Many people would classify me as an
extrovert by my relative willingness to meet and converse with new people in
unfamiliar situations. In regards to working at Clean and Sober, I carry this
quality with me day to day, always making time to get to know everyone who
comes into our office for intakes and those who are already present within our
program. I have been blessed throughout my experience to find a majority of
people who are more than willing to open their hearts and minds to me,
illustrating the situations that have placed them in their own unfortunate
circumstances.
Four weeks ago we brought a woman
into our program who had been dealing with substance abuse for a few years,
attempting to begin her early recovery journey after hitting rock bottom and
ending up homeless. When I first met her, I did my standard "Hello! My
name is Maura, nice to meet you!" while holding out my hand for the
customary handshake greeting. She casually looked down at my hand, stoically
looked back up at me and uttered one word- "Hi." After a few failed
attempts to begin conversations with her that day, I began to lose a little bit
of hope that I could form a relationship with her like I had with the rest of
the residents at the program. The next week, I went to the program and was met
again with the same resistance in engaging in conversation with one another,
leaving me unsettled but very eager to find where we could connect. Little did
she know, she had ignited a fire within me to find where our common ground
would be, resulting in the forming of an art class for our program. One
Tuesday, I came into the program with an art project to show the residents and
have them participate in. The art project consisted of placing paint into
different containers filled with soapy water and blowing them onto a canvas,
deemed "Bubble Painting". When I arrived at the program, I tried to
entice many of the residents into joining me with this artistic experiment, and
one of the few people to agree was the woman that I had had such a hard time
talking to. As we began to figure out the experiment, and ultimately fail at
performing it correctly, she slowly started to talk and laugh more, gradually
becoming comfortable both with myself and where she was living. Even though the
"Bubble Painting" did not work out artistically speaking, it did work
in bringing many of the residents together and creating a more family-like
atmosphere within the program.
Fortunately, the art class is still
thriving and becoming more and more successful each week, rallying up an
increasing number of residents and steadily heightening the morale within the
program. Through this experience I learned that an individuals' background can
stand in the way of initial conversations, but that there is always a common
ground that can be found and expanded on in order to create that necessary
bond.
Maura Dunn - Clean and Sober - Sacramento, CA