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About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 23, 2005)
tilt LAi: KAM AS February 23, 2005 Print *3 METH: users find savior in others on their quest to sobriety Continued from METH, Page 1 [bout anything. When I was lean. I found that I didn’t Jed that bullshit ... plain old fife made me happy.” ■low, she looks back on let experience with a certain [mount of triumph, and shares t with other users in her situ- atiln. ■I was the last person I »light could possibly get |l®n and stay clean,” she laid. “I thought I was one of those people who would die high ” a| ■Another former user, named [James,” shared his feelings onlhis battle against addic tion, one which is shared by plllecovering drug users. ■Recovery for me is recov ery from myself ... ‘sobriety’ [ntreek means ‘clear think ing, and I try to have that,” he said. “I don’t even know if WORKFORCE: students get I’m doing the program right— ery, and any problems they I’m damn sure not doing it are having. how the book says, but it The positive peer-pressure works for me.” . of the group also provides as For many of the members, a motivational tool for those this group members who is their soli are tempted tary treatment to relapse, against an driving some “I Was the entity which addicts to destroyed stay clean for last person I their life, and the group in thought would may still haunt moments of them to this trial. get clean and day, although “One of the stay clean... the members things that I thought I try to avoid kept me going focusing was know was one of undue atten ing that every those people tion on such Friday night I a terrible couldn’t have who would die past. Instead fucked up ... high. ” they focus in between "Alice" their discus the meetings, Recovering meth user sions around I had to get the positive better,” said a aspects of middle-aged their recov addict named “Tony.” “I’ve been a Buddhist since the ’60s, and this is the first time I’m living my spiri tual faith.” “[To go] get high ... that would be easy, rather than sit here and do work,” added another man named “Scott.” “If I went and got high, it would be a cop-out ... and all it takes is reaching out and asking for help and asking for forgiveness.” Each member also dis cussed why they stayed clean today. Each day is viewed as the most important step— and more important than the one before it—to the group, focusing on the challenge of overcoming each day as indi viduals, in hopes that it will lead to a change in life as a whole. “Today, I stayed clean for myself, and everybody else second,” said a young man in the corner of the room. “It’s my life, and if I can’t stay clean for me, than why do it?” “I stayed clean today because that’s who I want to be,” added a woman in her late 30s, who had had a run- in with an ex-dealer just that day. Ending the meeting, the group joined hands to once again recite the “Serenity Prayer,” evoking the power of each other and their respective greater powers to help guide them until the next meeting. “God, grant me the seren ity to accept the things I can not change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference,” they began. “I don’t know where I’m going,” a man said regarding what his future held for him, “but I know there’s bigger plans for me ... or else I’d be dead.” Awarded authors attending I free trainins xmtinued from WORK, Page 1 ■“If we have a person who Kies in here and they have Kn making minimum wage, ■ they need to make more ■ney to support their fam- ■ iy. we make a goal and may help them with resources they Knot afford, such as books, transportation,” said Griffiths. [We are always making sure that the goal is achievable.” ■The workforce develop ment program keeps close contact with other social and business services, such as the Business EDGE pro Kam located at the Harmony campus, designed to help employers find suitable employees. ■‘[This program] is about partnerships between busi nesses, social services and education, so that individuals can come to an organization [nd get what they need,” said Wilhelm. ■Participants are accepted into the program on a needs- basis, are 18 years old or over and members of Clackamas County; they may or may not be I students and range from skilled to unskilled. ■To become a participant, individuals apply at the One- lop Resource Center in Oregon City or come to one of the program’s weekly ori- entations held in B240 every Tuesday at noon, where they may speak directly with a workforce specialist. |A relatively new pro lam, workforce develop- lent began at Clackamas in lanuary of 2004 and moved Ito the Community Center in | September, where staff enjoy the close proximity to ■sources the college offers. I “It’s a good fit for us to have the other programs Ire so that we can refer Irticipants to them,” said I Staff measure their suc- sess in getting people jobs, lelping them keep them, and »creasing earnings, and they Ind the results fulfilling. I “It is very rewarding [to the jaff] when we find someone gho has had trouble finding lbs and helping them find their niche,” 'said Griffiths. Nadelson will read from his first published book “Saving Stanley: The Brickman Stories.” “Prize Winning Fiction” A collection of inter related stories, the . Elizabeth Tobey book focuses on 11 The Clackamas Print Daniel Brickman and the struggles he faces growing up in a is the theme of what will be Jewish family in sub read and discussed tonight urban New Jersey. The evening will during the Winter Term begin at 7 p.m. in the Authors’ Night. Internet Photos Literary Arts Center, Writers Scott Nadelson, of Roger Rook Hall Tracy Daugherty, andMaijorie FROM LEFT: “Axeman’s Jazz” by Tracy Daugherty, “Portrait of My and will include time Sandor will read tonight in Mother, Who Posed Nude in Wartime” by Marjorie Sandor, and “ Saving Stanley: The Brickman Stories ” by Scott Nadelson for discussion along the Literary Arts Center, room with the lineup of 220 of Roger Rook Hall. The even will take place from 7 p.m. three generations of a Houston, of Portland. He is also part of readings. The event is free the Writers in Schools pro and audience members will - 9 p.m. and is free, although a Texas family. Also an instructor at OSU, gram. His work has appeared have the opportunity to ask $2 contribution to the Friends of Sandor teaches creative writing in the American Literary questions and hear from the the Library will be appreciated. This trio of award-winning and literature. Her stories have Review, Carve Magazine, and authors about their work and writers comes from a variety of been seen in “The Best American “The Best of Carve, Volume their lives as “Prize Winning Fiction” writers. backgrounds, but have all found Short Stories 1985” and “1988,” Three.” “The Pushcart Prize XIII” and their place at Oregon colleges. To begin with Daugherty is “The Best of Beacon 1999.” In the director of the MFA Program 1998 she received the Rona Jaffe for Creative Writing at OSU as Foundation Award for Fiction ÿ well as a member of the MFA and in 2000 the Oregon Book faculty in the Warren Wilson Award for Literary Nonfiction. Sandor will be sharing Program for Writers. He has six published works, and has excerpts from her most recent appeared in such publications work “Portrait of My Mother, as the New Yorker, Georgia Who Posed Nude in Wartime.” Review, Southern Review, and The collection of short stories Chelsea. Twice Daugherty has intertwines to slowly reveal the won the Oregon Book Award secrets of Rachel Gershon’s fam For confidential, low-cost or no-cost and in 1998 he was awarded a ily and look at the strangeness in • annual exams • pregnancy testing National Endowment for the Arts the heart of every family. The third writer in the trio, Fellowship. • birth control • emergency contraception Tonight Daugherty will be Nadelson is a former student reading from his latest work of of both Daugherty and Sandor. • STD testing and treatment for women and men fiction, the novel “Axeman’s He graduated from OSU and Jazz.” The story explores how now lives in Portland, teach race, class and economics affect ing writing at the Art Institute This evening’s Authors’ Night will feature Oregon authors Sexual Reproductive HeAtLoaere It's what we do. And we do it well. Theater troupe Teatro Milagro makes encore visit to college The national bilingual touring group Teatro Milagro will again visit the CCC campus with one of their orig inal plays entitled “Cuéntame Coyote,” performed m both Spanish and English. Folktales of the Southwest will be brought to life with original music in an adven turous tale of two orphan girls lost in the desert of the borderlands. The performance will be presented Wednesday, March 30, noon-1 p.m. in the Osterman Theatre locat ed in the Niemeyer Center. Admission is $3 general and students free. For more information, please con tact Irma Bjerre at 503-657-6958, ext. 2381 or Robin Danchok at ext. 2813. Get Birth Control Online! www.ppcw.org Planned Parenthood® of the Columbia/Willamette Clackamas Express Gresham Health Center (503)496-0811 16068 SE 82nd Drive (503)666-6680 501 NE Hood Ave., Suite 100
