Wednesday, February 11, 2009

If You Can Laugh At It, You Can Survive It



One of our support group clients sat across from me casually discussing her sister’s drug addiction. “I’ve got a funny story to tell you.” She said reaching for my hand. She squeezed my hand and closed her eyes recalling the event. I knew it was going to be a good one, she hadn’t even started her story and she was already laughing. Her laughter was infectious.
I smiled in anticipation.



Her sister’s drug addiction had gotten so bad that she was not above stealing anything that wasn’t nailed down in order to get drugs. My client had been in a deep sleep when she awoke to the sensation of one of her eyelids being pried open. My client looked up at her sister and asked “What are you doing?” the sister responded that she wanted to borrow my client’s contact lenses. My client was shocked that despite being caught her sister continued to calmly poke her in the eye in an attempt to fish the lens out. My client yelled at her sister,“Well can you wait 'til I’m up to get them; they’re still in my eye?”

My client knew that her sister didn’t actually want to borrow the lenses she knew her sister wanted to sell them for drugs.“I can’t believe she wanted to sell them for drugs.” She said and laughed. By the time she’d finished her story everyone in the group were howling with laughter so much so that one of the other therapists at the clinic came into the room and asked that we keep it down. Slowly the other members began opening up and shared some of their funnier moments in dealing with addicted family members.

Even though the circumstances that had brought them together were sad they were all able to laugh and I admired them for that, it reminded me of a Bill Cosby quote, “If you can laugh at it, you can survive it”.

Labels: internship

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