Update on difficult child

Kathy813

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Hello everyone. It has been a while since my last update on my difficult child and since husband and I just got back from a visit with her I thought I would catch you up.

difficult child is currently in a halfway house which is owned by the IOP she is attending. After a complete and total relapse, she took an overdose of pills and spent a week in a p-hospital. After much calling around dealing with insurance coverage issues, husband found the current IOP and it has been a godsend. Sometimes I pinch myself because I can't believe what great care she is getting and how much the therapists that she is working with care about her. The best part is that thanks to Obamacare, the IOP is covered at 100%!

She has had a couple of relapses since she has been there and instead of kicking her out, they have dealt with the relapses as part of the recovery process. Her last relapse came after her hospital stay due to a gall bladder attack. After she got out, she was found using the pain medications and snorting xanax. They decided that she needed to get off of all benzos (which I have been saying all along but doctors including p-docs that know her addiction history kept giving it to her). In the meantime, she had problems with the gall bladder again and she was put back into the hospital for more tests and they ended up doing the surgery to remove her gall bladder.

Someone from the IOP picked her up from the hospital where she had surgery and took her straight to detox (which IOP arranged and got insurance to pay for). difficult child spent 11 days in detox coming off the benzos. She said it was hell. She has now been off them since July 7th and is going to therapy five hours a day Monday - Friday.

Her therapist went with her to a new p-doctor that the therapist really likes (one of the conditions for letting difficult child stay in the program after her relapse was that she has to take sober support with her whenever she goes to a doctor). He told difficult child that since she is an addict, she can never take benzos again. So he started her on a different anxiety medicine called Luvox which is not addictive. It is often prescribed for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and social anxiety disorder. I don't know why no one has tried it with difficult child before. It does seem to be helping her with her anxiety.

After she gets the okay from her doctor to go to work, she is expected to have a job in one month. Her therapist wrote up a contract that said we would only pay half of her rent (which is thankfully only $75 a week) starting one month after she is cleared to work whether she has a job or not. Then the contract states that we stop paying two months after she is cleared for work whether she is working or not.

difficult child was appropriate for the most part when we saw her and grateful for the things we did for her. She is working the program and told me some things that she had never told me before. It turns out that she had overdosed one other time on heroin and the @#$$ that gave it to her left her laying in the bathtub since he had a warrant out for his arrest and didn't want to get caught. Someone else that was there did CPR and brought her around.

It was good to see her but I found myself falling right back into the old patterns. It is much harder to set and keep boundaries when I am with her than when I am in another state.

So we are home now and school starts in less than a week.

~Kathy
 
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BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Kathy, hoping and praying that things start getting better for you and your daughter. It's amazing how jerky some selfish drug users can be...to just leave her there...unthinkable. I am so happy she is somehow safe.
 

dstc_99

Well-Known Member
Kathy,
I am so glad to hear she is doing better. It is sad how low they have to go before they pick themselves up. Once again I can't wrap my head around ObamaCare. It is so good in some ways and so bad in others. In this case I am so glad it is working in difficult child's favor.
 

Albatross

Well-Known Member
Thanks for letting everyone know, Kathy. It sounds like promising new ground, with steps logically mapped out so she can see she is making progress.
 

Nancy

Well-Known Member
Great update Kathy. I know what you mean about being easier to keep distance when you are apart, the mom in us pulls at our heart when we see them. I am very impressed with this IOP and their therapists. Thank goodness she is off benzos, that's huge.
 
S

Signorina

Guest
Kathy, I am glad to read that she is in a different place and receiving different care. Sometimes change encourages more change and getting off the benzos is a huge, positive change.

I hope and pray that this change and the fresh start make all the difference and encourage a better outcome.

Thank you for updating. Xo
 

recoveringenabler

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Good update Kathy, it all sounds so encouraging. It appears she's found a very healthy environment for her precise issues.
I add my prayers that this is the turning point for your daughter and from here on out, she flies the straight and narrow and you and husband get to rest and move on with your lives..........
 

comatheart

Active Member
Kathy that sounds like a wonderful gem of a place you've found. Do they accept men?? LOL I need to find my son something like that. It really sounds like things are promising. I hope and pray this is it for her. (((HUGS)))
 

Kathy813

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Yes, comaheart, they do take men. They are all in IOP together but are in separate halfway houses. The program is in south Florida, though, which difficult child hates. Personally, I like the distance. :D
 

susiestar

Roll With It
It sounds like the program she is in truly 'gets it'. The attitude that you kick out an addict who relapses just confuses me because every addiction doctor/therapist/psychiatrist I have ever heard says that relapse is part of the process and that very very few addicts achieve long term sobriety with-o more than a few relapses. So programs that just kick them out seem to be ignoring the actual needs of the patient. This one has some great facets, in my opinion. Esp the whole "no benzos ever". My pain doctor has told me that rx'ing benzos to anyone with an addiction issue or who is on pain medications is completely irresponsible and that I should RUN if a doctor offers or recommends them knowing what medications I am on. I am in pain mgmt and am not an addict, but benzos mixed with pain medications are as bad as mixing them with heroin. Our pharmacist says that they barely fill any benzo rx's anymore bc other drugs are more effective and less addicting.

Luvox is very effective. It is a refined and stronger version of prozac. It is VERY effective at handling hard to treat depression (treatment resistant is the phrase two psychiatrists have used when discussing it with us) and is also amazing at handling Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). It really helped 2 people in my family deal with both of these problems and it didn't have the gastric problems that can come from prozac. I hope it is helpful for your difficult child, though it won't give her the benzo high. It seemed to have fewer side effects both during use and if/when it is stopped than other medications have had, which is also a good thing, in my opinion. I know many people in one of the support groups here have said it has been the easiest medication to take and the most effective for depression, if that means anything.
I really hope your daughter is able to make some real progress now that she has people around her who understand that relapse is part of addiction and not a reason to just toss a patient away.
 
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