Intensive

I compose posts in my head throughout the hectic craziness of my week...and here I am, home alone, 1/2 a day into a few days off - and I can't think of anything to write.

Wait - that's not true. I can think of plenty of things - just not anything I have the energy to write at the moment.

I don't want this to be an 'addiction recovery' blog....so much of what surrounds us these days revolves around H. and his treatment and his 'recovery'. He's coming home in just a week - when I mentioned this to a co-worker/friend today, he startled - said 'already'? And we 'did the math' together and yes, in fact, it has been 30 days a week from this Saturday and he is leaving the inpatient facility and coming home.

The intensive out patient (IOP for short) begins the following Tuesday - Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings from 5PM - 8PM. I'm not sure how exactly we're going to wedge that in - with 1.5 hours travel each way on top of the time we're there - but we're going to. The other options are further east of us - about the same # of miles just the opposite direction. And at least if we stay in Oakland, J. will only be about 30 minutes away via BART. If we try any other program out this way, he'll be taking 1.75 hours to get here (home) and then another hour to get to the meetings...so that truly won't work. Unless he could go part time for awhile - and he can't. Nor can I.

I'll be spending time on the phone tomorrow calling around a couple other possibilities - but they don't look promising. Adolescent treatment is very different from adult treatment - and that makes finding a comparable program (comparable to what he's had in his 30 day in patient) a challenge.

Recovery is a family deal. I get that. I'm not sure I really understood that until we were in the thick of it this past month - but now, I do. It's for ALL of us - not just H. And it is as emotionally draining and exhausting as I ever imagined - maybe more so, even.

It's going 'well'. But 30 days is very, very short - and we are reminded of that on a regular basis. H. is engaged and learning and wants to stay clean. I believe that. I'm just not convinced he will be able to - and his imminent return to our home is really bringing that home for me tonight...sitting here in the house alone. We are in for a very long haul with him - and I'm sort of hoping I'm 'up' for it.

I tend to be a very black and white person in many ways. I see gray very well - I know gray exists. I spend a good portion of my life discerning levels of gray and deciding what shade is appropriate and acceptable vs. not. I coach people all day on acceptable levels of gray vs. not gray. So it's not that I can't see gray - I can. But with H., I see no gray. He will stay clean or he won't. And if he doesn't/won't, then we'll have to really decide what other options we have - 'cuz I know myself. I'm not going to be on this journey with him forever. It's not that I don't want him to be successful and won't do everything I can to help him be successful. We're signing on to adjust our work and life schedules to accommodate driving 55 miles each way three times a week to help and support him. And I'll do that - for as long as it helps. But if he uses again - if he makes the choice to throw out all he's learned; to forget how desperately he wanted to quit (he wanted to go to rehab - he was not forced - he wants to be there); to choose getting high with friends vs. sticking with the program he's been immersed in for 30 days and will be immersed in weekly - then I know myself. My 'black and white' gene will kick in full force - and I'm not sure what I will be able to 'handle'.

There are parents we've met who's children are at the treatment center H. is at because their child was in trouble and they told the court system they couldn't control him anymore - so the child was placed in a group home and is living at the facility undergoing drug counseling. There are parents who's kids are there as a condition of probation - or as their 'sentence' for various issues with the law. We aren't there yet - and I'm grateful we aren't. But it really has me struggling with 'what if'. What if my black and white kicks in - what are we going to do with him?

I have missed him the past few weeks - but truthfully, our home has been peaceful. The stress of dealing with an addict every day is gone. No constant bargaining, negotiating, arguing. No constant vigilance about every little thing. No walking on eggshells 'cuz you're too tired to want to deal with him and don't want to risk something flaring up. Our eagerness to accept and believe what he says is gone - there is no trust. There won't be trust for a very, very long time. He knows that. Still, he pushes. It's his nature. It's the nature of an addict.

In our group family counseling session last night (multiple families with the parents and kids attending together), the kids (addicts) want their parents to trust them again. The parents want their kids to stop using. It's all pretty simple. They want trust - we want them to not use. And that dynamic plays out over and over and over. They attempt to negotiate the 'terms of their release'. We (especially the moms 'cuz it's just in our blood) want to protect them and keep them close and limit their freedom so they won't use. But the truth is: they will use if they choose to use. We can't keep them locked up. We can't keep them in a bubble. And their opportunity to find their 'medicine' - or find something that will become their 'new' medicine - is far greater than our abilities as parents to keep them from finding it. Or keep them from using. It's really up to them -

The same friend who 'startled' at the realization that the month of H.'s in patient stay is almost over also startled to my comment 'we can't control him. He will choose to use or not use - and there's not much we can do about that. He has to decide'. He said 'I can't fathom that - and then, I realize that my son is 5 years old and I DO control virtually every part of his life - so I can't imagine how it will be to not do that'. I said 'he will grow up. He will realize that you didn't hang the moon and the stars and he'll realize he is his own person. He has free will. And there's not much you can do about the choices he makes when he's out there living his life on his own. '

I told my cousin S. on Facebook chat the other day 'I'm not going to be on this treadmill we've been on, running along happily doing the best we can for him and for us - and he walks by and pulls the plug out of the wall randomly so we go skidding across the floor - over and over and over." She typed back 'LOL - at the analogy, not the situation'. That analogy is what our lives have been for the past year. We're on the treadmill - sometimes at a nice, even, steady pace. Sometimes jogging a bit. Other times running as fast as we can, as far as we can - just to keep up. And he nonchalantly comes by and yanks the plug out of the wall - no warning. No 'hey, I'm about to disconnect so hang on'. Just yanks the plug - and like some cartoon, we go flying across the room, skidding on the floor, watching the bruises show up as soon as we hit the hard surface. The bruises stay for a really long time - and they take forever to disappear. As bruises do....

That's what it's been like for us the last year.

And I know myself. There's only so much time I can handle the treadmill and the skidding across the room before my self-protection mode kicks in. And I will boot him the heck off my treadmill and out of the room and out of this house - quickly, with finality. Always loving him. But not welcoming his addict self back into my life to keep me running at a break-neck speed. Not happening.

I bruise too easily.....

And that's what scares me the most about this situation - I bruise easily. I don't heal quickly. And he is an addict - a recovering addict, we hope. But an addict - and bruising the people around him comes easily to someone craving their next fix.

I don't want to lose him....