Making promises they can't keep

Several years ago, before I moved to McCook, I was the Executive Director of a temporary shelter for abused and neglected children in Arkansas. These were children who had either been removed from their homes or had run away from home and they would be placed with our agency until foster parents could be found for them.

It was without a doubt the most depressing job I've ever had. Looking into the eyes of those kids and knowing they already had two strikes against them before they even had a real opportunity to face the world was heartbreaking. During the time I directed that agency, I also found out about the callousness, and shallowness of the whole "helping" industry.

For example, some of our children were in need of alcohol or drug rehab or intensive counseling and this was typically paid for by Medicaid. The callousness and shallowness part came every time I would get a phone call from one of these agencies to tell me that we needed to make arrangements to pick up one of our children from the agency before midnight because that's when the child's Medicaid payments would run out. Even with so-called social service agencies, the top priority was the bottom line.

And the more I thought and studied about the purpose of these agencies and the more I learned about life and the choices we make, the less supportive of them I became. Agencies that represent themselves as being able to solve and cure people with anger issues, deep-seated emotional problems along with drug and alcohol problems are not being honest and forthright in the promises they make because change can never be imposed from the outside. Change can only occur within a person and then only when that person really, really wants to change. Change is hard. Change is imposing. Change isn't fun, especially when you're trying to kick a habit you've learned to depend on and often even enjoy.

People who have anger issues or self --control issues or any other kind of behavioral problem that impacts negatively on their lives or the lives of others are like that because of all the experiences they've had throughout their lives. We are what we're exposed to. They didn't get to the spot they're in overnight and they're not going to be able to escape from that spot overnight. It's who they are. But somehow judges and other officials have bought into the agencies' sales pitch that people CAN be changed; so courts, on a regular basis, order people to go to anger management classes and drug and alcohol rehab. And I assume the reason for this is that they really believe that change CAN be imposed from the outside. But it can't.

Most people sent to places that promise change approach those places the same way inmates approach prison. It's something to get through. It's something they know they have to do and the best way to do it is to make it as easy on yourself as possible. Convicts talk about doing hard time or easy time; hard time meaning challenging the rules and the status quo and, consequently, always being in trouble with someone; or easy time, meaning you take part in the program, make as few waves as possible, and hopefully not have to spend one more day locked up than you have to. It's the same thing with rehab programs. People make it easy on themselves by taking part in whatever the counselors want them to take part in and doing it enthusiastically, presenting a false front to the counselors that they have a success story on their hands. Many of these counselors are starry-eyed optimists and dreamers and more than a little na*ve. So they convince themselves and as many other people as possible that this person's problems are solved and the person is released; only to go right back to the same situations, locations, and people they left; the situations and locations and people that played a major role in them developing the problem they're facing to begin with.

An abuser has to want to quit abusing before he ever will. A person who can't control his anger won't until he sees a reason to and makes a constant decision to do so. A person with drug or alcohol problems will continue to do drugs or alcohol as long as they perceive they're receiving more rewards than punishments for that behavior. And so it is with any other kind of self-defeating behavior we might have.

These people will jump through all the hoops others place in front of them with a smile on their face, hoping they're playing the game good enough to be released as soon as possible so they can go back to doing what they REALLY want to do.

It reminds me of a joke I heard a long time ago but it still rings true today and it sums up the message of this column.

How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb?

It only takes one, but the lightbulb really has to want to change.