Drug Rehab Options Blog

Hey, I wrote about this in the HIV thread and figured I should just start another one.

My first issue is this: I got off heroin about 4 weeks ago now (!!!!!) and I was supposed to be on subs just to control the withdrawal and I was supposed to taper off within a couple weeks of starting them. Then I just didn't do it cause I "didn't want to have any withdrawal over the holidays" and now I've been on 8 mg a day for a few weeks and only have about 15 pills left. I am scared to get off them entirely because I don't entirely trust myself to not do dope, though I don't think it's necessarily think it's healthy to be using subs as a crutch like that. I've definitely heard not to stay on subs for 6 months or whatever, but I'm really scared that I'm going to relapse. I haven't had bad cravings for heroin but there's been a few times I think if I knew where to get it in Atlanta I might have but I always think "well I'm on subs, it would be pointless", so I don't. What are your thoughts on that?

Also, I have been drinking, smoking a little weed, and taken a little valium here, nothing excessively, but obviously it's not a good pattern. Do you think moving to Asheville where I don't know anyone and being a full time student in a couple weeks is a stupid idea? My family and I just don't know what to do because I'm supposed to be living in an apartment there and they think I should be in sober living, which I refuse to do again even though I really do want to be sober. My other options are staying in Atlanta with them and working or something but I'm already 24 and only have 57 credits and I just feel so behind. I know I haven't been sober the last few months but I really have been in sober living for about a year and a half of my life and I really can't do it anymore. I am very conflicted and I have to make up my mind within a couple days about where I'll be living and everything. What do you guys think?

Where to begin. I've been writing posts and then just deleting them. You know when things have been so bad; but not out of control bad. I do not have real reason to kick him out bad; but things have an under lying evil, bad. Maybe I should hit the delete button.

My AH keeps talking about getting a puppy. I of course said we are not getting one; for all the usual (too much work and I'm the only one who would be around to do it) reasons. It's kind of gone back and forth; but I've been told that no matter what he's bringing home a puppy sometime after Christmas. He's never even home to take care of anything living. When I said I wasn't taking care of it. I was threatened with divorce told I would have to live on welfare. Told what a rotten wife I am. Threatened how he would make sure to do me out of money from the sale of our house. On and on it went. Kind of like torture. He ended our "talk" with that "we" where going to work on our relationship. That's all crap. Working on it means me just shutting up and doing what he wants.

I hardly had time to wonder about hiring a private investigator when two days later I had surgery. He chased my children out of the room while I was under and when I woke up there he was. He put on quite the loving husband show. Thank God for my 22 year old daughter living with me or for the past 3 days I would be trapped in my room.

Today he just told me he wanted to know how long before I could decorate the Christmas tree. I have two holes in my stomach I'm glad he has such compassion! I'm sure if I'm not well by Saturday there will be an issue if I can't make it to his work Christmas party.

Anyway, Thanks for letting me complain... But I really need extra prayers. I need to find a place to rent so I can get out of here. My daughter has been waiting for full-time at her hospital or part-time at another hospital (she's going to help with rent when we leave)...I need a place that accepts pets...I also need prayer for safety...he keeps making me feel that some how he's dangerous even though he's never "really" hurt me.

Thanks all... Oh Don't worry I'm not telling him that I'm leaving! Until after...And no forwarding address...

I just moved back to the East Coast today from California and I'm staying in the house I grew up in with my parents and brother for a month before I go to school in NC full time. I've been feeling better on the subutex, emotions somewhat in check because I upped my dosage a bit, but the second I stepped in my house, there is just so much negative energy... within minutes, my parents and I ended up fighting and we all ended up in tears. We talked it out but those issues are so deep and so raw, it's just painful being here. For years, I "lived" here but never really stayed here, I mostly lived at friend's houses. Now things are so different, I'm 24, I'm supposed to be an adult and wake up at normal times and act like a normal person and as easy as that is for the majority of the population, I just got done shooting heroin between my toes about a week ago. I feel very strange and dissociated right now. I don't know how to deal with being here besides using; it's what I've done since I was 15. The majority of my old friends are dead or live elsewhere or don't speak to me anymore because I've become so weird and detached and in my own world, or simply because they're clean and I haven't been.

Also, philosophically, I don't think anybody "knows who they are," but I feel like I REALLY don't know who I am, just in basic ways... as if drugs have made me so detached from myself that I don't even know what my real personality is anymore, so in social situations I'm 500 different people and nobody can get close to me anymore. I used to have so many friends and gradually they've just all slipped away from me. I'm really feeling "the void" right now and the loneliness, feeling like you don't belong in your own family, like you're from another species. That's the worst of all of this and my heart literally aches from it. I feel like that at AA meetings too and around other addicts. A lot of people say they felt so strange around "normies," then came to AA and voila! they found people who can relate. I still feel so lonely and I gave AA such a chance, 10 months of actually "working a program," sponsor, steps, everything. At this point, the future just looks very bleak and very hopeless, I'm continually declining and it's very obvious. I don't know what responses I'm looking for, I guess just anyone that can relate.

Moving across the country right after kicking a huge dope habit is REALLY hard, and I guess I should cut myself some slack...

Sorry I haven't been on for awhile and missed wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving but my 92 year old mom isn't doing too well. She's been in and out of the hospital twice in the last 4 weeks and is gettting weaker and like she says "I'm just tired, it's been fun but I'm really tired." She wants to come home for a little while, at least long enough to find her two kitty cats a good home, and then we'll see.

On another note, I was sitting with her today talking about AD and drugs and she had quite an opinion about the whole thing. I was mentioning how many drugs are out there and the three C's and how to stop drug use and so on when she said in her opinion (which is the only one that counts if you knew her) the widespread use of drugs today is more or less our fault. Only in the way that society has accepted them, with movie stars, athletes and so on, it's almost a given to be a drug user. It wouldn't have been accepted in her day and age. She said most of the drugs on the market today have been there forever. How they looked at a drug user back then was totally different and drugs were just plain unacceptable. Families put them out and didn't spend fortunes on rehab. Pft - you were gone. The whole family turned their back on you. Now we make them the center of our attention.

Kids didn't live with their families forever. Eighteen and you were out unless you worked full time and contributed your paycheck to the whole family. She told me I babied my kids way too much, gave them way, way too much and that it's a shame we think we have to keep giving and giving to someone who should have been an adult and on their own years and years earlier. In her words, we coddle way too much today. Drugs will be here foever, how we accept it has just got to change. Guess she wasn't too tired for all that.

What's your take on that.

Oh, and Happy Belated Thanksgiving.

Hi all,
I believe most of you know that I am a nurse. When AH moved back here 6 months ago we put the house on the market because I wanted to move back to Buffalo. Not surprisingly it didn't sell. With the severe decline in the market and all. So, I took it off the market because I got this job only working weekends with full time pay and benefits. So, I find myself alone here again. I prayed for Gods guidance all last night.
So, today I contacted a different real estate agent and he will be coming by this coming Tuesday. My plan is to put the house on the market and then find a travel nursing job in Buffalo, leaving the house vacant but with all of my belongings here. I set the wheels in motion to apply for my NYS RN liscense and have contacted a travel nursing agency.
I can stay with family instead of the agency putting me up and actually make more by not staying in their housing.
I'm hoping I can do this all by Feb-March. I have some little repairs to do on the house and the agent told me to hold off until he assessed what should be done vs. what is not necessary. I'm excited and stressed at the same time. I KNOW that the best thing for me is to be closer to my family. It will also mean being in the same state as AH, which makes me nervous given the fact that I still love him. So, what do you all think??

he is gone.

he abused me very specifically physically four times. i took out one incident report after the second time and after the fourth time i had him arrested. he had me arrested also. said i hit him in the head with with a plate, which i did not do. there was no plate within reach.

my charge is a felony, his is a misdeamor. he bloodied my nose. they say he showed evidence of a lump, but several weeks ago he slammed into a stop sign on his bike and there you go. my nose is still sore. he may be dead. or with another woman. i hear he has a new female drinking buddy.

so we were both arrested. i spent the night in jail. not so bad for a female as there are fewer females in jail than males. i had a quiet night of sleep then he offered to drop the charges and i refused. now we go to court dec. 15. so now we have a restraining order, no contact within one hundred yards of one another. i have changed the locks. he is unemployed. the cops brought him back to our apartment to get his stuff but all he took was two coats. i am afraid he took a swim in the ocean and is gone foreever. he is disturbed mentally, screaming at me, his mother, his sister, and busted his friends tv. he is a mess. i work full time and realized he was drinking a lot but not at eight a.m............wow.

my leasing agent consulted with her attorney and now that there is a restraining order the locks can be changed legally even though he is on the lease. so i am safe. he must be distraught, and gone..........

i am feeling forlorn at times, worried sick because he is in bad health and i am strong and healty with a good job. the DV police are checking on me frequently. i welcome their presence.

what worries me is that he lost his cell phone. i have the pass word to check his messages. i have not listened to them, but i have been able to determine that he is not checking. which makes me think he took a swim in the ocean. he is in pain from scoliosis and collapsed lungs and ready to give up. what can i do? nothing. he should at least be checking his mgs. remotely, it is easy to do.

please pray for him, more than me. he has lost so much more than me in this life. i have money, a job, and shelter. he doesn't even have a change of underwear. it's cold outside and he had a fourteen inch steel rod in his back from the scoliosis, which torments him with chills and pain. at least he says. i still have my warm bed and my loving cat, food in the fridge, electricity, heat and cash. i hope he is with this other woman, without jealousy or anger, as long as he is alive and safe and warm. after a while she will get the same abuse as i did, but for the time being, perhaps he is safe.

i wish you all the best, i know you all are struggling too, and together we can support one another.

kind regards,

shannon

Hi there,

My sister is an alcoholic and she has two boys, 12 and 9 years old, who have been raised, 'unofficially', by my parents for the last 6 years.

My sister, who divorced about 3 years ago, recently moved away from our home town to set up home with the love of her life, a guy she has known since she was 14, and she took the boys with her.

The whole family knew this would be a make or break situation for her and although we all hoped it would work out, deep down we knew things would probably end up falling apart at some point. Well, things have reached 'that point' and her soul mate is now calling my parents saying that he can't cope with her anymore. She is still in COMPLETE denial, and I know for a fact that she will blame the relationship break-up on him, because he's a 'neat-freak' and that's what will have caused the problems.

Anyway, the reason I need your help is because I know it will soon reach the point where she will have to leave him and take the boys with her. Problem is, she has nowhere to go as she has rented out her house and she could never stand to live with my parents.

Having cared for my newphews for more than six years, dealing with the emotional stresses of my sister's illness, working full-time and caring for my Nan who has had several strokes, my Mum nearly had a nervous breakdown.

So when things fall to pieces for my sister in the near future, what is going to happen to those boys? If they go back to my Mums, I think she'll fall to pieces, if they go they go with their Dad, my family believes they will be in a bad situation as he too has drinking problems and is currently in a pretty abusive relationship.

I think I should ask my husband if we can take the boys in to our family for a year, until my parents have had time to rest, recover their strength, and who knows, perhaps by then my sister will be in a better place; my parents plan to do an intervention soon. I know this is a big undertaking, and that there will be challenging time, but I have a strong family, great kids and I think we can do a good job.

Do you think it would do the boys good to have a year with their Auntie, Uncle and cousins, who would love them as their own and give them a good home? Or would it do them more harm than good, to go somewhere else for only a year before returning to my mum and dads? Should they be with their father, even if he does drink and fight all the time with his partner?

Your views would really help me as I'm confused about what is the best thing to do here.

Lost Sister

firstly, thank you to you all for keeping me in your thoughts and prayers yesterday as I faced going to court for custody of my almost 2 year old.

The judge signed our agreement, without even seeing us!! As a matter of fact, we didn't even have to go in front of her and I never even laid my eyes on her. I now have joint legal and joint physical custody of my daughter, on a temporary basis. Pretrial was rescheduled to January 27, 2009. A review will take place on that day as well. I hope my baby will be coming home full time around then.

But alas, the day was not without some drama. My attorney had subpeona's a bunch of records, from 2 doctors and our day care provider. Well my ex made sure that my DCF worker called the doctors to inform them that I didn't have any custody rights to my daughter, therefor I have no rights to the records!! I need all these records to show a pattern of medical neglect on his part since he's had custody of my baby for the past 4 months. Prior to this date, my daughter had never been medically neglected and no doctor's had any concerns with her, when I was taking care of all her medical needs. Since then, she has missed numerous appointments, was late on her shots, was sent to school so sick that she ended up having to be picked up and ultimately rushed to a major inner city hospital (while I was in the treatment center). My daughter was also born with a clubfoot. Since she was born, she has gone through a surgery, a number of castings, full time bracing, and then ultimately, the brace on only at night. My ex admitted to my DCF worker that he was not using the brace on her when I expressed a deep concern that her foot was obviously turning back in! None of this was going on when I had custody of her!!

It just blows my mind sometimes, that he would go to that length to try to make sure that these records are witheld from me as long as possible, because he knows he was wrong in his care for her. UGH. I do now have rights to her records, and we will have to resupeona that, but again, costing me more money!!

I'm trying not to let him and his actions rent so much space in my head. I needed to get it off of my chest. Another note for my God Box it seems!!

Anyway, thanks guys
Achanceonu

I do not care about going to Rehab. I live in the OC and I found both non 12-step and 12-step programs. What I want is work-release like they do in prison. I want to be rehab for extended period of time and work full-time at my job. Since I am a work-release,I will take the longer Rehab stint but that will keep me even more sober. I want to live in residential treatment program but still work 8-5 at my job and if it takes more time or money, I do not care.

I think work-release with Residential treatment is a wonderful treatment opition and few people have the balls to force the treatment center to do it but I do. That forces the addict to deal with the real world but still live in a treatment environment for 30-60 days.


And that is the real solution to long-term sobriety from middle-class to upper-class addicts. Work-release with recovery treatment at night in a residential is the solution. That is the model that i want to use.:wtf2

Hello everyone. I have been reading these forums off and on for a number of years now, in my struggle to achieve some sort of recovery. I am a chronic relapser, but I feel as if I have finally "got" it.

In the end, I gave away almost everything good in my life. My children, my family, my soulmate, and my friends. Giving my children away (my family and my ex took them from me) was my absolute rock bottom, God willing. The day after the courts awarded temp emergency custody of my children to others, I admitted myself into a 5 day detox program. Knowing that the old "spin dry" hadn't done much for me in the past, I then admitted myself into a 28 day inpatient woman's treatment program and after graduation from that, I did outpatient aftercare M-F 9-3:30 for 8 weeks. I have just graduated.

I am celebrating 100 days of sobriety today. During this most recent journey, I was able to finally forgive my HP (took my mom away while I was pregnant 2 years ago) and pray to him and ask for help. So far, it seems to be working, along with going to AA and rebuiding my network of sober friends. People, places and things have changed completely in my life as well. I am enjoying sobriety.

My only problem is that I find that I don't have the patience I need to sit and wait for more gifts to be received. Every day some gift in some form is given to me, even if it is only 1 more day sober. My oldest daughter is home with me finally as of this week. My family is beginning to trust me again. I got a new job. My car was not repoed. I was given the money to hire an attorney in the custody fight with my ex over my baby. I know more gifts will be received with hard work and time, but I just am getting very anxious because I want my life back. I want my baby back, as well as my soulmate, and the depression of not having them back in my life full time is very overwhelming. I know 100 days sober isn't all that much time, but I am getting very impatient.

Any words of wisdom or advice?

:praying