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Wow! What a difference a month can make! My son is now 31 days clean & sober. He is in an awesome program that takes a multi-modal approach to the issue of addiction and all the issues that swirl around it. He is being treated as a whole person with an addiction and it has been very effective for him. He moved yesterday to a transitional house & we went to lunch to celebrate his next stage of the program. He looks wonderful-down 20 pounds of bloat. We got to talk to his caseworker and the follow-up is very active. He will attend daily meetings. He sees a psychiatrist & his caseworker once a week. He will continue on medication. He is involved in the SMART recovery program in addition to AA. He likes SMART so much, he is working on getting his own meetings started in his house. He is working on community outreach with the county to help allocate funds to the homeless & addicted population in a way that makes sense. His physical program is nutrition and running. He actually ate broccoli at lunch! He also attends a weekly meditation class. And he is doing all this on his own. He secured his own funding for start-up in the house. He procured his own ID this time. He arranged a payment plan with the courts with help from the caseworker. He starts a new job next week. He told us he is very happy where he lives and he is in this house with friends who are very serious about recovery. He turns 29 next month and he says he is done with the streets and he is positive he can turn this around now. We plan on attending the next SMART meeting with him to see what it is all about. We are also working with the caseworker so our involvement is supportive & appropriate. It's the most solid and hopeful restart we've seen. He is walking the walk right now. We pray this one takes for good..

So last night our friend was staying with us. My husband was recently prescribed a low dosage of Mar-amitriptyline to prevent headaches. He took out the bottle to take his pill and was telling our friend how he was prescribed these. He put them down on the table and my husband is very forgetful. So he went to look for the bottle and couldn't find it. We searched the entire house and no luck. After him and his friend went to work this morning I continued to search the house for it. I went into the guest room (where my husbands clothes are) thinking maybe he went in after his shower and placed it somewhere. Our friends bag was on the floor and I moved it to open the drawer and I heard pills shaking. So sure enough I opened the bag and my husbands pills were in there with his own medication bottle beside it. What do we do! Do we confront him? Please help

So last night our friend was staying with us. My husband was recently prescribed a low dosage of Mar-amitriptyline to prevent headaches. He took out the bottle to take his pill and was telling our friend how he was prescribed these. He put them down on the table and my husband is very forgetful. So he went to look for the bottle and couldn't find it. We searched the entire house and no luck. After him and his friend went to work this morning I continued to search the house for it. I went into the guest room (where my husbands clothes are) thinking maybe he went in after his shower and placed it somewhere. Our friends bag was on the floor and I moved it to open the drawer and I heard pills shaking. So sure enough I opened the bag and my husbands pills were in there with his own medication bottle beside it. What do we do! Do we confront him? Please help

My family is in crisis today. Our son has been enraged over one thing or another ever since the bad review at work. Today, he told us that he is not going to pay rent because of a debt he incurred when we called paramedics about a suicide threat he made a few years back. It was a manipulative threat, but I felt I had no choice. He had health insurance at the time, but did not tell any one at the county hospital, hence a big bill now in collection. I got so angry that I sent him the following email with this as the title: "NO PHONE, NO WATER, NO GARBAGE PICK UP, NO GARDENER, NO CAR because of non-registration." In the text, I reminded him that I had broken off contact with my dead beat narcissistic alcoholic father in 1971 after not seeing him since 1962. My son will probably vandalize our house and I am so prepared to sell it "as is" afterwards. There go a couple of hundred thousand dollars. We've already lost $10,000 on it this year because of low rent, repair expenses, and payment of utilities. Meanwhile, my husband is puttering around our house and apparently hardly reacting to the crisis at all. You guys think I'm co-dependent -- compared to my husband I am the tough love champion of the universe. My husband's relationship to his brother was very like our relationship to our son...both of them (and the father of the brothers) organized their lives around drugs and/or alcohol (mostly drugs). I am so upset I am shaking with anger as I write this. At this point, I hardly care if my son gets into a 1,200-step program: I am done. I fear this may mean the end of my marriage, as my husband has always put the addicts in his life ahead of me and my daughter even though he loves us dearly. He cannot see how we are all being damaged. Time is all we have and so much of our time has been embittered and twisted already.

I need insight. I've been with my amazing husband for ~8 years. He had an Aderall and painkiller addiction (oxycontin, percocet, etc) prior to our relationship, but he turned to alcohol when he lost his source. As of last April, he successfully quit drinking via AA although he wasn't a regular at meetings & never made it through all steps. In other words, the drinking & substance abuse ceased, but his managing addiction...questionable. So for the past seven months, I felt like the fog was clearing. I let down my guard, stopped looking over my shoulder, genuinely trusted him, as i still do. HOWEVER, I was prescribed Percoset post-c-section last month; didn't fill the prescription, & a week went by before he finally broke down & almost begged me to get it ordered. Out of the blue, & it went like this: "I love you...I love you...I love you...I'm so glad I no longer have to hide anything & can be honest...but honey, you have to get that Percocet before it's too late." This went on for a couple minutes, of course followed by "Now I regret being truthful."  In shock, I tearfully refused. We have discussed this several times since in my attempts to process everything. What i gathered from our talks is 1. He thinks it's a one-time thing, followed by a couple of depressed days, which he'll "get over". 2. He doesn't feel it will lead to a relapse (with substances or alc.) 3. While he has an addiction to both, he is only interested in abstaining from drinking & that i can't understand how pain pills are better. 4. He thinks it's not a matter to speak with his AA sponsor about, but he'll go to NA even though he hasn't actually used. There are other points he made that indicate some major denial and compulsion. It's relatively irrelevant. I guess i am looking for an (recovering) addict's perspective on whether or not this is something I should drop or if I should see it as a red flag for future relapse or what. What is this?

My son was told to look for another job at a recent review. He was devastated and went into his script about how our help to him has been too little too late. Crap, of course. Bad things can happen to him without it being our fault. And this is a bad thing. I wish I knew what went on beyond the scenes, like a fly on the wall. It's probably not even worthwhile to think about it. It's not like he's the first person I've known who lost a job...all I have to do is look in the mirror to see one of them. Since the angry recital of script by telephone, our son is staying away from us. This is actually not him punishing us; it's him trying to manage his feelings on his own. That at least is a good thing. As his landlord, I'm pretty distressed though and would like to know what his plans are. Damn. I hope he can find a job closer to home than the old job. I try to be optimistic, instead of pessimistic as is my nature. I continue to have trouble sleeping, but I am not actually doing anything I should not, like meddling in his life. We have not even spoken since before he got the bad review.

 

Hi sad dads wife again..recently my son was tested positive for opiates at his sober house,was kicked out immediately. He swears on his grandmas grave he did not use. He has been on leviquin an antboiotic for bronchitis which can give a false positive for opiates. He was tested again at the er where his sober house sent him.. Still testing positive he asked for an extended test ..which tests further for codeine,hydrocodone,hydromorphome, oxycodone and morphine..which were all negative. Morphine is herion so why was it negative? Any lab techs out there to confirm ? I have the results and are all negative ..spoke with the doctor that say yes it's negative.though the sober home does not care still thinks he's dirty. Has anyone been in this situation.? I want to believe he didn't use and do!!