Does your straw float up out of its drink, and you are constantly having to stuff it back into the thing again, and getting less than happy in the process?
Relax! Uncle Ray has the cure. Just slip a short piece of slightly heavier tubing over the straw, making it too heavy to float. - Works for me!
And what's in Old Uncle Ray's drink? Have I fallen off the wagon, after 49 years? No, Kiddies, I'm still disgustingly sober. Why? Because...... After much research, and three months in a rehab center where lawyers smoked empty pipes held upside down while talking to themselves about their past cases, and kids sat in the solarium on hard wooden chairs and talked to a thumb held up in front of the face, and I made leather wallets in the Occupational Therapy building because it got me away from all that, I came to the conclusion that staying sober was, if not always fun, at least better for the budget, and if I'm going to make an ass of myself, which I do frequently, then why not be clear-headed enough to enjoy all that myself? The drink is my favorite mixture of Ginger Ale and Tropicana No Pulp Orange Juice. It would be wonderful with about two fingers of Moskovskaya, but my Internal Medicine Specialist says, "I don't do house calls to the Rehab Center, and that antifreeze will conflict with your blood thinners and water pills and COPD meds, and you could end up in the Hereafter prematurely, get the picture?" I got the picture - in living color.
And besides..... I can't go back to that Rehab Center now, because I'm not sick enough, and I wouldn't recognize it now anyway. It has become a huge complex with 454 beds and a staff of thousands. When I was there, it was a refurbished old TB San, with about 180 kids and 18 of us older drunks. The kids discovered that it was more fun talking to me than to the staff, so they'd bring me all their problems, and we'd sit around and talk about it, and I'd ask them what they would like to see happen, and then I'd take all that to the staff, and we'd kick it around, and work something out that was a compromise but satisfactory to the kids. And I discovered that it was fun. I've always been good with handling kids, because I have a secret. The secret is, don't treat them like kids, treat them as equals, and don't be condescending. Kids are smart. Sometimes smarter than the so-called adults they are dealing with, and they respond a lot better to questions than they do to orders. So I asked lots of questions, and listened carefully to their answers, and then made a few suggestions, and asked more questions. It worked for me......
The Director called me in for a meeting after I'd been there about two months, and asked, "Ray, have you any plans for when you leave here?" And I said, "Aha! I knew this would come up sooner or later. When I signed in here, I was told there's no charge, and I can stay as long as I feel it's necessary, and I can come back any time I have a relapse, and sign back in again, and receive more treatment. And now, here you are, trying to kick me out of the best home I ever had!" He looked a bit taken aback, and said, "Now, now - it's not that bad! And I'm not trying to kick you out. Listen - It's like this.... If you stay here much longer, I'm going to be over there in the main building, in your bed, and you'll be over here, in my office, behind all these piles of paperwork, running the place!" And I said, "No! No! Doc.... That would never happen. I hate paperwork,
and I'm not going to let you take over my bed, because our delightful Sandy comes around every night at bedtime, to kiss us guys 'Goodnight', and I wouldn't miss that for anything. So I'm sorry, I can't run the place. I'm too busy helping the kids stay out of trouble here." And he said, "That's exactly what I was getting at - you're doing better with them than our staff does!" And I asked, "May I offer you a little suggestion.....a 'secret technique' maybe?" And he asked, "And what would that be?" And I told him about kids responding better to questions than to orders, and to being treated as equals instead of condescendingly, and to suggestions rather that a list of 'Do's and Don'ts'. And he said, "Hmmmm....That might just work, but we do need rules." And I said, "Yes Sir, we sure do need rules, but you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar, don't you?" And he said, "Well, it certainly seems to be working for you!" And I said, "My point exactly. So be my guest - and if it works, let's not fix it."
And he said, "Getting back to Ray, is there anything I could do to help you get organized after you leave us - and I'm not pushing you toward the door, so don't misunderstand that." I asked if he would please write to the people out here where I'd got the boot for my drinking, and just give them his personal opinion on my stay here, and whether or not he felt I was successful at learning to cope with life unassisted by alcohol. And he agreed to do that. And then he said, "And I want to thank you for pitching in around here and helping us with these kids. You obviously have a talent for it." I replied, "If I had any qualifications in this field at all, I'd just love to make this a new career, but I'm too far along the road now for that. I enjoy working with young people, and I do think I have a talent for it, and it's very gratifying to have you say so - thank you!"
I left there a couple of weeks after that, and got my old job back out here on the coast, and time marched on, and now that place is a whole complex of research and treatment and several separate parts. I'd never recognize it. But it very literally saved my career and my life, and I owe those people much more than I could ever repay.
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