If I handle the lobby for three shifts
of two hours each, wash dishes seven days a week for an hour and a
half, and volunteer at the Thrift Store for another three hours,
that's 19.5 hours of work every week to stay here. Temporarily.
I'm not complaining, but it keeps me
busy. I do dinner dishes so I end up falling out to the kitchen right
after dinner. On Mondays and Thursdays, there's a house meeting after
dinner. Daryl brings up some things and other guys go over things.
New chores are announced on Monday (still dinner dishes).
This Monday had two things: new lobby
training for guys who are new (such as myself) and a pitch from
Oxford House.
Now, according to Daryl, 90% of the
guys here have a substance abuse problem. That's heavy. Another few
have mental illnesses (my mumblr from earlier definitely has mental
illnesses). I'm not sure about the rest.
Oxford House is apparently about guys
living together, living without substance abuse, being a community,
and paying pretty low rents. It was interesting, if not really
insightful.
If it's one thing I've learned, it's
that social connections are more important than talent when it comes
to getting along in the world. If your social connections let you
spin into a cycle of drug abuse, then you've got a shitty set of
options when you get out of rehab. You can either have no connections
or you can immerse yourself in an old life.
I can see how organizations like Oxford
House would act as a new social network to integrate oneself into.
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