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Old 03-07-2012, 05:20 AM
  # 10 (permalink)  
kmangel
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Join Date: Jun 2011
Posts: 598
Elle, what are his parents doing now that he is living with them? I'm guessing enabling him.

My son came home after 28 days in rehab from heroin addiction and though my husband and I wanted to do the right thing, we had no clue what the "right" thing was. Living with an addict or a recovering addict is not something any unsuspecting person should take on without outside help (Al-Anon, addiction specialist/counselor, etc.). My husband and I have learned a lot in the past eight months. We wanted to believe our son was on his way to total sobriety, and perhaps he is (time will tell), but we were lost in the beginning and fell for our son's lies several times. We fortunately quickly caught on to the lies.

One of the first things that your husband must do is get ongoing help for his addiction--and it will be something he will need to work on for the rest of his life. My son, before rehab, tried to get clean on his own from his pill addiction but couldn't. He would be clean for a few weeks, but he'd always go back, and eventually graduated to heroin. He was fighting the battle in his own strength--and addiction is something that requires more than will power. If your husband chooses to do this battle on his own, that is a recipe for failure. So watch and see what he does in battling his addiction. Is he seeking outside help or doing it alone?

One important realization is that we who love an addict must watch their actions more than their words. Addicts are very well practiced in the art of lying and manipulation--even after they are clean and sober. It will take effort on your husband's part to leave behind the actions that served him well as an addict. That's why it's so important to actively work at recovery because there is so much so set right in the mind of an addict. The physical addiction is only one part to heal.
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