want2help

I need some advice on rehab facilities around western sydney. Would really appreciate talking to someone that has been to St John of God in North Richmond.

Do you get your own room?
Are you allowed to smoke?
Are there visiting hours for loved ones???

My partner is finally through the hard yards and has agreed to go to rehab. I need to find a place that is comfortable yet close to home. One issue is that I need to find a place that lets people smoke.

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Still Waters

Question: Why isn't he looking for a place that lets him smoke, and finding out the visiting hours?

prodigal

want2help, have you considered giving your partner the phone number of this facility and letting YOUR PARTNER ask these questions. "I need to find a place that lets people smoke." No, your partner needs to find a place where he or she can smoke.

Step back for a minute and stop enabling. Is your partner capable - as in sober enough - to pick up a phone, dial the facility's number, and ask the questions you have posed? If so, allow him or her to do so.

Then you will discover if this person really wants to get into rehab. I've been there - three times - and I know from my own experience that all the work I did getting my AH into rehab didn't have a thing to do with him. IT WAS ALL ABOUT ME, MY ENABLING, AND MY DESIRE TO GET HIM SOBER - WHETHER HE DESIRED IT OR NOT.

want2help

Question: Is there anyone on this website that can acutally help me with positive feedback.

Have you people lost focus?? These people are sufferring from a disease. If we, their friends and family throw our hands up in the air, and say, you do it all yourself, is that not more of a reason to turn to alcohol?? I know it would be for me and I am not an alcoholic.

I have been going through this with my partner for almost 2 years now, and this is the first time he has asked me to book him a bed in rehab. Now why on earth i would hand him the phone and say do it yourself is beyond me.

Still Waters

Because, #1 he is not a child. #2 he's perfectly capable of making those calls himself. #3 it's not you that needs the rehab, it's HIM. #4 if he can't make a phone call, what chance will he have to work a program?

and #5 last but far from least: this is pure co-dependent thinking on your part.

If he uses you not making a phone call for him as yet another excuse to drink...well, that's his choice isn't it?

IMHO of course.

Freedom1990

I'm confused. First you said he agreed to go to rehab. Now you're saying he asked you to book him a bed in rehab.

Barbara52

You are receiving positive feedback. It apparently is not what you want to hear but it is realistic information based on people's life experiences. Reality is sometimes difficult to face. It was for me when I was hoping that my efforts woudl somehow get no xAH to admit to his alcoholism and seek sobriety. But I learned that an alcoholic has to seek sobriety because they want it, really want it. Nothing I could say or do made a lick of difference.

I think what people are saying is that if your finace is serious, he will pick up that phone and find the place that he wants to go. If he is serious, he doesn't need you taking care of him and doing the leg work.

An alcoholic doesn't need an outside reason to turn to alcohol. They are addicted to it. I personally am not powerful enough to either make someone drink or to stop them from drinkng. And alcoholic might try to blame someone else for their choice to drink but it wouldn't be true. No one can make someone else drink.

Its because we see it as enabling behavior. I see it as taking away his personal responsbility for his choices, good and bad. I see it as not treating him like an adult. Heck I don't make doctor appointements for my 19 yr old 'cause he can do it himself. I don't want to treat another adult like a child.

Yes, alcoholism is a disease. But it involves the element of choice. If an A wants to seek recovery, realy in the gut want to seek recovery, tehy will find a way to do it without anyone else's help.

prodigal

But you are not the alcohollic, are you?

I have nothing to do with my husband's alcoholism. I could love him to death. I could leave him. I could threaten him.

I do NOT compute into the forumla of his addiction. Nor do you to the alcoholic who is in your life. You do not have that power.

Just as people can decline chemotherapy for cancer, regardless of how much family and friends may beg them to undergo treatment, so can an alcoholic refuse to seek sobriety, detox, rehab, and continued recovery through meetings and/or counseling.

And I beg to differ with you. I know a lot of folks on this board, after being here for nearly five years. I have yet to see a single person just throw up their hands and tell the addict in their lives to go figure it out for themselves.

That's what makes us codependent. We help beyond helping. We love when we are drained, sick, tired, worn out, and used up. No, you are wrong. Nobody - and I do mean NOBODY - on this board has just kicked their addict to the curb.

But there are "double winners" here who are recovering addicts and codependents. AND EVERY ONE OF THOSE ADDICTS WILL TELL YOU THAT THEY HAD TO WANT IT FOR THEMSELVES.

I am proud to be on a board with people who have loved an addict and had enough guts and love in them to let the addict find their way to recovery. That's called giving the addict respect to find their own bottom and come out on top.

And, no, I have NOT lost my focus. Today my focus is on ME. Where it should be. On my side of the street. Taking care of my own business and my own issues. The addict in my life chooses to drink himself to death. I respect his desire to pursue that. And I didn't do that until I'd dragged him in and out of two rehab facilities, A.A., marriage counseling, church, bible studies, and every doggone other thing I could think of to do that was none of my doggone business.

want2help

I am truely sorry for my words. It was just anger. I just had to call the ambulance for an overdose. I am over it. You are all right. sorry.

prodigal

wants2help, please do not be put off or leave because of my "impassioned" rant in reply to you.

I realize you are under a great deal of stress. All of us have been there. I know how you are feeling right now. You are full of anger, frustration, confusion, and tremendous disappointment and hurt.

Please do not leave us. Keep posting. I get kinda rowdy sometimes, but I care about your situation.

Hang in there. If I can support you in any way, I will. Just holler in my direction. There are lots of good people here who have lived with the insanity of addiction. They understand and they care.

want2help

Prodigal, I am feeling your love. Thank you. I wont leave. I need to be near people that are going through the same thing, otherwise I am going to go insane. I have got his family involved now for the first time and have asked them to come and stay to help me with him. Maybe then I can get a night off. That feels like a little ray of sunshine to me, a night without stress.

Barbara52

want2help, I am sorry you have the added stress of him overdosing. I pray that he finds his way to sobriety. I also pray you find your way to what ever turns out to be best for you.

I'm glad his family is involved and aware. I hope that it provides you with some space so you can look at your owns needs and wants clearly as you go thru this difficult time. Remember only he can choose to help himself. You can only choose to take care of yourself and to build a better life for yourself as things evolve.

Ago

Rehabs are there to help the still suffering drug addict and alcoholic get sober.

They only work if the "addict/alcoholic" wants it more then anything else in the whole world and will do anything to do it and grab on with both hands the way a drowning man grabs onto a life preserver. Not, "Do I have my own room" or "Can I smoke". People who make these noises usually aren't ready to get sober. Then when it doesn't work they say "rehab doesn't work" or "they were mean" or some such nonsense.

They also only work if the alcoholic/addict does the work themselves.

If an alcoholic truly decides to get sober, nothing in the world will cause this person to drink, rehab or no rehab, smoking or no smoking, home or no home, and if the alcoholic doesn't truly decide to get sober, nothing in the world will stop him from drinking, so the truth is, nothing you do matters anyway as far as getting him sober, although if you continue enabling him, you can extend his drinking by a fair piece.

The people responding here have learned that lesson in the most painful way possible, by going through it themselves with their loved ones, some of us learned that lesson by getting sober ourselves.

You can either learn from others' experience, or you can learn it yourself, step by painful step, you will learn either way, one way is just quite a bit more painful then the other, that's all.

I usually choose to learn each lesson the hard way as well, as I write frequently "I'll take the Hot Stove for 300 Alex" but it's ultimately up to you to learn these lessons, just like it's up to your addict/alcoholic to ultimately get sober on his own.

Good luck regardless of whether you decide to accept the help that so freely offered here or if your guy decides to get sober.

I am a sober alcoholic that has been around recovery for 17 years by the way.

MissFixit

Until my ex in his 40's, I hadn't heard anyone cry that people were "mean" all the time since I was in elementary school.

Funny you used "mean" Ago, I guess that one is popular.