Addiction

I'm posting not so much because I have something to say, but because my Addiction and Family Treatment class just ended and it was really powerful and a bit gut-wrenching and frustrating and scary and hopeful and sweet and sad and way too close to home sometimes and I want to write something down before I move on and lose the feelings associated with having been there.

This was definitely not a book-learning class. We took field trips to residential treatment centers, and had guest speakers, and went to 12-step meetings, and heard so many personal stories over the course of the week, as well as just getting a totally different perspective on the physical (disease-model) roots of addiction... people in the class shared insanely personal stories and the professor cried at least three times. For the first few days I was a bit at arm's length from it, even though it was really fascinating, but by the end of today it felt intensely personal to think about the power of secrets, and the lack of education and support for healthy coping behaviors.

Anyhow, having walked out of the class into the light of day, and traffic, and dealing with the housing office, and my empty apartment, and people heading off to the beach, and thinking about Ultimate, and packing for vacation... I keep wondering if it ever gets any easier to go from a place of emotional intensity, straight out into a world where absolutely everything seems trivial and I want to snap at people who make jokes or don't take something seriously enough because don't they know what just happened in that room? Don't they know what people are going through? How do you process that stuff in a way that lets you return to the world outside and actually engage with life again when you leave the office? How do you learn to make the transition? I suppose everybody goes through this to some degree when they navigate between worlds, so advice is welcome.