Adventures of the Fully Employed

On July 23, 2008 I began my first full-time job in a year in a half! I was hired two weeks prior by a company called Talbott Recovery Campus (TRC) which is located very close to the airport in south Atlanta. TRC is a substance abuse treatment facility very similar to MARR which is where I did my clinical internship last year. MARR referred me to TRC once I had exhausted all opportunities to stay at MARR. I am working as a family counselor in the young adult program (18-25 yr old patients). My main role will be to counsel and assess the families' needs of our young adult patients (which are called YAP's) while they are in treatment with us and to provide therapy accordingly.

My first day was really awesome. Mainly, I was concerned with having someone to eat lunch with, and that certainly was granted in the full. All the employees are really friendly and I've gotten a lot of "ooo we're so glad you're here" type of comments. I think they've been understaffed in this area for a while, so I certainly am happy to oblige by offering my newly acquired counseling services for a salary and benefits!!

Probably my most favorite thing so far is the free soda and water, which includes Diet Dr Pepper. They also have free lunch several times a month for various reasons for the staff. Also, every Thursday you can walk down to Anchor Hospital, which is owned by the same company as ours, to receive free lunch for all TRC staff. I know I'm going to fit right in to these perks.

The only thing that's been hard to adjust to is getting up at 6:20 each day. The earliest I regularly got up for MTW work or to go to class was probably 7:30, plus in the past two months I normally got up at 8:30. So this is a bit of a shock. My roommate regularly gets up early during the school year, so she's been coaching me on what time I should go to bed, which has been around 10:30 or so. Last night was Friday night, and Amy and I were having my fave Friday night activity of pizza eating, movie watching, and beer drinking (me). I totally feel asleep during the movie at about 9:30! Amy said this is to be expected especially at the end of a work week with hours like that. Yikes!

Next week I'm going to be receiving more training on how to do family assessments and treatment plans. I'm also going to be sitting in on more groups that will help me get to know the rules of the program and the process groups the patients go to. My team is also going to take me out for a welcome lunch. I'm excited to see what else is in store!