Drug Rehab Options Blog

I've been waiting anxiously for a month to get my sister back into seeing the doctor/therapist she's had some success with in the past. She had a long history of irresponsible living and drug abuse that built up to 2 arrests within a month last December for faking prescriptions for percs and oxy. She made some progress in recovery for the first half of this year, but fell back into the old habits over the summer. All this time she's had a live-in bf (with previous alcohol problem) who's stood by her but whose patience is nearly at an end. And 2 weeks ago she found out she's pregnant. It all seemed ready to blow.

So Monday I go with her back to seeing the doctor. It'll be weekly visits from now on with me coming to all of them. They discuss both her treatments and what's in store if she keeps the baby (as she seems determined to do). I leave feeling hopeful that maybe her relapse can be turned around, the bf's fears eased, and maybe, just maybe, having a baby in all this won't be a total disaster.

Well. The next night at 3am I get a frantic call from her that the bf has come home drunk out his head and is trashing the place and screaming at her about all the the bad things she's done over the months. Cops take him away and now he's got to live in a different city with his mother who posted his bond. At the moment she's alone, except for me checking in and friends.

Then today we found our dad's chemo is no longer working and won't be continued. Not sure how much longer he's got, but whether he'll be around to see her baby born is in doubt.

All these things are connected. The BF's relapse in alcohol abuse by his frustrations with her, her fears over whether he'll stay and our dad's health making her own recover harder, the pregnancy thrown in which makes him feel trapped now, and her fears of being abandoned. One big knot to unravel!

While at times I've been sick with worry this week about where this is going and why it all hit at once, I'm hoping that maybe after the shocks are over, and time goes on some good could come of it. He's required to get alcoholism treatment now (and I know he will), she has continued to make her therapy appointments with me as the moral support, and knowing a baby is on the way and our dad's time could be short seems to be focusing her mind on staying clean for those reasons.

I have been considering a couple work options lately, but have mixed feelings because of how they would affect my sobriety. One of them I would be working out of town for weeks at a time, doing grueling 12 hour shifts for 2 weeks or more in a row then having the same amount of time off (when I could come home and have the AA support I have here). This will be a stressful environment... I will only work at a dry site with drug testing... but this is a job sector that is notorious for drug abuse. Another job will probably give me better people to be around (pretty much guaranteed there won't be the same drug element), but I will likely have to move pretty far away from my home. I could get a job at home for much less pay and get more technical training, but life here feels pretty bleak too... I've lived here my whole life, but outside of AA I don't have much family or friends keeping me here. It seems like apart from sobriety, I have no priorities or responsibilities (I am "free" you could say), so there is nothing to stop me. I won't need to make this decision for several months yet, but lately it's been on my mind.

Does anyone know of any 800 numbers that I could call and talk to someone who knows about drug abuse and can explain this whole process to me? I need to understand things because I feel if I can understand it I can accept and move forward. I have so many questions running in my head that I just need to talk to someone. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

I sent this as a personal message to someone but felt i should put it on here and hopefully someone can relate and not feel alone?

I am doing quite well and have gone nearly four days sober and i feel good for it. My girlfriend has been a rock and i love her so much for it. We had a talk at the weekend (in fact it lasted nearly all weekend) and for once we didn't argue ... yer know why? BECAUSE WE WERE BOTH SOBER! Now dont get me wrong she doesn't have problems with addiction but she can get a bit moody when drunk and that can be bad. She has now stopped drinking as well and that means alot. We have been talking about going for walks and going for meals etc etc. Something that wouldn't have been an option before but with me being clean and having money it is. You see she works and i dont (i'm a musician) so she has paid for alot the four years we have been together. I had much worse addiction problems before i met her but i had never kicked my demons entirely and they crept up again at many points through the relationship. I used to be a heroin and amphetamine addict but always smoked dope too. I kicked the first two by the time i was about 20 (i am now 25) but carried on with dope as i thought it wasn't a problem but lo and behold it got worse and worse. I took ecstacy because it 'wasn't addictive' i took dope because it 'wasn't addictive' and i drank because i could handle that. OH NO NO NO i couldn't. These drugs however recreational took me to many dark places and set off some weird self harming when high. When on ecstacy i used to get cigarettes and burn my arms but not little burns but welts all down my arms. I dont know i got a buzz because when i was high it didn't hurt half as much. But then when i was just a bit drunk i started doing it and it became a problem. I haven't done it for a while now and i feel it was just the drugs bringing it out. I am now four days sober after nearly fifteen years of drug abuse and i have done that before but once and for all this sh~t is going to be gone forever and then it will be positive music and gigs where i dont need to be hammered to perform. Walks in the countryside and nice food. I love food and love cooking and i love walking and the more i think i love many things but never got round to them. This time i will definitley. Anyway i am really rambling on but i've never wrote this out before.
Alex

As I'm currently dealing with #1 daughter's addiction, my #2 daughter is now making me worried. She's had her problems with drug abuse several years ago, and has since sworn repeatedly that she is over it. I know that she does go out drinking with her friends, but last night, when I called her (she lives in another state) she had only been home from work about 30 minutes, yet she sounded wasted. That is the first time I've heard her sound like that in many years. She said she was tired and got off the phone quickly.

So, in my head, I am going nuts. I'm wondering what that was. Was I hearing someting in her that wasn't really there? Was it just tiredness (who slurs when they're tired? not me...), or was she drunk after only 30 minutes of being home? I am consumed with worry for her, I am consumed with worry for daughter #1 who's addicted and just starting treatment. I am just consumed with worry, period.

I am at work today and barely functioning. I don't know whether to call daughter #2 and ask her what was wrong with her last night, or just let it go, or what. I don't trust that she'd tell me the truth anyway.

Boy, sometimes I wish I could just catch a one-way ticket out of here (OK more often than sometimes).

Thanks for listening.

Hello, as you see on my user name it all started in 1997 well a few years before that but 1997 was the year that really began to hit my family hard. You see I don't abuse drugs but my brother does, I have been dealing with this for years and years and I have no outlet no one to speak to nothing. I am just tired of the problems he brings home, what he makes my family go through everyday without a care in the world. I've given him money my own hard earned money to help his habit, I've never cried once about it not even when he stole stuff from my own room clothes, games anything (when I was younger). I didn't cry when I tried to commit suicide and ended up in the hospital at a young age why I don't know, there has been tons of instances where I should cry but it's like I am a soldier who has seen it all stone face thousand yard stare. I am going blank at just how pissed off I am its 200 in the morning and I have work in 4 hours and I am here typing on a forum I just joined asking for help I just don't know what to do anymore. I hope someone can give me support tell me what I should do even though I am not the one abusing drugs. I told him just go to bed don't go out it's 2 in the morning, you cant wait a few hours, no, i dunno. I am just typing here as things come to mind. Well I am off now please someone give me some advice I don't know where else to turn anymore....

-J:c002: