14 Students & 5 Days

14 medical students from across the country and 5 transformative days immersed in the field of Addiction Medicine.

Not only did I sit in on group therapeutic sessions, I participated. This specific week of my summer break unintentionally aligned with one of the most painful and traumatic anniversaries of my life. A trauma anniversary deeply entangled within my own checkered past with substance abuse that carefully turned these composting personal matters into novel insight and more deeply integrated wisdom on both personal and professional levels.

A deluge of information, emotion, and new connections swept me from the comforts of familiarity until I found myself floating serenely atop the tumultuous current… translating so divinely the independent truth that to stay afloat of any experience requires total surrender to the ebb and flow of life, with just an intentional paddle here and there to keep you on your ultimate course.

I came into this internship with my own past experiences and understandings of addiction. Watching the way it shaped my earlier life, my family, and the premature deaths of so many of my beloved friends… I checked my own perceptions at the door and invited in new perspectives, weaving them into the living and breathing schemas I already had.

I challenged myself, I shared authentically and boldly, and I listened with a humbleness I’ve missed having the time to hone. I connected with 14 student doctors and countless counselors and patients alike that filled my soul with such fierce compassion and inspiration that my heart is still overflowing.

If there is one resounding truth I can conclude from this week, it’s this: Nobody is safe from the effects of addiction. Its insidious claws shift and snake within the coils of all of our shadows. The more we drop shame at the door and support each other through communal solidarity and nonjudgmental witness of each others stories of how we got here, the less painful and fractured our world will become.