Throwaway Women

As a part of my Master's work in chemical dependency, I did a three-hundred hour internship in a halfway house for addicted women. This essay is included in my unpublished book, Soul Songs.

Throwaway Women

This is the part about interning at a long-term halfway house for female drug addicts, all of whom were diagnosed with mental disorders in addition to addiction, most of whom had been incarcerated or were on intensive supervisory probation, three of whom were pregnant, and how trite the concept of “treatment” is, and how the Twelve Step notion of turning one’s life and will over to the care of God is idiotic because he is not going to help them, and how worthless taking their moral inventory is because ninety-five percent of them had their morals ripped from them by fathers and uncles and brothers when they were defenseless little girls, and how they cling to abusive men who are just like their fathers and uncles and brothers because they are desperate for love, any kind of love even if it is sick, and how much these women hate themselves, and how I saw the self-inflicted razor scars on their wrists and arms and thighs, and how empty these women were inside, and how dead their eyes were, and how their minds and souls were pits of dying coals, but beneath the drugs and the pain there were sparks of beauty in every one of them, tiny glimpses of childish innocence and giggles, of the little girls they could and should have been, and that was the reason I went back there every day, and how the only way I could help them was by being kind because few of them have ever known kindness, especially male kindness, and how I listened without judging because who am I to judge, and how they wanted to talk because no one had ever listened to them, and how they wanted to trust because they had no one to trust, and how they wanted to hope because they had never had any hope, and how maybe they felt just a little bit better after spending a safe half hour with me.

I still remember those throwaway women, I still remember some of their faces, and I often wonder how many of them (and their babies) are still alive . . .