Thursday, November 30, 2006

But my dreams aren't as empty....

Today is the one year anniversary of my blog. I don't know what my intention was when I first started it but this is the shape it has taken and I like it. It helps me to get things off my chest, I have come to meet many incredibly supportive recovery people. And I have received I guess what is considered my first spam comment. I don't like it at all.

So. The prince has been living with his grandparents for close to two weeks now. He has gone back to his program. But I think he only went back because he knows his father started the PINS process again, and he risks going back on probation. He doesn't understand that there is very little the courts can do at his age. He will be 18 in 6 months and 2 weeks.

His relapse involved heroin, triple c's and marijuana. That we know of. He admitted to stealing money. I also heard today that he was involved in the dealing of the triple c's. The kid that was thrown out of the program for providing the other kids with the drugs comes from our town. The program recommended he be sent to a residential program. His mom, a single mom, is a teacher in the HS, didn't do it. She is having him home schooled instead. This kid is telling people in town that the Prince was dealing too. Four months ago, I would have doubted this and defended the Prince. Today, it doesn't even surprise me. I won't even ask him. I also came to realize that the heroin incident, could not have been his first time with it. It just doesn't make sense that he would have used it if he never had before.

Last night I had to go to my little guys parent teacher conference. The teacher asked if there was anything going on at home that she should know about, because they are seeing a tremendous difference in the quality of his work this year. He is withdrawn and not working to his potential. He seems sad. I was devastated. I spoke to him about it and he said it has been so hard for him with the Prince around and he is scared of him and for him and he thinks about it all the time and only now that he is not in the house, does he feel better. He is not ready to speak to a shrink yet. I wish he would. He is so good and pure and innocent and eager to please and he is internalizing all of his emotions and I am so afraid he will do what the Prince did. So does this mean I am doing the right thing by not allowing him to stay in the house with us? Will all of my questions ever be answered? Is this really it?

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

It's not a habit, it's cool....

I can almost go two or three hours in a row until the word and the thought of it hits me again. Heroin. My son snorts heroin. And then the palpatations come and the breathing becomes difficult. And then I remember... God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can;and wisdom to know the difference. And then the breathing returns.

I will get through this. I can let go.

Happy Thanksgiving and love to all of you!!!

Monday, November 20, 2006

How to save a life?

As I reread my post from last week, I could kick myself in the head. Or applaud myself for my own intuition. We had another relapse. And it was a F-ing doozey. Triple Cs which he bought from a new kid in rehab with some other money he apparently stole from us and here it comes... Heroine. The prince f-ing snorted heroine. On the bus either on his way to or from rehab. He has managed to relapse on a drug that he had never done before. The family counselor called me Friday afternoon. She was as devastated as I was. I don't think I have been able to breathe normally since getting the phone call.

I just knew. I knew his behavior was off the last few weeks. I should have known he was using. And he is so indifferent. He keeps saying, "One time, I did it one time" like he snuck a beer at a party. This is clearly a child who has no interest in sobriety. I am devastated.

My younger so was sick and I had to take him to the doctor Saturday morning. Friday night I told AH that I was leaving, that this was no longer an environment that I felt safe in and that I was taking my little guy and renting an apartment. He agreed it was best. The little guy and I were out early, went to the doc and then picked up my mom and went looking at some townhouses and condos. I want to live in a gated community if I am going to be on my own, I have never lived on my own before and it scares me a little. When the price got up and we weren't there, his father told him where I was. A little while later he took off again.

So I came home, packed a bag for me and my little guy and went to stay at my moms. I wasn't planning on being home for the drama if and when he showed up. He called his grandparents later that night to be picked up. Then he called me crying saying that I abandoned him. This was all my fault. No shot. Not going to fall for that again. I started to raise my voice in frustration and he hung up on me. He called again yesterday morning and I told him he could live at home with me anymore. Not until he had some honest clean time and a complete change of attitude. That I could no longer enable him and would no longer tolerate his verbal abuse, and him stealing from me, and he decided he will stay with his grandparents but that he was dropping out of rehab and would go to an alternative school to finish HS and get a job and do outpatient treatment but he was done with rehab. In fact, the reason he snorted the heroine in the first place was because he was in rehab. I mean, C'mon, give me a f-ing break.

He didn't go back this morning and I am hoping he will go tomorrow. I feel like the worst mother on the planet for doing this but I don't know what else to do anymore. I am just so sad. I am truly beaten down.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

The Good, The Bad, and My Many Other Personalities

Stopped over by Mr. Jeckyls blog and was glad to see he is still with us, although I am a bit worried about his "experiment". I'll pray for him and hope to see him back soon but it inspired me to drag myself out of my depression long enough to write a post of my own. Not too mention how bad it makes me feel when I see people I consider my blog buddies leaving me comments showing concern and then I just disappear. I'm sorry about that.

So things are, I don't know, things are just out of control. The prince is still clean, at least for the moment, but he is off PINS now and maybe its a coincidence, but he is having major attitude problems. It's like visions of the old prince who used. This boy still has not made it to modified curfew. He w as doing well. Really really well. He was on track and heading onto modified and he was sharing and doing a lot of work and everyone there was so proud of him, as were we. And then I don't know, ***poof*** the old prince came back.

He is not a scholar. Education, sadly means very little to him. Its all about him and having fun and doing his time and being the prince and F the future he thinks he can go to culinary school at the bargain price of $26 grand a year and Mommy will foot the bill and he will leave the program in February and go back to HS and have more fun cause that's what its all about. I somehow feel responsible for this. I was so freaking afraid of him relapsing that I walked on eggshells for the last 8 or 9 months and kissed his ass and gave in to his every whim cause god forbid the prince should be unhappy cause then he might use.

Well guess what I finally figured out. He is going to use if he wants to use and there isn't a damn thing I can do about it and he has been hanging over my head for what seems like forever. I know, Im quick, nothing gets by me.....

So he has this math teacher that he hates and the feeling is quite mutual. She throws him out of the class quite regularly. He seems to provoke it and make sure it happens. So a week or so ago he sort of flipped out when this teacher threw him out of the class and it kind of escalated and it set some of the other kids into a mood and a mob mentality took over and he was ranting and freaking out and he told them that this was the REAL prince, that the other guy they have known was all bullshit and lies and this was who he really was and blah blah blah. So they suspended him from the program. Great. Just F-ing great. So I leave work early, so I can be there before he is and I am all cheerful and happy when he gets off the bus and he is thrown for a loop. Doesn't know what to think. I offer to make him some coffee or tea or a snack and he sys to me, "I guess you didn't get the phone call from the program yet" and I told him that yes, I did, and whatever, he had a bad day. We all have them and he was entitled to have one too and whatever, he needs to manage his temper better, but we need to move on and get past it. He didn't know what to think. I think I handled it brilliantly. There was no drama, no yelling, it was all good.

This however seemed to set off something in him. He just started being nasty and mean to everyone in the house and very uncooperative and I didn't know where it was coming from. Like I said, it was shades of the using prince. His girlfriend is a good kid, a real prize. She works 2 jobs, she is a straight A student, she doesn't drink smoke or use drugs of any kind, she is happy to sit home with him all the time and watch movies or hang out. She is crazy about him and super supportive. Since the new school year started though, she is working a lot or she is busy with homework so she doesn't come over every day and sometimes not at all on a weekend or maybe just for an hour or two. I know he put himself here, but it still breaks my heart to see him sad or depressed, and I worry so that he will start the cutting again. So on Monday night I decided to get some tix for all of us to go to a Hockey game. I got Islander tix although my little guy and I are diehard Ranger fans, but Islander tix are easier to get for obvious reasons that I wont get into so as to not risk insulting anyone out there.

My cleaning girl comes on Mondays, and she had called me that morning to tell me she had to cancel but I had already left the house and left her money on the counter. Long story short, when I came that afternoon, there was $20 missing from her money. I confronted the prince very nicely, deny deny deny. I checked his room and shock of all shocks, I found a crisp $20 bill in his desk that hadn't been there the day before. He still denied taking the money. It amazes me how stupid he either is or that he thinks I am.

I was devastated. I even buy this kids cigarettes. I cover his every financial need. If he needed $20 it was for one reason only. He was planning on getting high.

I basically had just about had enough. We still went to the hockey game because I spent $400 on tix and I just kept my distance from him. I ignored him the whole ride home and then he asked me to buy him cigarettes. I actually broke out laughing. Is he kidding me or what??? So when we got home that night he started with his father how I was acting like a child and he didn't steal that money and how I was turning on him so I took my little guy and left, went to stay at my neighbors house.

This is getting too long for the quick little catch up blog I intended to write, I will try to finish it up tomorrow.

Have a great night all, if anyone out there still reads me.....

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Who's sorry now?

The combination of my meds is exhausting me. I can not possibly live my life like this. My therapist called me yesterday and can see me this weekend. This is a very good thing. I have been in a complete self destructive out of control downward spiral the last few weeks. I am just getting too old to keep making bad choices. I stopped seeing my shrink after my doc put me on the anti-depressants and I started to feel human again. Thought I was cured by the little blue blue pills. Being a well read, very informed mother of a son with an addiction problem, you think I would know better than to believe something like that. That my own evils could be chased away with a little pill and no hard work while I expect my prince to face his demons and not depend on substances to make everything ok. I know it is not necessarily the same thing but it somehow just seems hypocritical to me.

And sometimes, and this is one of these times, I feel like a complete fraud. A hypocrite and a fraud. A phony. A liar. I am not who I pretend to be. Yes, I am strong and I love my children but I am also sad and self centered and needy and that leads me to make choices that I know are very wrong and will have poor outcomes. Isnt repeating the same behavior and expecting a different outcome a crude definition of insanity? It that it? Have I finally gone insane???