“I have to go. I”™ve got a code blue.”
With those words, Laurel McCullagh abruptly ends a telephone conversation and hurries off to minister to a drug addict or alcoholic being treated at St. Christopher”™s Inn at Graymoor in Garrison.
McCullagh is director of nursing and admissions for the shelter, which offers ambulatory detox and rehabilitation to men. The clientele is housed at St. Christopher”™s, a shelter on Graymoor property.
“Living at home and coming in for treatment doesn”™t always work,” she said. “In some households family members may drink or use drugs, making staying clean a difficult challenge. In other cases the client has no place to go ”“ perhaps the wife has thrown him out for alcoholism. Our outpatient withdrawal program offers the environment needed for one to detox and begin to embrace a life of change.”
Heroin use is more prominent now among the population of St. Christopher”™s Inn, McCullagh said. “In 2009, 18 percent of clients admitted using heroin. In 2015, 47 percent of admissions identify heroin as their primary drug. In 2009, 18 percent of clients admitted were between ages 18 to 25. In 2014, that number rose to 44 percent.”
McCullagh said it takes a strong stomach to deal with some situations she has encountered. Recalling an admission of nearly a decade ago, she greeted a man “with the blankest expression I ever saw,” she said. “He reacted to nothing. There was no human connection. Working with our professional staff, he slowly opened up, divulging a history of horrific childhood sexual abuse. He and his sister had both been the victims of this abuse perpetrated by friends of the family. One particular day he shared a story so graphic that I couldn”™t maintain a calm facial expression. He asked if I was okay and I decided to be honest and tell him that I felt like I was going to vomit. He replied, ”˜That”™s how I feel every day.”™”
The man is now clean and helping other addicts. “Sadly, his sister, also an alcoholic, was not able to conquer her demons,” she said. “She died a few years ago from liver failure, caused by her addiction.”
McCullagh said more parental education in what to look for and how to handle it is needed in the community. She urges parents and spouses not to be enablers.
“You think you are helping when you fix problems that substance abusers have created for themselves, but you only enable substance abusers to die,” she warned. “The more enablers take on, the angrier they become at spending their whole lives fixing everything. Enabling leads to anger and resentments, and in your anger, you are forced to endure a life meant to be enjoyed.”
A West Nyack resident, McCullagh grew up in Massachusetts and New Jersey. Planning an advertising career, she enrolled in a program at SUNY Oneonta involving a final year of business study at the Fashion Institute of Technology. After receiving her bachelor”™s degree she went to work for a publicity agency in Manhattan. “But, I craved something more fulfilling.”
McCullagh”™s journey to that fulfillment got off to a very painful start when she dropped a large typewriter on her foot at home. Her broken toes were treated at Pascack Valley Hospital where she was inspired by the nurse who treated her. She went back to school as a student in the nursing program at Rockland Community College and then went on to work at St. John”™s Riverside Hospital in Yonkers.
“I came to St. Christopher”™s on the day before 9/11,” she said.
Challenging Careers focuses on the exciting and unusual business lives of Hudson Valley residents. Comments or suggestions may be emailed to Catherine Portman-Laux at cplaux@optonline.net.
