Our Philosophy of Representing Drug and Alcohol Clients

“Growing up in the farm country of Minnesota, I had a particularly close friend when I was a little kid, his name was Jeb. One night, my parents arranged for a sleep over and in the morning when his mother came in, she said, ‘John it’s time.’

She set a syringe and a vile down on the dresser and I remember looking at that syringe and just being totally fear-stricken, never having seen one before, but instinctively knowing what’s going to happen with it. And John said, ‘Ok mom,’ and with that, he reached down, pulled his pajama pant leg up from the bottom and he squeezed the skin on his thigh together and he injected himself. And I remember being terrified of this experience.

Well, I can tell you that if you were a juvenile diabetic back in the 1940s already on a daily insulin regimen, the likelihood of becoming a teenager was almost zero. In fact I can remember my parents sort of trying to cool the relationship to keep me from being heart-broken that Jeb passed away.

It turns out, as we grew up, we’d go to parties and I’d have cake, candy, cookies, ice cream, Coca-Cola, whatever, and Jeb always had an apple and a piece of cheese. And it was interesting, I never saw him once complain about it and saying ‘Oh you guys get the good stuff while I’m stuck with this apple and cheese.’ I never once saw him try to chisel and say ‘Just get me a lemon cookie or get me a piece of cake.’ He accepted his limitation and lived with it.

Well, I saw Jeb a few months ago. Jeb had gone on to become an ophthalmologist and he recently sold his eye-care centers located throughout the Twin Cities and frankly, he lived like a king. And it occurred to me that that all happened because he understood his limitation and he lived with it. He didn’t argue about it, he just accepted it.

For my clients who are in rehab, they have to understand that their addiction to alcohol or drugs is a form of diabetes, and that their insulin is to work a program, and I mean seriously work a program, which means to attend meetings on a regular basis, develop a support group, and have a sponsor who will diligently go over the 12-step program with them.”