tilt LAi: KAM AS
February 23, 2005
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*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