Whirlwind of positive changes

The last month and a half has been a crazy whirlwind of life changes. All changes for the better. New house, new job and so much more.

My son finally got his bed at the residential recovery program - he is now in rehab for the first time ever. He checked in last Tuesday morning. It is a six to twelve month residential rehab which is exactly what he needs after 2 years of living on the street as an active heroin addict. His girlfriend is also in the same program although not in the same location. She has been there one whole month already and sounding very positive about life and a future.

The month preceding his check in date was..well interesting.

Labor day weekend was my daughter's wedding. After a year of her & I going in circles about what to do about having her brother at the wedding, everything seemed to fall perfectly into place if not a bit bumpy getting to the weekends arrival. My son had come out of detox and we had him come home on Friday of the wedding weekend. It was the first time I'd had him home in over a year.

His girlfriend's parents had brought her home a few weeks before to wait for her date and she was due to go in to her program 2 days after the wedding so we picked her up and brought her to the wedding weekend with us. It warmed my heart to see her looking so much healthier, filling out, healed and healing, smiling, happy.

The wedding was the most wonderful magical weekend ever..it was so amazing to be around all of the family and to have both my son and his girlfriend there and a part of it. I believe that weekend was a big turning point for my son. He was very open and honest with everyone at the wedding about what the last couple years has been, openly telling everyone that he is waiting for his bed in rehab and is getting a chance at recovery.

The few weeks following the wedding were less then perfect, but I made a decision with my husbands agreement to bring him home to wait for his bed. That month was filled at times with joy of spending true quality time with my son that I had barely seen only occasionally the last couple of years. At other times filled with the chaos of addiction. There was about two wonderful weeks and I will cherish those. There was some raw honesty from him. Some stories and details I could have lived without knowing. There was some amends. There was a lot of gratitude from him.

He had done everything on his own to get this rehab. Nothing was done by us. He was ready. After six weeks of courts, counselling, case managers, community health center appointments etc, he was finally given the date.

And then he went missing.

The day he was given the date - his date was one week away - he never came home. The week was filled with worry for me but it is what addicts do. He went back to using, back to the street one last run. I knew what happened but I couldn't resist calling jail, calling the hospital to see if he overdosed.

After five days he came back home at 3am last Friday night. Dope sick all weekend we were only 3 days away. We kept him again and counted the days. Monday night I came home from work and he was missing again. He rode up on a bike a while later in the pouring rain and told me he went on a little bike ride. Seriously? He spent that last night here before check in the next morning high as a kite. We were 12 hours away from check in. There didn't seem like much of a point of drug testing him or having a big confrontation about it.

The next morning my husband made me laugh when  he called it "Operation get him the F@%^ in there" .
He was able to take the morning off work to get our son checked in. The rehab he is in caters to homeless addicted people and I know they allow detox there. My son called me on the way, expressed gratitude for us helping him get there - that he would have never made it if we hadn't of helped and he would have had to stay on the street waiting.

The first two weeks is a no contact period of orientation so I don't expect to hear from him for a while. He wanted this, he knows it may be his only way out of the life he has been living. He knows it was over and he couldn't go on. He did all the footwork himself to make it happen.

Today I will hope for the best that he takes what has been given to him and can finally begin recovery. I will also prepare myself for the worst - that he can walk out, that many don't make it on the first try. Today I will be grateful that HE has found HIS way to recovery.