Bridges Week 13 - HALT

First off, Ogre showed up to class. I did not see that coming. I guess I kind of figured that if he hadn't been kicked out of the program for last week, than he would be too embarrassed to show his face back in class so quickly. I guess I underestimated his ability to absorb chastisement.
At the beginning of class, Todd did his usual round-robin of introductions. Most guys just say their name and talk about how they're doing work-wise, or how their dealings with their family or the State are going. When it got to me, I told everyone that I'd just registered for school and that I was really excited about it. When it got to Ogre, at first he just said "I'm Ogre, and I've just been looking for work." Todd said "Is that all?" "Yeah, that's pretty much it," Ogre said leaning back in his chair, with an air of undeserved self-satisfaction.
Todd was gunning for him at that point. "Last week, you were kind of all over the place. Who was here last week?" A couple of us raised our hands. "What did you guys think of Ogre's behavior in class last week?" Todd said, staring right at me. "I guess, I'm just really surprised he came back." I said. And pretty much all the other guys that had been there the week before nodded or grunted in agreement. At this point, I hadn't realized it, but Todd was going to use me as the class advocate, he kept asking me questions like "Why do you think he was behaving that way?" and then he'd stare Ogre down when I'd give my best diplomatic answer: "Well, dude, I know you've had your problems with booze, but I don't think you were drinking, but I definately think you were on something." At that, I get more grunts and nods of agreement. That was the magic answer for Todd, he's fired up now. "Yeah, the way you were acting, that's the way people act, when they're in a certain state, and that state isn't clean." Ogre is very offended at my insinuation, and Todd's outright accusal of him being on drugs, "I was just tired, I had a very long day! I'm not on anything." Todd asks Ogre if he remembers what happened in class, he says that he does, and then Todd asks him if remembers how their talk after class went, he says he does. Todd goes, you know I've been around a lot of people on a lot of things and I just have to tell you that I don't run into too many people that when they're clean they start talking about how they'd like to be as big as a building and be able to flick tanks away with just the power of their eyelash. I'm dying at this, that is totally awesome stoner talk if I've ever heard it.
Ogre adamantly denies any substance abuse. Todd is irritated as hell with him, and explains how much effort he's put into Ogre's treatment, and now he's going to give him a UA (drug test) and unlike the other guys in the program that he's trying to help keep on the right track, he just wants to catch Ogre dirty. Ogre spends the rest of the class with an angry-retard stare on his face.
The rest of class was basic psycology/biology. I won't talk about everything but there is one little thing Todd talked about that really got my attention Todd taught us an acronym to help explain why people go from being reasonable (thinking with their cerebral cortex) to going into caveman mode (thinking with the amygdalae). Here it is:
Hungry
Angry
Lonley
Tired
The idea here is that if you are any of one of those things, you are more likely to stop using your reasoning and logic skills and shift into purely impluse driven thought processes. I really identified with that, especially tired. I am probably the worst person I can be when I'm tired. But I can remember examples in my life where I've behaved irrationally due to each one of those factors.
I can actually remember one whole relationship I was in, that ultimately failed probably because I was tired, sleep deprived (and yeah, out of shape) for the entire duration of the relationship. I was awful to be around, I don't know how she lasted as long as she did. When I looked back on it for the longest time, I used to think what the hell was wrong with me? I mean, the tired thing is another factor, but the main issue there was just that I was just a dick.
Enough preaching, gotta go play Unreal 3 with my nephew.