He's agreed to try wilderness....

[susiestar]

It sounds like you have carefully looked into this. If it is something he is willing to do, well, almost anything can help if someone is willing.

I will pray that he changes during this experience and comes back a healthier young man determined to stay off drugs. I think NA or AA meetings 3-7 times a week should be a condition of his coming home though. From experience with my bro - no one recovers and STAYS recovered w/o support. Just a suggestion.

IF he is on any meds other than pot, what medical facilities are available to detox him? coming off drugs can be VERY dangerous and there should be medical personnel available and medical facilities close by to handle any problems. Even coming off alcohol can require medical attention for some people.

Hugs, I know this is hard.

[janebrain]

Hi,
my dtr was at an rtc in Utah and many of the kids there had first been to a wilderness program. I think it often is used that way--a way to get help fast and then on to an rtc for longer term help. My dtr did very well in her rtc--I think the structure and immersion in a healthy environment was very beneficial. But she couldn't sustain it once she left the safety of the rtc and came home. I think the relapse rate is quite high with these programs but at least they are given the tools they need and the hope is they will use them at some point in their lives.

Good luck!

Jane

[dadside]

I think that 30 days in any program away from home would satisfy many or most courts threatening to send a teen - or young adult - to jail for behavior related to drug or alcohol usage. I also understand that many 30-day programs are geared to meeting a common court standard of that many days, and that reuse/relapse rates are very high at around 80%. That goes for wilderness, "re-hab", whatever. They may be better than jail, but I believe there are better uses for the money cost of only 30-days of most wilderness programs. Paying for a stay-until-done wilderness program is something else, and can be worthwhile. (There is a fine 4-week wilderness program for early/mild cases, but that doesn't seem at issue here.)

Going just by what is in this "thread", I'd suggest: saving a good part of the expense by having him attend an in-patient rahab for the 30-days; or spending around as much as 30-days wilderness for a longer in-patient re-hab; or sending him to a longer-term therapeutic boarding school. The last approach would be more costly (especially if preceeded by wilderness), but it may be possible to get third-party funding. Frankly, I doubt that only 30 days of anything would do much real good.

Finally -- no program will, of itself, be enough to effect "permanent" change. Returning home to the same environment, same temptations, same people, same other things, makes a high risk of return to the same behavior. His family would need counseling and support to help him, and he'd need some level of continuing support.

[Rotsne]

Because he agreed to enter the wilderness himself and the program is time-limited there is a potential for success.

But remember that Bob Bacon went before congress because his son died as one of many.

http://aaronbaconremembered.blogspot...-of-aaron.html

From an article in a magazine: http://outside.away.com/magazine/1095/10f_deth.html

But with the arrival of his remains at a Phoenix mortuary three days later, guilt gave way to anger. Pulling the sheet from Aaron's body, Sally was confronted with a battered, emaciated corpse. She started screaming hysterically and had to cover her eyes. "His legs were like toothpicks," Sally recalls, breaking into sobs. "His hipbones stuck way out, his ribs--he looked like a concentration-camp victim. There were bruises from the tip of his toes to the top of his head, open sores up and down the inside of his thighs. The only way we were even able to recognize him was a childhood scar above his right eye."

After this death and a couple more one state (Utah) introduced laws to protect youth in wilderness programs. But the latest death in Utah happened in 2007 where a youth who was sent out there due to depression caused by the death of his brother committed suicide.

But even with these death, I believe that wilderness therapy works, but the purpose of the stay has to be planned ahead. If RTC is the next step, then inform the teen in advance and adjust the program to that. Many of the adolescents in the program deliver a hard work during the wilderness program and then they are sent to a RTC just to start over.

Also as pointed out in previous posts even the best wilderness programs in the world cannot fix the problem. Every change has to come from inside the teen himself. In Denmark they have statistic over almost every youth because it is normal for more than 90% to attend some kind of full time care before school.

Even the worse teens grows up. For females they generally begin to think about family once they turn 18. For boys they are some 5-7 years slower. It doesn't matter how youth try to correct them. They just grow up. In the recent years many girls are injected with a P-stick, which is a 2 cm. long stick which are sending out hormone and prevent pregnancy for 3 years. Some girls are given one aged 12.

If I had a teen, who wanted to do a wilderness program, I would stay until they had done the search for contrabands, which is very stressful if they like mine have not undressed themselves in front of strangers. The intake process is everything. One other thing I would take of in advance would be to agree on a stop word. A fake aunt or something, which I would not would be a cry for help. Sometimes the staff would order a rewrite if the letter is too negative. How would they communicate if they are mistreated?

Having said that I hope that this boy will make it and benefit from it. I would pray for him.

[galadriel]

We looked into that one in the mountains of NY too. We could not afford it, but the staff are all well qualified and I would have sent my kid if i had the bucks. Of course, it was May when I looked into it!

In the meantime we have hit a better combo of meds... after a med wash, lithium and a light dose of Adderall seems to be a real lifesaver for us, and the GFG is back to more like the boy I remember! He is staying away from the weed because their favorite on line game came out with an expansion and it's all new again. (Thank you Blizzard software co, who would ever think I'd be saying that!)

Rotsne is right, if you can hang in and keep them out of legal trouble (did I mention we just got our bail back? ) they will mature. Of course, this could be the calm before the next storm.

[jcam]

My Son did a 30 day Outward Bound program- I thought it was really well run, and a great experience for him but it did not "correct" all of the underlying issues like drugs (pot) and school performance.