Today in group we watched this video of an alcoholic man in end-stage addiction. They built it up to the point where he made the choice to go to rehab after a medical evaluation revealed his internal organs were already in shut down. His name was Ryan and he had a mother, ex-girlfriend, grandfather, and brother who all cared about him.

He ended up dying. I didn’t think that would happen. His mother had talked about his smile and how he had a beautiful smile and how she couldn’t wait to have him back. I was thinking, “Oh wow. This is going to be great when he goes to rehab, gets better, and we get to see his sober smile.” The supervisor said interns don’t usually like that one.

I wanted to cry but there was nowhere to do so. We went back upstairs and the four of us processed and asked our questions for not quite an hour. I’m getting used to having the other students there and like them. It was awkward when he told them to email with their availability in order to meet and go over a video of their individual sessions.

They each have two now and I have one, a guy who first started today. I have yet to have just a normal time. The initial session is supposed to last for two hours but he said when he got there that he only had 45 minutes today. So I didn’t even end up doing the assessment part. I thought it was more important to let him talk than get that done.

So I didn’t try to do it. When he started telling me his problems I was like YES in my head. Like I was so excited to be able to deal with them. That probably sounds completely weird. But there were also those nagging fears involved like, “What if he decides he doesn’t want to come back?” We have to wait two weeks for the next time.

It just seems like so long. He can only meet on Wednesdays and the next Wednesday I was busy. We were standing at the desk with the secretary and the supervisor asked how it went. I was still processing and in the moment said, “I think okay??” He’s got us trained to talk to him after group but that’s not how it works with individual sessions.

Like you just kind of have to chart and keep going. So that doesn’t feel right but I shut my computer and sadly walked out the door. I wanted to be there longer but had nothing productive left to do. In church tonight I kept thinking about Ryan and the video and wanted to cry again but couldn’t there. Instead I just stayed for the whole service.