to construct a website specifically for addictions professional examination preparation. It will allow candidates for the ICRC examinations to review and self test their knowledge base.
It is a noble project and one that we hope will enable and encourage more caring professionals to specialize in the expert treatment of addictions.
Happy New Year to one and all!
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“Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out”.
With so many reversals happening in so many lives (not the least important of which I am living), the concept of surrender and acceptance becomes unavoidable.
As even conservative life plans decompose into proverbial houses of cards and even the mightiest efforts prove inadequate, I am struck by the powerlessness and mortality of human activity.
The past few years, with their mother lode of systemic loss and suffering, have brought me back to my youthful position of wanting to turn my life and will completely over to the divine; To surrender my will to a greater will, with the realization that my perception is impaired by my very humanity.
To that end, what to do? Join an ashram, pursue education in transpersonal psychology, remain as I was?
Mantra-like, I plead for knowledge of His will and the power to carry it out.
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Last week, I wrote about an old friend being shaken from the welfare tree because he was deemed “not disabled enough” to forgo work.
Thursday, I picked my messages to hear the first shade of hope in this man’s voice in many months.
He was jubilantly announcing that, after six years of struggle, he had received notification that he had successfully passed the international certification examination as a substance abuse counselor, from Alcohol and Drug Division of Hawai’i Department of Health.
He followed by revising his resume to include the title “CSAC” (Certified Substance Abuse Counselor) and began his search for gainful employment anew.
Inspired, I placed a classified advertisement in the local newspaper to begin recruitment for the 2012 series of classes by Pacific Academy of the Healing Arts.
Maybe we really can change the world.
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It is Monday, October 10th, 2011.
It is raining in North Hawai’i and an Australian won the Iron man Triathlon held in Kailua Kona last weekend.
Just got a call a from an old friend who has been out of work for over a year and who just learned that his meager welfare benefit is being stopped.
Apparently, he is not “disabled enough” by a crushing major depression and the three shrinks who evaluated him via video teleconference from Honolulu think he should just suck it up and “get a job”.
The cost of the three shrinks alone would have fed this man for a half a year.
His General assistance benefit was only $300 and some change, but without it, he cannot even buy toiletries or gasoline to continue the fruitless search for gainful employment on an island that has over 300 applicants for even the most menial vacancies.
He did take the all of PAHA classes, sans tuition as a work scholar, back in the days when I could afford such generosity.
Now in his darkest hour, he is waiting on the results of the international CSAC examination, which he sat for on Sept. 11th, 2011.
God willing and the creek don’t rise, this credential will give him a leg up in this now unrecognizable landsacpe where hard work and willingness are no longer legal tender.
I offer silent prayers to my higher power, that light will find this man in his hour of need and give him the mercy he deserves.
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Step one. “Admitted we powerless over alcohol and our lives had become unmanageable”.
These words occur to me today; not about alcohol, but about the many curve balls life has hurled my way since I last blogged.
Like many Americans, I honestly believed the dream of prosperity would never end. But 20o8, 2009, and 2010 have come and gone; leaving a wake of devastated collective despair.
Every day, in my advanced practice psychiatric nursing practice, I watch as the poor get poorer. I behold, stunned and mute, as welfare checks, medical and social security benefits are ripped from the wounded like feted bandages; leaving my patients raw and bewildered.
And leaving me powerless to comfort them in the hour of need.
Powerless to hang on to all I once held dear; home and hearth, forsaken to the insatiable greed and avarice of multinational banks.
What do we really need in the end? Comfort, clean sheets, and a hot shower?
I ponder this, as I consider downsizing to my Hilo Bay front office. Twenty years of blood, sweat and tears in psychiatric and addictions nursing and it has come to this?
Yet, I summon gratitude, as each of my severely mentally ill charges passes through that office.
There, but for the Lord’s sweet grace, go I. A matter of luck, some education and a few neurotransmitters separate my fate from those for whom I care.
Just for today, I have meaningful work; just for today, my foreclosed roof still keeps the rains at bay; just for today, I still have a shred of dignity decorating my near empty bank accounts.
God grant me the serenity to Accept the things I cannot change; the courage to Change the things I can; and the wisdom to Know the difference.
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