More drug problems, just one week after rehab

[pinevalley]

Nancy,

Synthetic urine? Is there really such a thing, and where do they buy this?

I went to the church where difficult child told me he was going to the AA meeting tonight, and I found out that there was no meeting there at all. So once again my son has lied to me. A friend of difficult child's picked him up tonight, so difficult child is out now and we have no idea where he is. I did tell him before he left tonight that if he is not at this meeting when I get there that he should not come home tonight. We have locked our doors and we are not going to let him in our house if he does try to come home. It is very cold here, so I"m sure that he will stay with a friend. I have no idea if he will come back home tomorrow, or if we should even let him back home whenever he decided to come home. He doesn't have any school on Friday, so he will want to hang out with his friends all day.

I'm sure you are right when you say that if nothing changes nothing will ever change with difficult child. I just feel like I have to help him in his recovery, and it is so hard to stand back and do nothing at all. He was clean for 30 days when he was in rehab, and he acted like he really wanted to stay clean. He was clear headed and it was so good to see him look so good. I just find it so hard to believe that in one short week he could reject everything that he learned in rehab.

By the way, I am reading the book Addict in the Family now.

Thanks to everyone for helping me sort this entire mess out.

 

[Signorina]

I am so sorry PV - must be a full moon. These things seem to come in bunches. {{{hugs}}}

 

[toughlovin]

I think it is also important to remember that when he got out of rehab he might have been sincere about wanting to stay clean... I think often they are sincere about wanting to make the changes but when they get back with their friends the temptation is so strong that they can't do it.

I mentioned somewhere that at times we found bottles of urine my son saved from when he was clean and then later used on a drug test... and one time he got urine from a friend. It is really pretty disgusting!!! So yes they find ways to pass drug tests... you really have to check the bathroom for hiding places, and then really pat them down... after awhile it starts to feel pointless to drug test them (at least as their parents). Look at his behavior that is what will tell you if he is using or not.

TL

 

[pinevalley]

Toughlovin, thanks for all your advice. You made a lot of sense about letting difficult child own his drug use. I am going to try to be more detached about who he is with, and about trying to give him advice all the time. (It will be hard to do, but I really will try!) The truth is that we can't keep him from hanging out with his druggie friends, and we can't monitor where he is going all the time. The bottom line is that we can't trust him, and we can't live with this constant lying all the time. We have made it clear to difficult child that we will not bail him out of jail again, and we will not help him if he gets arrested. If he keeps going this way it will probably be just a matter of time before he gets in trouble with the law. That might be the only thing that might be a real reality check for this very troubled teen.

I'm sure that I will have many sleepless nights for awhile...

 

[Nancy]

I didn't know what synthetic urine was either until I found the bottle in my difficult child' s purse. Her friend ordered it for her online.

He was sincere when he left rehab. Drugs and alcohol are very powerful. This disease is cunning, baffling and powerful. Thirty days in rehab is not enough to break their habit for good. My difficult child was in for 60 days and they wanted her to stay 90. After rehab most addicts go to sober houses to learn how to live sober now that they are sober.

Getting sober is just the first step. It takes a lot more to stay sober and that means giving up all your old friends. That's why it takes more time and being in a different environment.

He is doing all if the same things my difficult child did when she returned. An addict relapses an average of 7 times before recovery sticks. When I heard that I cried. I thought rehab was like an addictectomy. Boy was I wrong.

We did the same thing you did just last year about this time. It was January and a snowstorm and she didn't come home and we locked the doors and the next day when she tried to come home we called the police to make her leave. It was another snowstorm and she had to call a friend and wait outside for an hour for him to pick her up in the freezing cold. It was a horrible night and husband and I cried all night. I thought she would die. She didn't. It took a year but she is sober today. One day at a time.

Hugs,
Nancy

 

[pinevalley]

Well, difficult child came home late tonight, and my h insisted that we had to let him stay here, so he wouldn't freeze outside tonight. My h definitely wants to evict difficult child, but he doesn't want him to freeze outside. We have to give difficult child a 5 day notarized eviction notice, and then after the 5th day we go to court and file for a court date to formalize the eviction. We will give difficult child the notarized 5 day eviction notice next week. difficult child has a court date next Thursday for his felony burglary charge, and we want to wait until this court case is over next week and then serve difficult child the notice.

difficult child actually had the nerve to tell me that he went to the AA meeting tonight, but that he was at a different place from the church where I went looking for him. Of course he also "forgot" to bring a sign-in sheet home from the meeting. I am sure that he did not go to any AA meeting tonight, and I am going to call the IOP counselors tomorrow and tell them that difficult child missed the program and also did not attend any AA meeting.

I also took everyone's advice, and I did not scream and yell at him about his drug use and his choice of druggie friends. Both husband and I just told him that he lied to me about going to the AA meeting tonight, and he lies to us all the time. We told him that we don't want him to live in our house if we can't trust him, since he lies to us every day. I told difficult child that he is an adult now, and that we are going to start to treat him like an adult. We can't force him to stop using drugs, or hanging out with the wrong friends. But we told him that we CAN keep him out of our house if we don't trust him, because of his constant lying. When we mentioned the words eviction all of a sudden difficult child stated that "ok, he will stop lying to us now". Wow, like we are really going to believe that! What a joke!

Thank you to everyone who helped me to understand the serious problem that difficult child has, and that I can't fix it even though I keep trying and trying. You really made a lot of sense, and you helped me to get through this very difficult night. I am so amazed at the power of this website, and the very wise people who are willing to help other difficult child parents. You are the very best!

 

[Zardo]

My son is younger(16), so take my words for what they are. I have been faced with tough situations, but on the ultimate "you're out of here" question, my son is not old enough for us to have that choice. For what it's worth, you are doing the right thing by moving forward with the eviction. It is so clear form your stories that he is holding you and your husband hostage in your own home with his behavior. He is what one of our son's therapists called a "domestic terrorist". He is old enough for you to not have to accept that behavior in your home. You and your husband deserve to feel safe and at peace in your home. He has a choice to change his behavior and live with you according to the guidelines that are set in your home. If he chooses not to, he will have to go find his own way. I have also read many stories on this site and others that this "ultimate" move is what actually brought their difficult child to their bottom and aided in final recovery. You are good parents, be strong. He will find his way and when he does, you can support him.

 

[pinevalley]

Thanks for the words of encouragement, Zardo. I think that I read here that your son has been in recovery for several months now, right? It is so good that he is taking his recovery seriously, and not going back to that old lifestyle. My difficult child didn't begin to abuse weed until he was 18 (last summer), and by that time he was supposed to be an adult so now he has certain rights. It is so good to hear about a difficult child who is on the right path to recovery, even if my difficult child is not there yet.

 

[Zardo]

He is on the path to recovery, but it has been bumpy. He went away for 90 days in June and came back thinking he would just "stop for now" - as you all know, that doesn't work and he slipped after 3 weeks, just an isolated incident, but still a "slip". He then stepped up outpatient and added AA, seemed committed and then "slipped" again after 6 weeks, this time worse on Robitussin and ended up in the hospital. Again, an "isolated incident" but still a slip. He came home from that begging for help - he did a 6 week IOP program, 3 hours per day, 3 days per week. He is sober right now and attends aftercare, but I do worry that he doesn't take recovery seriously enough. He still has his old friends who he claims and I will admit,they all appear to be doing better, but I know they still smoke pot recreationally and I worry that having a peer group like that will eventually lead him back to it. We are committed that there will be no drugs in our home. If he slips again, we will step up treatment again. I will not back off. If he cannot committ, we will make another rule that WE can live with. I envision something like "OK, you won't listen to me and I told you there are no drugs in this home, so from now on, if I find drugs in this home, I will call the police to deal with it." I just feel so strongly that I cannot allow them in my home. We have been fortunate that when he slips, he always asks for help and seems committed. It's not easy. We think forward sometimes about when he is 18. If it is still going on at that time, I know we will ask him to leave our home. I cannot live with drugs in the house, period. My husband, daughter and I deserve peace as do you. At the same time, you must do what is right for you inside your soul, so you draw your line they way YOU need to draw it. Maybe that means evicting him, maybe not. The bottom line is YOU know what's right for you inside your soul, so follow your own path to YOUR recovery, his will hopefully come eventually.

 

[DammitJanet]

I have read this entire thread and I am wondering just how much this homeless girl is playing into things. Was she a huge part of things before he went away to rehab or is she someone he recently met? How bad is her drug use really? Is it just a really awful home life that has led a seemingly quite young girl to being homeless at this stage in her life so she is using pot from time to time? Or is she a junkie. In my mind there is a difference.

My youngest granddaughters mom was a 17 year old homeless girl that Cory drug home with him back in 07. Trust me when I say I really didnt want that to happen. She came from a rotten home life. She ran away from foster care and was living in a tent when Cory found her. Yeah she smoked pot but she was still trying to make it through HS while doing all this and Cory was doing his level best not to let her quit. Thats why he dragged her to my house and begged us to let her live here. Fast forward to now and they have been together all these years and between him and us, we have supported her and she has graduated from HS, is in community college and the two of them live together and now have the new baby. I dont think I would have wished all this had happened but it did.

 

[pinevalley]

Janet: I'm not really sure if this homeless girl is a junkie, but when she is with my difficult child the two of them like to get high together. She is in high school (same school as my difficult child), and she is on track to graduate this spring. I don't know much about her background, but her mother will have nothing to do with her now, so she is completely on her own. My difficult child has known this girl for over a year, but ever since she became homeless in September the two of them became very serious. For some reason my difficult child likes to be the one to save this girl's life, and his life started to spiral downhill last fall when he was crazy about this girl. He started staying out all night to keep her company on the streets, he started stealing to help her and then got arrested for shoplifting, and he started smoking weed every day and getting suspended from school.

My h and I are not ready to get personally involved with helping this homeless girl. We just feel like my difficult child has a twisted relationship with a girl who is in constant crisis, and this relationship is not good for him. For example, we can track where difficult child is by watching where his cell phone is located, and difficult child has spent almost the entire day today sitting in a fast food restaurant. The only reason he would spend this much time doing nothing is because he is with the homeless girl, and she has no place at all to go except to sit in a public place all day. difficult child has been away from home for over 6 hours, and he is not even home yet tonight. This is not a healthy relationship for difficult child, and I wish that she would move far away from difficult child.

I'm glad that the relationship worked out all right for your grandson.