on city roads

Today, I spent a day at city roads crisis intervention. It's basically a residential rehab home for substance abusers who are facing crises. They can either be referred from A&E or self-referred. The people I've spoken to today, have all basically felt like their lives have hit a brick wall and they can't pick themselves up anymore and they really want to stop all the nonsense in their lives. It is an amazing place, really. It offers a detox programme that lasts up to 21 days and after that send them back into the community and hands over the continuity of care to more long term organisations which is really fantastic. You can't lock someone up forever in a building, they have to go back to reality, to face their giants.

The day was incredibly draining. I guess because with each person I spoke to, it's not like a hospital clerking where like ok do you have a/b/c/d/e/f/g? no ok, do you feel pain at a/b/c/d/e or during a/b/c/d/e? With each client, it's like they tell you their whole life stories, from how they started and the mishmash of crap they get entangled with, including the variety of drugs they smoke/snort/inject, the times they overdosed, the family and social circumstances that are so messed up and the number of times they had to do time because they burgled their own best friend, nicked a woman's bag, used sex for drugs, hurt their parents and family - all to feed their habit. It is such a privilege to be in a position of "medical student" and hence, they are willing to be so open about things they've done which they won't even tell their own family.

Thing is, most of them are self-referred, and they recognise that they have a problem and they can't do it alone and that they need help. I find that incredibly humbling. I believe that admitting you have a problem is definitely a leap in the right direction and on some level, I think many of us are blind to our own issues and trudge on in pride, well, myself mostly. They really need Jesus. I really need Jesus.