"Your life has affected me negatively in the following ways..."

Man, I love the show Intervention. I've been watching it for years and I've seen every single episode (sometimes the same ones over and over). I watch it for each aspect: the family who is devastated and wants the addict healthy, the different drugs and how the addict chose a favorite, the drama that ensues when they are filmed high, and most importantly, the description of the addict's childhood from bright beginning to slow demise. I've gotten so in tuned to these people's behaviors, their lifestyles, and their families personalities to the point that I can predict with a pinpoint accuracy which drug the addict will choose and what happened to them as a child that resulted in their addiction. It's a very precise equation to me now and I love feeling as though I've not only discovered it, but solved it.

I can honestly say without fear of ridicule that this show is the reason I am who I am right now. Two months ago, I started nursing school. It has been the best and scariest decision of my life. I've never had an interest at all in the medical field (well, maybe aside from childhood dreams of marrying a doctor, of course). To me it was only those who had a love of people that far surpassed their hatred of cleaning bed pans that went into the field. Don't get me wrong, I respect the hell out of those people! But I never thought for a second I could ever do the same.

However, my fascination for the psychology of an addict has increased exponentially. I found myself scouring search engine results for how to become everything from an interventionist to a probation officer, hoping a calling would shout out to me. Finally, it hit me. I want to be right in the heart of not only the emotional aspects of dealing with addicts, but the physical as well.

If you've ever seen the show, you'll notice that the interventionists are not college-graduated scholars who spent their youth studying and staying away from drugs. Quite the opposite. They are recovering addicts themselves. Nearly every single one of them are, from the interventionists to the counselors. In my opinion, they have to be. It's practically the only requirement. They all know what it feels like to not only want a hit, but to take one. They know exactly what the greatest high feels like and the lowest low that follows. It's the only field of helping people, I think, that in order to be a success you've had to been a failure. And that, my friends, is why the calling called.



So, I started nursing school. When I graduate, I want to take my resume to an inpatient drug rehabilitation center and while everyone else says "Look what I've accomplished" I can say "Let me tell you where I've been". I want patients to hold my hand while they go through the pains of detox and know that I mean it when I tell them, "I know how this feels". I want them to tell me how much they hate life and want to find some good in it so that I can say to them "So did I". When I promise them that life can be better, they will be able to trust that I mean it.

It's funny, all these years I spent wondering what I wanted to do with myself and you know what I discovered? What it is that I wanted to do for other people.