Professional Ethics Are Negotiable (283 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 0.5 on 4 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by jasumthin (View user info) at 2008-05-17 01:15:07 EDT
If Ryan had not spent half the night with his head in the toilet he'd most likely be sweating cheap scotch out of every single pore on his body. He looked around the conference room and wondered how many of those poor, disheveled, defeated saps would cave if they sat next to someone who reeked of bottom shelf booze. Drug and alcohol counselors do have professional ethics but those never really concerned Ryan. His personal ethics, or lack thereof, trumped any and all other guidelines for living that were forced on him.
The speaker, fumbling with a poorly designed Power Point presentation on AA and the 12 Steps, would have lost Ryan's interest to the coffee out in the lobby and advertising booths with brain-shaped stress balls had it not been for her entertainment value. Her breasts weren't anything special, and neither was her ass. Come to mention it, she was rather homely looking in her shapeless plain gray business suit. And that fact that her hair looked like it hadn't been brushed or washed in a week didn't help matters. However, she could not complete a sentence without saying "ummm" at least four times. In the last ten minutes alone she was up to 179 according to Ryan's count. With each step she took during her presentation a tiny squeak could be heard coming from her shoes. This fact seemed lost to her and most of her audience, but Ryan was sure that her black shoes were too tiny to conceal a squeaky toy.
That's how it is with conferences for drug and alcohol counselors. 99% of the field is made up of drunks and crackheads who got off the sauce and the junk for good and are trying to square things away from God by doing something productive for a change. For people that are supposedly living such a better life without the drugs and the booze, they sure tend to look like shit. Poor complexions. Cheap clothes. Overweight. Out of shape. It makes a person wonder how messed up they were while they were still using. But that was 99% of the field.
Ryan was in that narrow 1%. Ryan was the minority of the addictions profession. He wasn't clinically dependent on drugs or alcohol although he did tend to go a little overboard every now and then. Truth be told he wasn't much different from any other 30 year old that enjoyed boozing and promiscuous sex. He was a member of the minority that saw it as simply another job featuring benefits, a regular paycheck, and a steady supply of clients. If a new job was offered to him tomorrow as PR specialist of a nursing home he'd take it if it paid more. His motto was "although money does not buy happiness, it does prevent homelessness."
Besides working in the addictions field afforded him countless opportunities to hear people tell the strangest, sickest, and funniest stories imaginable. He listened to people that made bongs out of empty Gatorade bottles. He knew people that were forced to have sex with animals to pay for drugs. In his work, Ryan met three different versions of the same dumbass that robbed the gas station on camera and knocked himself out running into the glass door. People with at least 10 DUI's. Potheads who had their first joint with mommy and daddy at age 6. To him they were amusement, not clients.
"Squeaky Shoes" had to have reached quadruple digits with the "umms" long ago, but Ryan had lost track of that. He was busy text messaging a blonde he met on an online dating site he joined for work related travel. Conferences and workshops were held regularly all over the place and he was regularly sent by his company so that he could get the much needed continuing education hours for license renewal. The company always put him up in nice hotels but Ryan was an explorer at heart. Why sit in a hotel room all night alone when you could go out for a few drinks and bring a female back to the room for some drunk sex. A person could have trouble finding such a willing participant in a place they were unfamiliar with, but if they went fishing on-line ahead of time they could plan things out.
His first step was to Yahoo the address of the place he was staying and then bring up a list of all restaurants, bars, and coffee shops within a one mile radius. The one mile radius was perfect because he sure as hell wasn't walking any farther than that, even for pussy, and it wasn't worth taking the chance and getting picked up for a DUI because that could be a little problematic at work. He would then hit the dating site and set up dates (actually hook ups) for every night that he was going to be in town. Of course that is where the work really was.
After some more texting back and forth, the blonde began sending photos from her camera phone. The pics featured an attractive blonde with a nice body which was losing articles of clothing with each new photo. Ryan smiled thinking tp himself that this was going to be a good evening.
User Reviews
Submitted by jasumthin (user info) at 2008-05-17 11:28:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Ever hear the phrase: "write about what you know"?
Although the piece is not based on my current reality there are elements of me and my friends in our wilder days back in college. There are also elements in the story that are a total fabrication.
What sparked your question?
Submitted by Banjo (user info) at 2008-05-17 10:34:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
How much of this is a reality in your own life? Just out of interest...
Submitted by jasumthin (user info) at 2008-05-17 01:57:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I appreciate the feedback. There are elements from the other posting that you alluded to. I'm trying to repackage some ideas and change things up a little.
The plan is to further develop the story and add a few chapters. "Ryan" may initially appear to be an asshole, ok he IS an asshole, but as the story develops i am hoping that he becomes a likeable asshole.
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2008-05-17 01:36:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
This reminded me of this: http://www.ubersite.com/m/116252. Only not as well written. In this case the main character is a drug abuse counselor (it took me a while to figure this out) instead of a prison guard. In both cases they use the internet to schedule laisons with women at their business travel destinations. Ryan has the additional characteristic of being a borderline drug and alcohol abuser himself, which makes him a hypocrite. But apparently 99% of D/A abuse counselors are even worse than Ryan.
It sounds like you have an axe to grind with the D/A abuse system. Ryan is obviously being set up as an asshole without any redeeming value. It may have been cathartic to write about him, but I didn't think it was all that great of a read. I've seen better from you.