Living in the Solution

Alphabet Soup:

I have recently come to a realization. It’s not a groundbreaking discovery or a novel idea by any means. Quite honestly, it’s not even a new concept to me. Nevertheless, I have come to the realization that many of the world’s issues would likely be solved by living in the solution.

Some of you may know that I am just a few credits short of finishing my Bachelor of Social Work degree. While a BSW isn’t the end of the road for me, it will allow me to move straight into my master’s degree which then leads to licensure, and so forth, and so on.

Anyhow, I’m getting ahead of myself here, let me stay on track. In any case, the BSW has been in the works for longer than I care to admit. Don’t worry, I’m almost there. Just for a bit of context though. The governing body for the social work profession is the National Association of Social Workers (NASW). Oddly enough however the governing body responsible for informing social work curriculum is the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE)

If you’re already confused by the alphabet soup that determines my future, imagine how I feel. The NASW makes the rules and “suggestions” for how social workers should conduct themselves and represent the profession. The CSWE is the national association that represents social work education. It acts as the accrediting body that determines whether your degree will actually mean anything to the profession or not.

More Than Meets the Eye:

In order to receive a BSW of any real value, it has to be from an accredited BSW program. This means the program itself must meet the demands (ahem…I mean criteria) of the CSWE. Like most bachelor degrees you study your subject matter from a broad lens. A BSW however tends to take it a bit further and delve into specific concepts, components, and practice levels within the profession. From values and ethics, research methods, designing a study, and getting acquainted with policies, to interviewing and recording, social justice issues, theoretical frameworks, human behavior, and micro skills to aid in engaging clients at the individual, community, and societal level of our world.

To put it simply, “it’s kind of a lot”, and at times sounds simple, but I assure you it’s a black hole that mentally and emotionally drains you and forces you to question everything you thought you’ve ever known about yourself and the world around you. *Deep Breath* As you might imagine, it’s the constant mind-f*ck that I love to hate and hate to love about my chosen field of study.

Most folks don’t really understand what social work is all about. If you ask the average Joe on the street, they’ll tell you social workers operate under the Division of Family & Children Services (DFCS). Some might specifically know Child Protective Services (CPS) who go around snatching kids away from “unfit” parents. Needless to say, we get a bad rap. There’s more to social work than meets the eye. While some of us do work for DFCS or CPS, there are many more of us who work elsewhere.

So, if you’re thoroughly confused about what social work is or what social workers do, I’ll simplify it. Social workers are essentially social justice warriors of sorts. In more official terms, we aim to enhance human well-being and help meet the basic and complex needs of all people, with special interest in populations who are underserved, at-risk, vulnerable, oppressed, poverty-stricken, etc. Think of any social justice issue, any social problem you can possibly imagine… Yeah, we want to fix that.

The Problem with Problems:

Now, I know what some of you are probably thinking, “This is about to get political.” Let me assure you, it’s not. I know social work professionals from both sides of the aisle in American politics. I’ve met and worked alongside social workers who are religious, atheist, white, black, Indian, Latina/o, gay, straight, American, Ecuadorian; name any demographic and there’s a social worker that fits the box. This isn’t about politics by any extent of the imagination, so don’t worry about that in the slightest.

Getting to the meat and potatoes of this conversation… I have a bone to pick with the social work profession and larger society as a whole to be entirely honest. We focus to much on the problems we see, the injustices, the disparities, the unkindness of the world. So many times we’re trying to be a part of the solution but we fall short. In my opinion, because we fail to live in the solution. Allow me to explain…

In all my long hours of analyzing scholarly articles, systematically dissecting research studies, writing analytical essays, studying theoretical frameworks, scrutinizing human behavior, and evaluating my own personal values and belief systems, there seems to be a reoccurring theme. The theme you ask? Problems.

Everything is a problem, nothing is a problem, problems are a problem, and the lack of problems is a problem. Even at the bottom of the most complex social problem, is in fact, also a problem.

We identify problems, we study problems, we create problems, we ignore problems, we hide from problems, and we toy at solving problems, but nevertheless the solution evades us. Why? Well, because we run into a new problem. To be clear, at this point, I’m not just referring to social workers, I’m talking about humans in general.

Out of Focus:

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not so naïve as to believe that “problems” don’t need to be addressed, remedied, or explored. I understand that in order to have half a chance at preventing the perpetuation of the problem, we have to know what the problem is, why, how it became a problem, when it became a problem, and who the said problem is affecting. If you want to get really fancy with it you can even get into what helps the problem vs what makes the problem worse.

All of that is without a doubt helpful and important information to know, but like… why do we get so hyper-fixated on the backend of the problem that we forget to look forward? I see this so frequently in academia that it’s just become frustrating. Millions of dollars are spent researching the effects of poverty on mental health, how student homelessness impacts school attendance, or how attendance affects academic performance.

I’m not saying it’s not important to have an in-depth understanding of these phenomena, but a lot of it is pretty self-explanatory if you stop and think about it for 2 seconds. It would seem the vision for exploring these social issues is out of focus and misguided. I mean really, congrats. You spent loads of time, effort, money, and resources confirming that this problem, which we already know exists, is in fact a problem. My question is, what can we do to fix it though? How is it that we so often can intricately define, explain, and present the problem and rarely do we graduate to the point that we’re actively living in the solution?

Who, What, When, Where, How?:

As Stan so often likes to say, the car is in the ditch, at some point the “why” doesn’t matter nearly as much as how you go about getting the car out. My sobriety works very much the same way. I am an alcoholic, plain and simple. Use whatever terminology you most identify and feel comfortable with. For me, I am an alcoholic through and through.

I could spend countless hours and waste decades wondering why I am an alcoholic. Do I have a genetic predisposition? Was it something I could have prevented? Could I have ever been a “normal” drinker? Was it the childhood trauma? Was there ever a point in time I could have controlled it? …. I could consider every factor in play, biological social, mental, emotional, environmental, and societal… in the end, it wouldn’t change anything. Even if it was entirely possible to isolate the exact cause(s), guess what? I’d still be an alcoholic. The car is in the ditch.

To draw a quick parallel to the world of social work. Let’s say there’s a child homeless and hungry. It’s quick to jump to a conclusion, wonder what happened, how they ended up in the position, and why. Maybe the child ran away from home, maybe their parents were killed; perhaps the parents are missing, abusive, or just straight-up disinterested in being parents.

It’s possible the child is an escaped victim, was somehow separated from their parents, lost, or abandoned on the side of the road. In any case, there are a million different questions, possibilities, and problems in this situation. What is the most glaring and obvious problem at this point though? Is who, what, when, where, or why this child is homeless and hungry? No.

THE single most pressing problem is that the child is hungry and homeless. Sure, some background information and follow-up questions are needed later on, but in this position, most of us (I hope) would be focused on living in the solution (i.e. getting the child somewhere safe, and fed). No amount of inquiry, research, or data collection is going to work toward getting the child fed and housed. When we let go of our fascination with the existing problem we start living in the solution.

Talking Heads:

Due to the nature of our jobs (education and mental health) and our personal interests Stan and I frequently discuss these social problems from various practical experiences and theoretical perspectives. Typically the conversations end in a similar fashion, both of us scoffing, shaking our heads in frustration, throwing our hands up in bewilderment, and getting ready to cook dinner for the evening. This is almost a daily ritual at our house and to be fair it’s not the healthiest habit we have, as it often stems from horror stories at work (we’re working on it lol).

In any case, on one particular evening last week, we fell for our own trap yet again. Mid-rant we were verbally accosting society, the government, and social constructs; raving about how with the incessant need to focus on the problem and point fingers nothing will ever change (in a timely manner anyway), when we both paused for a moment. In that pause, I swear to Satan that our brains were perfectly in sync with each other. We realized that in most instances we found ourselves frustrated, annoyed, hurt, and disappointed in society, government, academia, healthcare, and mental health resources, (you get the point). It almost always centered around the obsession with wallowing in the explanation of the problem rather than living in the solution to resolve the said problem(s).

Then in an act of complete hypocrisy, we asked ourselves why there was a common theme to our frustration, had we always thought this way, and when did this become our outlook on life? Just as quickly as the questions appeared they were answered. Sobriety. Sobriety taught us the importance of living in the solution. In fact, sobriety taught me that if I’m not living in the solution, or at least looking for a solution, then I am a part of the problem.

Living in the Solution:

See, towards the end of my active addiction all I could see was the problem. I was depressed, alone, and anxious all the time. Drinking was a survival skill but it was also killing me. I couldn’t stop long enough to determine if it was physically possible for me.

Did I want to quit? Truthfully, I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t not want to quit, but I also didn’t know how. All I could focus on was the misery, pain, betrayal, and confusion. It was the problem. I was the problem. Living was a problem, drinking was a problem. Not drinking wasn’t an option. I was drowning in problems and my problems were drowning me.

It wasn’t until a new way of thinking was presented to me that something changed. Living in the solution. What a wild concept. I didn’t need to be able to write a scholarly article asserting or defending my alcoholism. It was entirely unnecessary for me to know why I drank the way that I did, what caused my alcoholism, when it manifested, or how it happened. All I needed to know is that there was a problem. The car was in the ditch, I am an alcoholic.

With that problem identified, my next question, perhaps the most important question was: How do we fix it? As it turns out, you can’t “fix” alcoholism, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t livable solutions. That’s what I wanted, solutions.

First and foremost what that meant for me, and any other alcoholic I’ve ever come across for that matter, was to stop drinking. Sometimes that means inpatient detox, other times it means becoming a meeting addict instead. There are a million ways to get and stay sober, you just have to find the right one for you. So, while I may not be able to solve child hunger, gas prices, war in the Ukraine, homelessness, or any of the rest of the world’s problems, I know how to solve most of mine, and that’s by living in the solution.