toughlovin,
I posted about this to Nancy, and I want to repeat it to you. Rehab is tough on the entire family. If you have ANY chances to participate, family days, weeks or whatever, I strongly urge you to attend. i also urge you to go to alanon. 7 meetings in 7 days is not just for those who are addicted. It also helps the family because this is a family disease. ALL of you are affected, and many of the ways won't be realized until/unless you get some help. It is a sneaky, insidious disease that devastates entire generations. I am not just the sister of an alcoholic. I am also the grandchild of an alcoholic. Even though my parents drink only in moderation, I STILL learned patterns of living that were unhealthy because both my parents were children/grandchildren of alcoholics. There are books for Adult Children of Alcoholics and some meetings are ACoA Meetings, meaning they are Adult Children meetings. There are even books for adult grandchildren. I urge you to find a copy of a book called "The Laundry List" about behaviors we learn as adult children. It is old, and you may have to ask around to find it. It will open your eyes to the patterns that you learned with-o knowing it.
Addicts of any substance who have family members who get help are MUCH more likely to be successful in their recovery.
My gfgbro also spent 2 weeks in jail prior to going to rehab. He has called it the X County Betty Ford, and said it was the best thing for him because he realized that EVERY other man in jail with him was there because of something that was substance abuse related. ALL of them. He decided he did NOT want to have that for a future, just endless rounds of jail time.
Then he went to an AWESOME rehab. My gfgbro is a diehard difficult child. Anything he has ever decided to do he did 1000%. NOt a typo, one thousand percent commitment. I think other difficult children may also do that. Not all addicts are difficult children prior to becoming addicted. in my opinion difficult children have a special very strong streak of stubborn determination. When my gfgbro went to rehab I told my mom and my husband that he would do it like he did everything else "Bawls to the wall". He used that determination so that he only had one very short relapse after graduating from rehab. A one day relapse, but still a relapse. Many people need to go to rehab more than once. No shame in that, in my opinion, but our difficult children are special. If anyone can do rehab just once and then live a sober life one day at a time after that, it is a difficult child.
Your difficult child has shown that kind of determination in the past, hasn't he? He can apply that to his rehab and sober life and it will lead to amazingly good things.
Just want to give you hope, the way it gave us hope when gfgbro was in rehab.
Also, he may need meetings for years and decades to come. Lots of families think that addicts go to rehab and are fixed, that they only need meetings for a few months to a year and it is "over". It won't be "over", period. My gfgbro still has days that he needs a sitter for his daughter so he can go to a meeting, and he is about 7 yrs sober. Make sure that you let him know in the future that it is okay to go to meetings, even if he has to move a family event or visit to another time at the last minute.
My gfgbro says that it is one of the BIG differences that makes being sober possible for him. He noticed the difference in support about meetings between how our family is and how his ex's family is, and asked some others about it. I wanted to mention it to you so that maybe it will be one of the things that will help your son have a more successful sober life.
Many hugs, I know this is a very emotional time.