I spent 3 months in rehab. I was so busy with assignments I had NO time to even dwell or think on things. I wish there had been more reflective time. I don't think it's a good thing to be regimented from 6 am to 11pm daily. My wish would have been for more time to do assignments and just time to absorb everything including my part in all of it.
There is tremendous pain in rehab and depression and guilt and shame. I wanted so badly to be helping my family but was unable to do anything -- I wish someone would invent the perfect rehab.
I do know that it takes about 9 months to really come to terms with the entire experience. Anger is a huge emotion that is really about depression and feeling inert and feeling frustrated. I had huge amounts of that and I do know if my family had expressed frustration about whole experience I would have felt ... "what is the point then in even trying. Nothing I would do would matter or help".
So while I do feel that the newly clean and sober person should own up to responsibilities, guilt and shame can set them backwards. They need support. They need to know in words that what they are doing is a positive thing because being newly clean can go either way. I do believe an addict has the ability to withstand confrontations while in very early recovery but it's hard and emotions are so raw that without a seriously strong strong motivation to recover, some addicts could fall back into relapse without a great deal of family support.
He's doing the right thing for himself and for you and the family. But it's takes about 9 solid months to work it all out for both the addict and the family. It just takes a HUGE amount of patience and love on both sides. I do believe you and he can do this.