Memories of a former drug rehab group counselor

She was Hiding in Plain Sight

And she was really quite brilliant…

I spent a good part of the ‘80’s working as a group counselor in a teenage drug rehab.

Many memories still linger. Here are a few:

• The first building we were in was a 1940’s house set back from the road. No insulation. The only source of heat was the fireplace in the main group room.
• That first year we had a choice: turn on the heat or get paid. I remember writing case notes with gloves on.
• In the winter my first job when I opened the program at 7 am was to go to the kitchen and find the ice pick. So that I could go to the 2 bathrooms and pick the ice from the toilets so the kids and staff could use them.
• I learned more in my 6 years there than most counselors did in an entire career. I remember opening my private practice and other therapists would have “emergencies.” And I’d think to myself: “Oh please, this was every hour where I come from.”
• So here’s the story that inspired the title above:

Every now and then kids would run away from the program. While most made it back into the program, some stayed away longer than others. One kid told this story when he came back:

“I was living in the woods and cooking road kill over a campfire. I figured even the horrible lunches here were better than that.”

One day a girl from out of town ran away. The family, the staff, and even the police checked all the likely places between us and her home.

No luck. This went on for a few weeks.

Then one day I was doing a group in an upstairs group room that was freezing. Seemed like I remembered there were some old blankets in one of the closets in the group room.

The back of this closet opened to the rest of the unfinished attic. While getting the blankets I happened to look from the right angle at just the right time and noticed a bed roll at the back of the attic.

This girl had run from the program and was hiding at the program!

She would get up and leave before we opened, spend the day in the woods with friends, eating her meals from “dumpster diving.” She’d return to the program after it closed and eat the food there, get cleaned up in the sink, and sleep there at night.

Brilliant!

Hiding in plain sight…

• Final thought: More than a few of those “kids’s” are now adults with their own kids. I laugh when they call me with teen problems. Then I happily help them. Many of those kids are my Facebook Friends. And if you’re reading this all these years later:

“Love ya [insert first name here]!”