Well, my „Fulbright scholar period“ is coming to an end, in fact, in some way it has already finished since I left Houston (you can check how it looked like in my facebook page) and moved to a beach in Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico, to catch some sun and to work on a Czech translation of a book of Harlene Anderson (co-funder of the Houston Galveston Institute where I have spent this summer) Conversation, language, possibilities which is actually also part of my Fulbright project.
It seems I should make some conclusions, findings, results. However, at the end, I have maybe even more questions than at the beginning. But I am not at all disappointed with that, more likely I am happy about that and I think that this is the best „result“ I could ever wished. I have a lot of enthusiasm to future work. More than „findings“, I made some shifts in my thinking about the whole issue and also about research in general and I would like to share these shifts in this blog.
To start with, I have translated my correspondence with Pavlina, girl who wrote me an e-mail while I was already in Houston. I think this would perfectly serve as a demonstration of some of the shifts I made. Pavlina was answering an advertisement that I put to find informants for the study. She was offering her experience which seemed to be similiar as of the others, still, her period after quitting regular use of meth was much longer: 12 years. In my response, I explained the current situation of me being abroad and I have sent her my final report of the research which I wrote in Czech to fulfill the obligations I had towards association MARISA – a sponsor of the research. I also wrote her that I would be happy if she could share any commentaries she would have. So, here is a piece of our communication which I hope will continue:
a letter from Pavlina:
Hello,
I went through your study and here are my reflections. I was strucked by the fact that most of the people who took part in your study came from divorced families. By the way, that was my case, too. I am wondering, to what extent this situation may influence the psychological development of a person and his/her future life? I suppose that quite cruically. Anyway, I can confirm all the things that you describe in your study from my own experience. The attempt to abstain is preceded by a feeling of dissatisfaction with one´s own life, eventually also some „breaking“ situation. After the decision to abstain, it is necessary to break down the social bonds, establish or renew the relationships with the family, friends, to start a job, to fill one´s time with something we enjoy. But, a crucial influence on how long and with what effort we will abstain has, by my opinion, the realisation of a reason why I actually started to use drugs. What made me disturb the basic laws of life and go againts myself? Why have I punished my body and changed my natural mind-set? By my opinion, it is a lack of self-love. A disability to accept myself such as I am. I think that after one goes through different addictions to this point, he/she has won. He/she loses any kind of need to take drugs. To put it simply, he/she doesn´t have any reason for punish him/herself. After 12 years of abstinence, my thoughts go already in a different direction. How to prepare my children for a world, in which drugs take place, how to make of them beings who will be happy enough not to have any reason to start drugs. How to fortify their self confidence to such extent so that they manage to refuse the drug even if it may exclude them from the company. If there are any studies for parents and you know about these, I will be happy if you send me a reference or a name of the author. I wish you a nice day and looking forward to our meeting.
a letter from me:
Thanks a lot! It is very interesting what you are writing about: the lack of self-love… something like that was kind of under the lines in the interviews so I couldn´t consider it as any kind of „findings“, more likely just ideas… I suppose you are evaluating the situation with much more distance, after the twelve years, which is great. I am looking forward to talking to you about it, I am just about to finish my stay here in Houston and am moving for several weeks to Mexico, then I am coming back and I will let you know. The thing with the parents… I like the way you put the question: „how to fortify their self confidence to such extent so that they manage to refuse the drug even if it may exclude them from the company.“ It seems to be really important thing, I may add, how to enable the children to be able to achieve the feeling of self-confidence by themselves, not to be reffered just to some external sources. It is difficult to refer to you some good reading in Czech, I must confess that I still haven´t looked much for it. But I have such an idea that I would re-write some of the interviews to a kind of readable form, add few commentaries maybe and then it could serve as a reading for parents – no guidelines, more likely just to hear more views. But, whenever I find something interesting to this issue, I will send it to you.
Do you read in English? Since in U.S., I started to write a blog in English about the research, so you may find it here: http://pavelwiredin.blogspot.com
And I also fell upon an idea if you would agree with a translation of your e-mail into English and put it on the blog as a reaction of someone who was not engaged with the research but had similar experience. I think it would be wonderful.
Have a good time,
Pavel
a letter from Pavlina:
Hello,
of course I agree with publication. Unfortunately I do not speak English, well, at least I had a look and could see how you look like. Consider my previous letter as a pure subjective opinion and maybe observation of some of my friends who were taking drugs with me and about whom I know a lot. After reading your letter I realized an important thing, that I cannot pass to my children something what I still do not have sufficiently resolved. It is not such a long time when I came up with a point that my perception of myself is very often dependent on something external. When everything is working well for me, everybody is nice to me, I feel good. Much worse is, when someone is unagreeable, criticise me, don´t understand me, don´t accept me. Similiar bad is also lack of material things. In the last time, I do what I can to find a way how to be feel good all the time and especially I am trying not to take anything personally. But still, I have such a feeling that thanks to the hollowed traces from past, it is really not so easy. Once, one man told me that the spiritual development is like an onion, you slice one layer and there is another one, and another and another. For me, it fits 100%. Say hello to Mexico.
In the same way as she „realized an important thing“ after reading my letter, I realized other „important things“ after reading hers. And this itself is the most important thing I realized about a „research“ in social sciences: always unfinished, always coming up with another questions, another ways of thinking. To be continued…
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