Chris' Christian Blog

January 1, 2020

"January 1, 2020" 

I am glad to be back to blogging regularly! I really missed it when I was working 16-18 hours per day through December. I work at the Salvation Army Huntington Corps as a peer support specialist eight hours per day and throughout December I also stayed over at work to accept angel tree donations when they came in after hours and to help count money raised by our bell ringers. To add to that I work as floor leader at the West Virginia Veterans Home, where I live. The floor leader is similar to a resident assistant in college. I get up at 5:00AM to walk from room to room on my floor with the nurse as she does head count and serve to meet any other needs the men here have. I basically have two jobs that required about eighteen hours per day throughout the holidays. The good news is that I am back to ten hour days between the two jobs as most days the floor leader job requires only two hours. To add to that good news the Salvation Army Huntington Corps set a record for the number of angels our corps assisted in the angel tree program. Angel Tree is where we "adopt" children for Christmas and place their names and Christmas wishes on Christmas trees in businesses throughout the area. The angels are then adopted by individuals in the public who buy the gifts for the children. Our corps had over 3500 angels this year, which more than doubled what we have had in the past! Every angel was provided Christmas!
The only way the Salvation Army is able to provide Christmas to our angels is through the red kettles that go up every Christmas season and the bell ringers/contributors who donate to the kettles. The Huntington Corps set a goal of $219,000.00 for our kettles for 2019. Our final total in contributions was $235,835.00! Thank you Huntington WV area!
The red kettles are done for the year, but the Salvation Army is always accepting donations. You can donate at https://give.salvationarmyusa.org


"Prompt: Happy New Year! Prompt: What are your plans for 2020, this New Year?"

My plan for 2020 is to spend the entire year working at the Salvation Army Huntington Corps, where I am a peer support specialist in the Pathways of Hope program. I also plan to complete my graduate application to Marshall University and hopefully begin pursuing my MSW and eventually a Ph.D. in psychology. My goal is to eventually do research into the causes of addiction and either support or eliminate my personal theory as to the root causes of addiction. My theory, which seems to be supported by other research, is that the root cause of addiction is trauma, whether that trauma be psychological or physical. Findings indicate that most addicts have suffered some type of abuse or other traumatic event in their lives. I believe this leads to a deep level of shame, which the addict then attempts to self-medicate. Whether this idea is supported or not remains to be seen.
I have already determined one paper I wish to research and publish in graduate school. My commander at the Salvation Army Huntington Corps spoke about how she had abstained from social media for quite some time and the affect this had on her. She said she had noticed that she was more observant and attentive to her environment and asked me if I thought social media could change the anatomy of the brain? I told her I did not know but that it would make for excellent research. If I am accepted to graduate school, I am going to propose something to that effect as a research project and see if social media does in some way affect the anatomy of the brain.