Sean has been diagnosed with Lung Cancer. Stage 1. They are doing surgery today and taking out half of his lung. He has known for two months and did not tell me until a week ago. I believe he had our best interest at hand, however, I want to choke him. I am unsure how he is able to hold things in like that. All of my kids are home. God will be there too. I’ve been praying and asking Him to show up. He always shows up. I haven’t written for two days. I’m surprised how much I missed writing. It helps so much. I got two comments on here that were not very spiritual in nature. I guess they felt better taking shots at me and telling me that I knew ASI was closing down in December. This is very untrue. I had no idea the State would put 600 addicts on the street. In fact, that is who is to blame for this fiasco. They came rushing in after the FBI came in……..and after licensing us for the past 20 years, they suddenly decide that we should not have a license because the Feds came in to raid us. This is ridiculous. And all higher ups that could have intervened could not do so because they, too, were involved. Money. The almighty dollar. Money became an issue for everyone.
ASI opened in July 1999. Sean and I were totally against methadone at the time. We figured we could open a clinic and then help addicts come off of methadone. That was our intent. We tried to open just a methadone “detox” program. The State let us know we were not allowed to do that. They told us that we were only permitted to do “maintenance”. So we opened ASI with the intention to teach addicts on methadone about the disease concept of addiction. And that is what we did. We were a “cash only” clinic when we opened. We took in 100 patients immediately. The Director of Fayette County Drug & Alcohol made a statement in the newspaper that the clinic was not really needed in Fayette County and that there were ONLY TWO HEROIN ADDICTS in the entire county. TWO? Well it turns out maybe TWO THOUSAND. We proceeded to service the patients and suddenly we started to get visits from the VBH rep. (VBH is the insurance company for all welfare recipients in Fayette County). This rep. named Marla brought us donuts daily and begged us to sign up with them so the welfare patients could be covered and not have to pay for treatment. We did not want to do it because we were aware of the red tape involved with dealing with Insurance Companies. Especially this type of coverage all the way around. So after being tortured daily by Marla for several months we decided to do it. The worst decision we ever made.
For some reason I find a need to take you all from the inception of ASI up through the demise of ASI. Maybe it is because “I” need to be the one that writes about it and hears about it and needs CLOSURE around it and on and on and on. Or maybe because I cannot believe where my life is right now and how things change from literally one minute to the next.
I’ll continue writing later……………as for right now it is 6:42am and Sean goes in to surgery at 9:30am today. I also have a wake to attend this evening so I’m getting ready to go pray so I can get through this day with God running it, not me.
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A Heroine Story 