From a formerly homeless drunk to the future medical professionals
After two hours, the faculty hosts asked us if there was anything we wanted the students to take with them. Since I’m not aware of any taping being done, I hereby state the following is an accurate recollection of what I said. If a recording does exist, I will either claim it’s been edited or that t
On Thursday, I was part of a panel speaking to an amphitheater of a hundred or so medical professionals in training at Franklin Pierce College as part of a day-long symposium thing on addiction, treatment and recovery.
After each of the panelists told our stories, the audience had a chance to ask questions, each of which was probing and insightful.
After two hours, the faculty hosts asked us if there was anything we wanted the students to take with them. Since I’m not aware of any taping being done, I hereby state the following is an accurate recollection of what I said. If a recording does exist, I will either claim it’s been edited or that this is what I wish I’d said.
Regardless:
“Thanks for having us and putting up with my chuckleheadedness. In my life as a person in recovery and in my work at Hope, I see a lot of death. If you’re working in the medical field, unless you’re going to focus on fungal diseases of the toenails, you’re likely to live with death as well.
“Just this week, I was part of a memorial celebration of life for a friend. Each time I speak at one of these things, I’m overcome with sadness, the emptiness of life and the magnitude of death. Young people with lots of triumphs and failures still to unfold are lying in a box or they’ve been turned into smoke and just their ashes remain. They won’t see the things they could have, accomplish the things they would have or live the lives they should have. Whether death is actually the end, I don’t know, but dying sure changes your landscape.
“In your work, you will face death and at time you will be overwhelmed by feelings. Please don’t train yourself not to feel. I understand that’s possible, and it might even seem like a great survival skill. Survival shouldn’t be enough for any human—we must LIVE, not merely continue functioning. Even when feelings are annoying, troublesome and seem like excess baggage, they are what keeps your humanity intact.
“I’ve known a few people, mainly combat veterans, who claim to be impervious to death. ‘I’ve seen so much death that one more body doesn’t affect me.’ These folks may be telling their truth, but I sure hope not. I pray my immunity to feelings around death doesn’t come until I face my own.
“Kurt Vonnegut tells of a Unitarian minister who would go to pieces and lose his faith at the death of any parishioner. He would then rely on his congregation to pull together and support him until he could return to being their shepherd. I love that story and have made it central to my life and my work. I want to give people a chance to hold me up in my weakness, not to view me as a rock. Since I got into recovery, I’ve always had a small group of men with whom I can be emotionally naked, cursing and weeping when I need to.
“As medical professionals, you’ll have many times when you must maintain ‘clinical distance.’ That’s understandable, although I am incapable of that myself. Please, please, please find people with whom you can take off the mythic mask of objectivity.
‘Feel!
“My final thought for you to take is this:
“In my experience, the quality of the magazines in your future waiting room is directly proportional to the level of humanity of the staff members. Please include New Yorker and Atlantic, not just months-old copies of People magazine.”
You matter. I matter. We matter
