consequences...
My heart is aching for my sister tonight. She has struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction for most of her adult life. A couple years ago, she started to turn things around. She went through a very painful detox from opiates and suboxone, left her son's father, who was an addict, and went back to school. She has been doing terrific in her grad program, getting straight As, and this coming year she is supposed to do a practicum. She got hired and was SO excited and proud, and she went in for orientation and was introduced to the staff, and then they called her out in the middle of the day and said that they were going to have to let her go because of a 10yo misdemeanor drug charge. She says that she was totally up front with them about the charge when they hired her and that a few people in HR assured her that it would be fine, but apparently in the end the decision went against her. I feel so badly for her. I want to fix it, and am slipping into some CoD behavior, sitting here googling trying to figure out whether it's possible to get a charge expunged in her state. Sadly, it seems that it's not. I also realized something that she may not know--I think that I understand correctly that even though she took a plea deal, the original charges may still appear on her record? Anyway, I'm trying to take a deep breath and give her the dignity of dealing with this herself. I guess this just raises my fears that she will go back to her addictions. The truth is that I'm not even sure how sober she is, as she lives far away. I know that she has at least been drinking off and on in the past year. So I think about that, and then I feel that CoD guilt for doubting her when she needs someone who believes in her! Sigh, what a mess. And I have my own problems. Work, friendships, many things of my own that I need to attend to. Anyway, thanks for listening!