#47: What Are the Odds? Part 1.

Living in the shadows of doubt.

Photo Courtesy of Reggie Martell..

It’s 9:10 pm, Sunday September 29, 2024.

Several times, I’ve started a piece about my friends on the street and the alleged facts have changed so fast, I’ve been figuratively and literally at a loss for words. It’s all well and good for me to say I’m used to people lying, as if it were some kind of binary situation. It’s not. It’s just that things change quickly. Very quickly.

In some cases, my friends would keep their word if they could. It’s just not a priority. Or suddenly becomes impossible because something else comes up.

Because, not only do my friends often not know where their next meal is coming from…they sometimes barely know where their next steps will take them. Certainly, for better or worse, every day is a new adventure.

I confess I sometimes amuse and console myself by imagining the odds on various outcomes. There’s something unseemly about wagering on someone’s life.^⁠1 But I’m consoled by the thought that betting itself is an act of hope.

So, I may ask myself…what are the odds the person:

• Is really going to the methadone clinic?

• Is topping that off with dope from the street?

• Is going to see their kid who’s living with mom 50 miles away?

• Will get there in time for their 2-hour supervised visit?

• Is really going where they say they are going?

• Really has a kid?

• Is signing over a check that’s any good? (That one’s pretty easy.)

• Needs that much for a Suboxone copay?

• Is going to sell half of their methadone dose?

• Kept the _____ [phone, sleeping bag, piece of pizza] I bought them instead of selling it?

• Has an aunt who died?

• Has an aunt?

There are a lot more examples. And I can write about these and other uncertainties almost anytime…but this is a particularly significant evening because:

In the next 24-hours, four of my friends each have the chance to make a major change in their lives.

What are the odds?

All four have the opportunity to do what I call “escape the specific gravity” of where they’ve been living (in this case, Brattleboro, Vermont.)

It’s not easy. This is where their friends are. This is where they know a place to crash or get a sleeping bag or maybe a tent. This is where they know where to get free food, maybe free clothes. This might be where their kids are. This might be where they know the bus routes to take them where they need to go. This might be where they know someone who has a car and will take them other places in exchange for gas money. This is where their treatment program is.

And, yes, yes, yes, for some, this is where their dealer(s) and/or customer(s) are.

It’s their home. Just like it’s my home.

But, for these four people in particular, “home” could change significantly in the next 24 hours. Or not. [As always, names are changed and some details blurred.]

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Sally: I hadn’t seen her for a month until Friday night. She virtually jumped for joy when she saw me because she’d just completed 30 days in a rehab facility and had the diploma to prove it. She was even more excited because they had a place arranged for her in a sober-living house 100 miles away where they’d help her stay clean, get work, and generally get her life together. “So why are you back here?” I asked. “Oh,” she explained. “They had to drop me back where I came from, but tomorrow morning [Saturday 28^th] at 7:30 am I’m getting a Medicaid ride to the new place.”

Around noon on Saturday someone came up to me and told me they’d seen her. I said yeah but she should be gone by now. They told me where they thought I’d find her but said she was probably hiding from me. I don’t know. I didn’t go looking. I’m a friend, not a parent. I still give her 50-50.

Melissa:  I’ve seen her go from 50% odds of something happening to under 1% in seconds. But a week or so ago she told me she was going to go into rehab. A two-month program. I didn’t hear from her much and then a quick note about how she would be going late Thursday night. She actually made it sound like she wanted to say goodbye. No offense Melissa, but I knew goodbye could be an expensive proposition. Regardless, while I gave her some money for things she needed, I also met the guy who was taking her and, when I mentioned a guy we both knew (a lawyer…we knew him for different reasons) he laughed and agreed he was a good lawyer. Her friend also told me where he worked and that he had to get back by early the next morning. Everything about him seemed reliable except, of course, he was with Melissa.

I said goodbye and some real encouraging words to her and they took off.

At 5pm Friday afternoon, Melissa sat down next to me on a bench and explained she’d gotten down there but they just wanted to do intake, and they needed to get more med records so they could get her back into treatment for the cancer she may or may not have. So she’d come back, but she didn’t have any methadone left. She’d used up her last dose because she thought they’d put her into immediate rapid detox when she checked in.^⁠2

I told her I’d give her $15 to pick up some methadone on the street to make it another two days BUT…. only if I personally took her back to the rehab place Monday morning. (About an hour+ away). She agreed. We’d have to leave about 7:30, she said. I agreed. She had almost no extra clothes to take with her, so I gave her a sweatshirt and, more symbolically than practically, a t-shirt a friend had given me during my own breakdown. It says, “Cheer Up.” I only half-jokingly said I was giving her the shirt off my back and it was worth more to me than money and that she’d better show up. When she left, I texted a friend of hers and asked if she thought Melissa was really going to rehab. She said, no way…

It’s one of the most high tension wagers of my life. Will she be there when I go pick her up? Will she stay in the car all the way? Or ask me to stop for something and take off. When we walk in the place, will they have a clue who she is or what she is doing there?

I’m basically giving her 50% for going to the place one way or another, 35% for actually letting me take her, and maybe 20% for getting through two months of rehab. I may not pray for her, per se, but I sure wish her well. And I’m a realist.

Chuck and Vicky: Last week, they finally went to his relatives a few hours away—he’s been saying he’s going to do it for months. Actually Chuck went first. Then a couple of days later, he came back to get Vicky. Then they both had to come back because they needed their birth certificates and other paperwork they should have known they needed in the first place, so he could get paid and Vicky could be admitted into a special residential program for mothers who, after getting reliably clean, can have their kids with them. When they explained this to me sometime Saturday, I asked how the hell they were going to get back. Chuck explained that he now had the relative’s car so they just had to deal with a detail or two and were going to leave right away. I tried not to think about Chuck driving without a license.

Will they get there? Will they stay there? Will she get into the program? Will one or both of them come back? The odds are flip-flopping all over the place.

I’ll keep you posted.

¹ I was thinking of asking people to “place their bets” in the comment sections and have the person with the most correct wagers get a free paid subscription. But that seemed downright crass.

² https://www.rapiddetox.com