Ball State

» Alcohol addiction

By China at 8:46 PM

Every once in a while in college you get put in to a really interesting situation. I have been in one of those places all this semester. For my degree in counseling I chose a specialization of addiction recovery. For the major I am required to do two different internship experiences and I chose to do one of them this semester. This first experience is basically a set up for the next one where I will actually be doing the analysis and working with my own clients. For this semester I was basically just a shadow of an experienced counselor in alcohol addiction center. The experience has been so great because I have not felt really any weight of the obligations to the clients, but I am have been involved in all of their treatments and recoveries. It has been very eye opening since I only have ever read about these types of places and have never actually been inside one, let alone work in one. My decision to go in to the major was purely an interest based decision. I have always felt that my work should be in helping people and it was just a matter of finding which area of life I could be most helpful. When I took a year off before college I realized that so many of my friends who I had grown up with came from these broken environments at home that were really destroyed by drugs and alcohol. I think that I subconsciously felt a need then to bear the weight in some way for their lives, but at the time I didn't know why I felt pulled towards those particular people. Now whenever I see a client when I go to the center I don't just see them as substance abusers and people who need to be treated. I see what their lives consist of and the people they may be affecting by not getting better. This experience has really given me a new store of motivation to do well in school so that I can help as many people as possible afterwards. I just think that with each person I help, I am helping whomever cares for them or they are supposed to care for as well.