Originally Posted by
pravchaw 
I had previously offered my son rehab. (21 yo marijuana addict who dropped out of college to smoke mj full time, I evicted him from our home in Feb). I had been successfully detaching from his over the last couple of weeks. (no phone calls, no nagging, pleading or anger).
He came today - he had run out of money and told me he had no longer had a job. He asked me for money. I refused. He flew into a rage for a while and I asked him to leave. Then he calmed down and agreed to go to rehab.
Question: How can I tell he is serious to make a change? T
This will be his second trip to rehab. Even though most of the cost would be covered by insurance, it will still cost me about $4500. I don't want to waste the money if he is not serious. I forced him to go to a 21 day rehab last year which was 12 step based. He was clearly not serious. This one is more of a addiction medicine center but a lot more expensive.
My opinion is this: Addiction left untreated is progressive. Right now your son is using marijuana, but who knows if left untreated he may end up progressing to heroin, meth or something so much worse. Worse in the sense he may become unreachable to you in every aspect, and his access to insurance money may disappear, and his life and all that’s in it may continue to erode away. If he has insurance, and is saying yes to rehab in any way shape or form then I would encourage it. Personally I think it is great to look into a rehab that is grounded more addiction medicine. Your son has tried other options, he has been working with a sponsor and going to meetings and it has not been working to get him excited about recovery or in recovery. Nothing changes if nothing changes. Try something different.
If you have been looking into addiction medicine and the concepts behind it, you will know one thing medical professionals say is that “ treatment does not have to be voluntary to be effective”. My husband went into treatment, he wasn’t jumping for joy at the idea, he wasn’t desperate and pleading, but he wasn’t resisting either. He just went along with it to start. But once there the doctors helped him, they got through to him. This weekend in fact, we have been back to his rehab to visit. They have a celebration around the Fourth of July every year. Last year we attended and he was just finishing up his treatment. This year he is 14+ months clean, and shared his story of recovery with everyone. It was just an amazing to come full circle to be on the other side this year. I wish this for your son & your family.