Hi CameraJen - I have a 25 year old Recovering Heroin addict son. His first 30-day stay at detox at age 22 ended with him returning home to us, full of good intention but nowhere near the maturity and insight to stay clean. He picked up about 2 months after that 30 day ended. We went thru the difficult decision to make him move out, telling him we would not welcome an addict back into our lives. He had a choice - his family or his heroin. Of course he chose his heroin. In those next 5 months, he sold all his possessions (and even had "friends" take some stuff like Xbox, etc to pay his drug bills), went thru some money he had in his bank, lost his job, lost his car to repo, lost visitation w his then 1-year old daughter, sold drugs, faced a pistol in his face, and came crashing down. While we stood by and watched.
My heart was shredded to pieces. My nerves were shot. My husband was adamant - when he's ready for detox, it must be followed by sober living house 6 month minimum. Seemed really tough to me, but that's what happened.
After his second 30 days in detox, he spent 9 months in SLE. The SLE was in the bad part of town. SLE gave him 30 days to find a job - had to be out of the warm SLE 9 am til 5 pm every weekday til he obtained a job. He had no money. We gave him none. He went to soup kitchens to eat. He walked those pavements (Snowy January) and did get a job. Then he bought a bike to ride to the downtown bus stop to get to work. Learned how to maneuver his bike into the bus so he had it to ride back home after work. Did the work. The meetings. The outpatient appointments at the rehab. Eventually moved from the SLE with another recovering addict into an apartment. The two of them worked out "what will happen if the other one picks up again". 6 months into that shared apartment arrangement, the roommate picks up. My son gave landlord 30 day notice, packed his stuff, found another place and moved. Way more rent with no one to share it. So he got a second job in addition to his full time one. All while going to community college part time, too.
Today, he's almost 2 years sober. His course of study at school ? Addiction counseling. His full time job now? Works as an aide at the same place he detoxed ! Am I proud? You bet! But I don't own this success, he does. He had to fall. Hard. And I had to sidestep it. Bawling my eyes out. But it had to be done.
He had to work his way up from the bottom. And he still insists that if we hadn't taken that step of letting him own his own problem, he would have never seen the light.
So my word as another momma living thru this heroin hell is give your son/daughter the right to own his/her problem. It's not ours to fix. Our kids can gain the first glimpse of self esteem by working their way thru this. Nobody says it will be easy. But it is necessary.
Hugs to you and all the other people who love an addict.