Two good visits this past weekend

Wow. I'm late in my latest entry. Not sure if this means I am doing better or worse. Time will tell.

A good weekend with regard to visiting our son in rehab.......funny, if someone would have told me even two years ago that I would be visiting my son in a rehab center for drug abuse I would have said they were crazy. He had everything going for him the summer after he graduated high school: a good car, making good money at camp and giving music lessons, great friends, his bands, his talent, etc. His current situation should prove to everyone that this can all be lost in the blink of an eye.

We saw our son twice this past weekend. We went down for the usual Friday night family session, and as usual it was excellent. My wife and I get so much out of these sessions and learn so much it is really worth the aggravation of driving down the parkway on a Friday night. We learned that there were some more relapses in the week between the sessions, including some people in our sons house that were kicked out for drinking. Our son seems to have accepted the fact that he is not coming home for quite awhile, and actually participated a little bit in the group session. I don't know if he was doing that for our benefit or if he is really starting to turn. Only time will tell. I am trying to not get over-confident because the last time I did that I got slapped in the face with our latest legal issue.

On Sunday we went back down, this time to the group house he is in for an unsupervised family visit that he earned. All of us, including the dog, were able to go see him and spend 2+ hours with him at this house. We basically just sat outside on the porch with him, his brother, and the dog just being a family again. Talking about family things and doing what a family is supposed to do....of course, in the setting of a group home for recovering addicts. We talked about alot of things, including his recovery, and he is starting to look forward to the next phase because he wants to get a job down there....he even inquired about us bringing down a bicycle for him to use so he can get to work. We brought down one of his guitars and he asked and they allowed him to keep it. As long as the guitar does not take away any time from his recovery effort it is fine.

All in all it was a good visit, and I felt it went better then expected. I was afraid that in an unsupervised setting we might get some push-back from him on staying for a long time but there was none. I was also afraid about how I was going to feel leaving him but I was fine, probably because I am starting to see some real progress. I am trying to not get over-confident but maybe he is starting to change. Only time will tell.