Begginings....

Wow, I never thought I’d have to tell how I got into counseling. I never knew what I wanted to do in life. I just knew I liked helping others, and I am really good at multi-tasking and organization. I’ve always appreciated others who help people. I loved being admin support, and I thought I would be doing admin support the rest of my living life. But, my supervisor asked me if I wanted to become the JASAP counselor. I was really reluctant and didn’t think I had what it takes to become a counselor. But I soon found out it doesn’t take much of life experience to being a counselor. It’s the ability to reach people on their level and getting them to tell me their story.

Growing up, I had an alcoholic mom, who didn’t treat me and my sister the same. She really favored my sister and treated me like crap. But I persevered and learned to live through the pain and once I was able, I moved to my biological mom in Hooper Bay. She listened to me, and told me stories of then she was my age, and how life for her wasn’t always easy. She was addicted to Coke-A-Cola, and then it went to beer. She, like my adopted mom, started to drink alcohol. But my biological mom was able to quit drinking by herself and hearing her story made me realize I have the same strength she does. I like to tell my clients that they have the power to change their life as they want. Just like my mom and I have been able to.

Also, having an alcoholic mom, there was a lot of other abuse I went through. I will not go into any details, or say what kind of abuse, but I will say it was bad. Bad enough for a 12 year old to want to take her own life. I remember watching the anti-suicide commercials and thinking, these are really good ways to die. Maybe I’ll try it. But I never got enough strength or courage to actually go through with it. Those hard times made me so much stronger than I ever thought I would be. I can be empathetic to abused people, and know where they are coming from with thoughts of suicide. I tell them, life will get better once they are able to make decisions to live.

 I got into drinking and drug use when I was a teenager. I hid it very well in Anchorage, and Hooper Bay. Both Mom’s didn’t know I was drinking or drugging. I thought I was living the perfect life. I was “happy” and had a bunch of friends. But it turns out drinking is not all what it’s cracked up to be. I got pregnant at 18 and had my baby at 19. I did good the first year of her life, but soon after she turned one I started drinking again, that’s when I moved back to Hooper Bay. I stayed sober for those three years I was there. Moving back to Anchorage in 2004 wasn’t easy. I was living with my mom and had no job and didn’t know how to drive. But in spring 2005 I put myself through driving school and then was accepted for a Cook Inlet Housing Authority house. The rent was almost too high for me to pay, but I was able to live in it.

 After I moved into my place, I started thinking I had freedom and started drinking once again. I didn’t have Adya living with me because I couldn’t pay for food, rent, gas, ect. with her living with me. So she lived with my sister during the week, and on weekends I would get her. It was like my sister had custody of her and I had visitation. I didn’t want to admit it, but I started to drink more then I wanted. I thought I was truly happy and didn’t think I needed her to live with me to have fun. I was so wrong. I started drinking on weekdays and not getting Adya at all on weekends. That’s when I decided I needed to change my life for the better. And once again I quit drinking. And have been sober since 2008.

That brings me to Kotzebue, and how I became a counselor. My first client, I was very nervous and made my supervisor sit with me during the assessment. I was just asking the questions off the assessment, but my supervisor was able to ask the open ended questions, and I soon learned that if you show the clients that you are in the moment, and listening to what they say, they will open up more than they had wanted to. It took a few times before I was able to do the assessments by myself, and I found myself forgetting how to ask the open ended questions until I went to a Motivational Interviewing training with the rest of the ASAP/JASAP offices in the state. That training really opened my eyes and taught me to listen to the clients.

I’ve had another form of Motivational Interviewing in February 2010, but I had no idea it was MI. ASIST really teaches you to open your eyes to the world around you and hear what the client is saying. ASIST is a really important aspect of counseling and I think every region needs to learn it. Suicide is very painful and not a permanent solution to a hard situation. My Aana is always telling us grandkids to not ever do it. It hurts not just the family, but the community. She used to tell me stories of how they used to work together and learn from one another. Looking back, I see that she was counseling us and teaching us about life and how not to take advantage of anyone or anything.

As a counselor I felt like I had to always do the right thing and say the right thing. But I have to remind myself that I am just a human like anyone else, and I make mistakes. I think if I had left this field weeks ago, that would have been a mistake. I was really contemplating quitting and never looking back. But I’ve worked so hard getting the JASAP program up and running again, and really love the way I am able to help the youth of this region learn how to be responsible and make the right choice. I will take what I learn here in Kotzebue and use it in other regions of the state that don’t have substance abuse counselors. Like the YK delta. I also want to show the young people that there is more to life than just drinking and drug use.

Getting the youth into my office is a challenge, but I am willing to take the challenge head on. Youth in general do not think they need to do treatment, and feel invincible, but they also need someone to ground them, and I feel I do a good job of that. I tell them that if they want to get a job, and their future employers see they have MCA’s on their record, they won’t get hired as fast as someone who doesn’t have a record. I also mention that if they complete their treatment, and those same future employers see they were responsible enough to start and finish their treatment, they are responsible enough to hold a job.

One thing that bugs me about the whole court order treatments is the clients don’t see they have a problem, and are firm practices of, “tell me to do something, and I will do the exact opposite.” Once I get them to realize they are starting to form a problem, most of the youth are willing to do whatever it takes to right their wrongs. But the ones that don’t feel they have a problem are the hardest to reach. So I tell them a little about my life story and they see how drinking and drug use isn’t as fun as it others make it seem. And once they figure that out they find life is much easier and the courts appreciate their compliance.

I haven’t really experienced traditional healing because I grew up in Anchorage. But watching the elders deal with life’s ups and downs, I am starting to see how traditional healing is very beneficial to everybody. I once saw the traditional healer in Kotzebue, and she said I should become one. I might one day, just not now. I feel I need to become a counselor for now, and then see where life takes me from here. One day I will find where I am meant to be.