rant

Lately I've been saying that if I could have anything in the world, it would be for treatment centers to do intakes 24-hours a day. Within the last two weeks, we've had two kids express interest in going to treatment and no way to get them into one because intakes stop at 5 pm.
Recovery isn't on a schedule. It starts when it wants to and it stops just as quickly. How many kids shout "treatment!", get no help, and end up using later than night because they have no other options?
It makes me sick to think that these kids could have completely missed their opportunity to be clean and clear-minded. It makes me really sad.
Let me illustrate:
Horace* comes in at about 7. He's looked ragged and, to my naive eyes, possibly under the influence. I approach him, as I'm starting to enjoy confrontation, apparently. I ask him what's up and he tells me he got beat up by the cops last night for sleeping in a public place. More like, passing out drunk in a public place, but it's all relative. Too much alcohol in his system, and God knows what else. I tell him, Horace, it looks to me like this is it. Now or never. Do you want to get rid of this addiction? Do you want to go to treatment?
He says yes, possibly only because he's tired of sleeping on the streets and wants a warm bed and three meals a day. But he says yes. So I call. And I call and call and call. No luck. No medicaid means fewer options. No insurance means few beds. And it's 8 pm. NO INTAKES.
We send Horace back home on a bus. Give him the treatment number, tell him to call tomorrow morning. I don't think Horace called on his own. Do you know where we were sending him? Back to marijuana city. Back to "let's pop some pills, man" every time he turns around. He probably didn't even have time to realize what was happening.
Though I may never know the true anser, I have my suspicions, and I don't think he made it to treatment. At this point, maybe he never will. Not to be a pessimist, but that's how it works. Give up. Get high. Lose it all.
And it happened again. Jack* may have called today, I sure as hell hope that he did. He was ready. That makes this one worse. Horace may have just wanted a bed and three meals, but Jack was ready last night. He was actually ready to do this on his own. Being forced to go to treatment means 28 days of shelter and back to the streets and using. Jack was done with all of it last night and was ready to be clean for real.
But we couldn't do it for him las night. So it's up to him today. I hope he called. I guess I'll find out soon enough.
Maybe I'll just have to change the system....stupid treatment centers don't do intakes after 5 pm...


*obviously names have been changed, yada yada yada...