Sunday Night With John: Letters From Rehab

I was young and stupid, thinking I could change the world. It was four months after the first at-risk kid I ever helped successfully graduated from the rehabilitation program I was working in. With his successful graduation, I thought I had this helping people thing figured out. I felt my career was going to take off. Then, one day, the phone rang. I picked it up and on the other end was my first successful graduate. My excitement grew as I said it was so good to hear from him and asked how the heck he was doing?  His voice sheepishly replied, “John, I’m calling from rehab. I took a giant step back.” For a natural born talker and intervener such as myself, no words came to mind as confidence in my abilities burst and crashed down all around me.

I asked what had happened. Where did it all go wrong? Why did you call me? He answered the first two questions with half answers and half truths. He could sense my disappointment and held back the truth to spare me. When he answered the last question, I heard a tone in his voice that I had grown to know throughout the nine months he was in my program. He explained that he knew without a doubt I would be the only person who would answer his phone call because he had burned so many bridges. But he knew I would at least listen. The depth of sadness on the other end of the line was the only thing louder than the wave of failure I was feeling on my end. He cried as I did my best to spur him into action. My words and tone did not convey inspiration. I was wounded. I thought, maybe I wasn’t as great of a helper as I thought I was. We ended with a goodbye and good luck, and I finally allowed myself to shed a tear as I hung up the phone. A kid currently in the program broke the silence and asked, “John what are we doing today?” I looked up and said, “Same thing we do everyday. Try to change the world.”

Years later, after pushing myself to get better as an intervener, as a helper, and as a caregiver, I had some success. A couple of kids graduated from high school, a couple called from college. And, invitations to weddings and celebrations came through. These are the type of outcomes you dream of when you enter this field of work. One day a letter arrived, and, as I opened it, that same helpless feeling that that phone call created years ago came rushing back.

Dear John,

I didn’t take your advice. I’m writing you from jail.

The letter went on to detail the kid's wrong turns and why he failed to reach out for help until it was too late. He said I was good to him, that I cared, and that, when he was in our program, he felt he had a chance to avoid all of this. The kind words fell on a broken heart, as the goal of my chosen profession is to avoid outcomes like this. I was older and wiser about the fact that I was never going to bat 1,000 percent in this business. It didn’t change the fact that this letter ripped my heart out. The blood, sweat and tears that young man and my team put into turning his life around was gone in a poof of smoke. In one poor decision, a bright future was snuffed into darkness. Here was another failure of mine to put on the scoreboard.

Letters from rehab, phone calls from jail, visits to in-patient psychiatric units, and attending the funerals of kids who have died too young, come with the territory of being a caregiver. No matter how many great outcomes you help people to achieve, every failure lingers in the back of your head. Every one of the calls and letters stings. Every one chips away at your soul. Everyone has forced me to question, what am I doing right, and, what am I doing wrong. When my life of service is over, I hope the stack of invitations to life achievement moments is 100 times larger than the stack of letters from rehab is. There is no other way to put it than this: to mentor others, to care for others, to live a life of service is accepting heartbreak and then finding the courage to wipe away the tear of heartbreak, push aside the feeling of giving up, talk to a loved one to repair your torn soul, and whisper quietly to yourself, "never again".