Drug Rehab Options Blog

This is my first visit to this site. Ok here is my story. I have known the father of my 21 year old daughter since we both were 15 years old. He has had a heroin addiction for over 20 years. He and I rekindled our relationship 3 yrs. ago after he promised me he was no longer using or selling drugs. Needless to say to my dismay and surprse that was a LIE. Why I didnt run for the hills I dont know. I guess I thought I could help him, but that has proven to be too big of a task for me. Since that wonderful declaration he made to me he has stolen a lot of money from me and our daughter. In the summer of 2007 he took off to rehab for 45 days. He has declared he is and has been clean for a year. I am having a real hard time believing him and I dont know what to do. I don't feel he has nor is he being totally honest with me. He has been working on his job since June of 08 and I have NEVER seen a paystub. I know he works because I drive him there, but every Friday he comes home with between $20-60, and some lame excuse as to why he doesn't have more. Two weeks in a row he said his employer made all the occupants of the truck he was riding in (not driving) pay for a ticket. Then a few months ago it was they had to pay for uniforms (I haven'[t seen the uniforms yet). It is always a reason he has so little to contribute to the household. Now, his hours have been cut at work and he hasn't worked since 12/9/08 and all he can manage to do is sleep or jump up and run out the door with one of the neighbors. And for reasons that are so unclear to me he doesnt get my anger and disgust. I am getting so fed up with him. I am at the point where I don't like him if that makes since. If it were not for the fact that he has no where to go I would throw him out. I love him and I am still in love with him, but I struggle daily to maintain that level of love. He is very lazy and doesn't appear to be concerned about being a provider for himself or the household. He wants to get married, but I am NOT going to marry him until I KNOW he is truly clean. I so desparately want to trust him but his words and actions dont add up. I am so sorry to be long, but I needed to sound off. I feel trapped in his mess while my dreams, wants, and desires are put on hold. Is there anyway I could get him tested for drug use? His mother told me I could get something from a drugstore, but I am not sure how true that is. Am I being too watchful and critical? Am I being to overbearing? He says I have control issues and dont want him to have friends, but my issue is I am very cautious of me and his choice of friends (by appearance only) look just as shady as he does. I want to trust him, but I see don't see where he deserves such trust nor can I see where to begin to mend my broken heart to trust him again.

I'm tired of feeling tense and guarded in my own home. I've been married for 22 years and my spouse has always been involved with some sort of substance abuse. Early on, it was drugs (not completely sure he's 100 percent clean), but now he's substance of choice is alcohol. There has always been a mix of both; however, the alcohol has seem to increase though the years. His father was an alcoholic and he acts like its his right of passage. Unfortunately my household has experiences some very tense and verbally abusive moments due to his drinking. I've always pushed for him to get help, but my time for healing is long overdue. This is just a brief introduction to what I hope will be the door I need to open for some much needed healing to move forward with my life.

Regards,

mtr

I feel like I've come a really long way in understanding my AH and the disease. After years of running my household alone, raising our children alone, making excuses and basically being the poster child for codependency, I finally get it. I live alone, study everyday, this forum and anything I can read about this. I learned to detach and am really working on my self.
The heartbreaking thing for me is watching my full grown daughters struggle with this. They really didn't see alot of what I saw threw the years. I covered up his A bull*&t as much as I could, I never fought with him about it in front of them. They knew too but choose to turn their heads. Now, they see it. They feel it. He disappoints them alot, calls them when totally wasted and quaks, quaks, quaks!!!!!!!!! They then call me, crying and so upset.
Christmas was a nightmare for them because the dream of our family growing old together is gone.
When I first left, they supported me but sometimes I could feel their anger too. Like, why can't you fix this mom? But on the other hand, they were proud of me for finally trying to find peace.
They , like myself thought he would seek recovery when I left. That it would be his bottom. We were wrong. He is the excuse king and the biggest quaker I know. We have almost no contact and when we are together for family reasons, he is one angry guy. If looks could kill.............
Anyways, he is off work this week and promised to spend time with our youngest girl who just had her own baby a month ago. He has broken every"date" they set with some sorry excuse and last night, he called her so wasted that she couldn't believe it. He scared her by telling her he was trying to fix the pellet stove...she thought he might burn the house down... and was going to drive 25 miles in super thick fog to make sure he was ok.
..........Today, she is going to stop over there and try to talk to him again about rehab etc. I know she is beating her head against a brick wall and it breaks my heart to see her and her older sister go threw this.
I know, I can't help except to keep on about alanon, reading some melody beatty.etc. I would love to call him and get my anger out! I know it won't help and probably could make things worse.
I think my no contact and detachment has been misconstrewd as being selfish and down right mean to some but I don't care. I guess I was the only one who really cared for so long that now, I'm over it and am thinking of me. If he does something stupid and hurts himself either on purpose or accidentlly, I think my girls could blame me. They say they wouldn't but who knows. They are scared and feel helpless.
What can I do?? Anything?? This breaks my heart worse than all the stuff I have indured in 28 years.

Hoping for a little of this today.

I am one of seven siblings. Of those seven:
--Two have died from their addictions
--One is mentally ill
--One is in early recovery
--One is not in recovery yet
--One is reasonably normal, though he still lives with his mom at 40
...and me.

Of the two that died, one had a daughter who is now in her thirties. She is bright, beautiful, funny. And she hates holidays with everything she's got. She now has a good husband (after being involved with several addicts herself), a couple of wonderful children, and another on the way. She's a wonderful, engaging mom and a supportive friend. But when holidays roll around, she goes into a depressive state that lasts for days, sometimes weeks. Her suffering is deep, deep.

Her mom committed suicide more than twenty years ago. But in the years before that, some terrible things happened in their household, typical of the stuff you see on F&F of Substance Abusers.

She misses her mom. She hates her mom. She worships her mom, who was the best mom ever. She loves her mom. She does not grieve or deal with her feelings; she just goes in circles, round and round. She refuses to seek counseling or any sort of support group.

I can't control her choices. I can only tell her what has worked for me. I can tell her what I know & don't know. I can make strong suggestions that she neither demonize nor canonize my sister, but simply see her as a very flawed individual who happened to love us very much. I can whip out all of my recovery tools and go through them one by one with her.

But my niece will not pick those tools up with her own hands. She listens, she says she feels better. And the next time around, she is just as sick and sad as before.

I know I can't force her to get help.
I know I can't heal her wounds.
I know I'm powerless to stop this from happening.

But sometimes I just want to sit in my chair, wrap my arms around my chest, and cry for her.

No one should have to suffer like that. No one.

Thanks for listening to this rant. I'm just trying to get balanced again by talking it out...with people who "get it."

Hi everyone. I have been reading all the posts all morning and I just have to get this off my chest. I am at work today, and as you can see I am NOT working. I can't concentrate, cannot focus and my head is in a really bad place.

My daughter had 8 months clean until a couple of weeks ago, and now she is using again. In the months that she has been clean, she has worked a program, had weekly counseling, was also in a Suboxone program. She also kept a job had $500-600 saved in bank and was doing well. She is 24 and has had some major medical issues up until the last couple of years. Some of the medications that she has taken has wreaked havoc on her bones and teeth. Everything has been resolved except her teeth, which all have to be pulled and some surgery on her jaw bones. That is what happened. She went and had a surgery in which she was given Percosets (pain meds is her doc). Then when she called her Sub Dr. she was told that she could not come back until all dental work was finished, which may take until February! Her counseling told her to come back when dental work was done also. I feel like they threw her to the wolves. She does not have to take pain meds all thru this time and she tried to tell them that. No body would listen. Now with that said, she has continued to take the meds because, well because she is a drug addict. And her life is falling apart and so is mine. She and my 2 grandchildren live with me and my husband, they are 2 and 5 and very CUTE! Her bank account is overdrawn, it's 2 weeks until X-mas and she has bought no presents for kids, she doesn't sleep. When I got up at 6:00 this morning she wasn't there, although I guess it was good that she went and talked with her sponser, who works night shift at the same restaurant that she works at. But I see the patterns and chaos beginning all again and I just don't think I can go thru this again. It wouldn't be so bad if she didn't live in the same household with me but I don't think I could ask her to leave just yet with it being Christmas and everything. I ask my 5 year old grandson the other night what he would think about him and Mommy and brother being able to get their own apartment soon. His response was I am not going anywhere until I grow up. I want to live with you and Papaw. Now what do I do with that? I know I am rambling but I have all these thoughts in my head and don't know what to do with them. I keep praying for my HP to show me the way. But if he's showing me I can't see it, or I'm not listening hard enough. Thanks for listening to me. Maybe writing this down I can get back to work and focus. But I don't think that is going to happen today.

I just want you all to know that I appreciate you and your posts, I read them alot. Your attitudes and knowledge and caring about the other people on this forum really touches my heart.

Hope you all have a good day.
Gotahavfaith

You are reading the daily devotion from Notreligion.


May 23, 2007
Key Passage: Acts 16:16-40
Topic: Salvation; Faith/Trust
Then he brought them out and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" And they said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household" (Acts 16:30-31, ESV).

There are a lot of sounds you'd expect to hear in prison in the middle of the night, and none of them are good. So you can imagine how surprised the inmates and guards of the Philippian jail were the night Paul and Silas showed up. Instead of moaning and groaning, cursing or wailing; these men sang!

Maybe the other prisoners deserved to be there, maybe not. In any event, life probably wasn't fun anymore. They may have been bound like Paul and Silas, unable to move. Deep in the "inner prison," they were shut away from any light. Perhaps they had reached a point of despair.

But the songs and prayers of Paul and Silas must have brought renewed hope. For the first time in a long time these men thought of freedom and the good things in life. They wanted to be saved.

Here we see a physical example of a spiritual process--being saved.

Before we meet Christ, we're all bound in chains, unable to experience life the way it's meant to be.

But just as the prisoners set free when the jail in Philippi was shaken by an earthquake that night, so Jesus is waiting to set your heart free.

If the jailor's question is yours, "What must I do to be saved?" the answer is still the same.

"Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved" (Acts 16:31, ESV).


© 2008 NotReligion |

You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go

Detachment

One day, my son brought a gerbil home to live with us. We put it in a cage. Some time later, the gerbil escaped. For the next six months, the animal ran frightened and wild through the house. So did we - chasing it.

"There it is. Get it!" we'd scream, each time someone spotted the gerbil. I, or my son, would throw down whatever we were working on, race across the house, and lunge at the animal hoping to catch it.

I worried about it, even when we didn't see it. "This isn't right," I'd think. "I can't have a gerbil running loose in the house. We've got to catch it. We've got to do something."

A small animal, the size of a mouse had the entire household in a tizzy.

One day, while sitting in the living room, I watched the animal scurry across the hallway. In frenzy, I started to lunge at it, as I usually did, then I stopped myself.

No, I said, I'm all done. If that animal wants to live in the nooks and crannies of this house, I'm going to let it. I'm done worrying about it. I'm done chasing it. It's an irregular circumstance, but that's just the way it's going to have to be.

I let the gerbil run past without reacting. I felt slightly uncomfortable with my new reaction - not reacting - but I stuck to it anyway.

I got more comfortable with my new reaction - not reacting. Before long, I became downright peaceful with the situation. I had stopped fighting the gerbil. One afternoon, only weeks after I started practicing my new attitude, the gerbil ran by me, as it had so many times, and I barely glanced at it. The animal stopped in its tracks, turned around, and looked at me. I started to lunge at it. It started to run away. I relaxed.

"Fine," I said. "Do what you want." And I meant it.

One hour later, the gerbil came and stood by me, and waited. I gently picked it up and placed it in its cage, where it has lived happily ever since. The moral of the story? Don't lunge at the gerbil. He's already frightened, and chasing him just scares him more and makes us crazy.

Detachment works.

Today, I will be comfortable with my new reaction - not reacting. I will feel at peace.

From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.

As someone who grew up in an alcoholic household where money was always in short supply (though alcohol never was.....you do the math) I recently realized that I have some strange attitudes about money, and people who have it.

Money's something my parents always complained they didn't have enough of, and yet anyone who DID have enough was stuck-up, snotty, self-centered, etc.

I was raised to know that if I ever turned into one of THOSE people, I would be seen as an outsider. So I've spent much of my life with my own self-imposed glass ceiling, sabotaging myself whenever it looked like I was going to be able to live comfortably.

Am I alone in this? Is it the alcohol, the poverty mentality, or both? Anybody live through this and overcome it?

t.i.a.
GL

I can't help but to wonder did my ex-husband actually leave because of the crack addiction or because he is actually in love with someone else. I think about their relationship and wonder why was I not good enough. What does he see in her? I've seen her and God forgive me...she is nothing to write home about. Has he stopped using crack? Has he changed? Will he finally get his life together? Is he happier where he is?

The mind is very mysterious, it will have you wondering about things that are so uncessary and ridiculos. I actually have so many racing thoughts and questions in my mind pertaining to this Nut!

It's the things that he said when I found out what he was doing. When I caught him at the woman's house, when I rammed his car. He said so many awful things to deliberately hurt me. He was nasty and cruel..no feeling at all that I was hurt, upset and betrayed by him. He made me feel like it's because of me...that he left. For example, he said I let the kids run my life and I did not satisfy him sexually..however he had no problem with this two weeks before he left. He said he no longer loved me and he was in love with her. He complained about everything when he was home. He made everyone in the household miserable. I had my faults but they in no way surpassed the things that he was doing. I catered to his every need because I knew he had a problem, and hoped he would get help. I treated him like a king. Yes, I was a fool, because every woman he has had relationships with treated him like a king also. He admitted this himself.

It may sound crazy, but I try to cousel myself. I keep repeating in my mind...I know this man's history. I know he is an abuser of crack. I know he has had so many relationships with different woman taking care of him. This is how he lives and there is nothing I can do to change it. He just sucked me into his chaotic life, just to dump me because he no longer has use for me. So, Why do I keep pondering with this thought of whether he truly left because of the crack addiction or me? I don't know.