OCT 1 WILKINSBURG MEETING SUMMARY Posted by:Rocco--Sunday, October 02, 2011

"WELCOME TO THE PSST ZONE" -- OCT 1 PSST MEETING IN WILKINSBURG SUMMARY

This week’s PSST Meeting was held in Wilkinsburg. We had the expertise of Val of Allegheny Juvenile Probation and Kathie T, Jocelyn and Michelle of Wesley-Spectrum. Lloyd called in sick [hope you're feeling better]. We also had the pleasure of welcoming Julie an intern for Juvenile Probation form Cal U.

Visiting this week was April Wateska a counselor from Phoenix Rising. Thanks for attending April, we appreciate your input and hope to see you again.

There was also an overflow crowd of understanding and compassion with the presence of 26 concerned parents, some regulars, some returning alum and some new parents.

Many of us were here to celebrate the Allegheny County Juvenile Probation Parent of the Year announcement [more on that later].

EDITOR'S DISCLAIMER: This is an attempt to summarize our latest PSST meeting. We don’t always have the chance to get it done quickly and we sometimes cannot read Rocco’s handwriting [or even imagine what it was he was trying to write] so, Please feel free to edit, elucidate, correct, amend or add to our summary as required in the comment section below. We will not be offended.

Max did an excellent job at keeping the meeting on track as our group leader this week.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

- Val invited everyone interested to visit the Juvenile Justice Week Open House on Wednesday Oct 5 and to the Awards Ceremony on Thursday, Oct 6 at 6:00 p.m. The celebration will take place in the 2nd floor waiting area of the Juvenile Court [use the Ross Street entrance]. This is when the Parent of the Year Award will be presented to one of our outstanding PSST Parents for acts of bravery, excellent command of PSST skills, for showing a lot of growth, and for reaching out to other parents --- click on Allegheny County Juvenile Probation Parent-of-the-Year to read more.

- Wilma reminded us about the live workshop on Oppositional Defiant and Anger Issues in Children and Adolescents at the Embassy Suites at the Airport on November 11, 2011. CLICK HERE if you wish to look at the information online.

- Max encouraged anyone that needs more support to attend the S.0.S. Chapter of Families Anonymous. They meet on Tuesday evenings from 6:00 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. at Gateway Squirrel Hill. (Forbes Ave.) This twelve-step program focuses on helping parents become less co-dependent. All are welcome to attend these helpful meetings. Once again there is No Cost and No Commitment.

LET’S TALK - because of the large turnout we went around to do short introductions so we could get back to those with more to discuss.

Max began by telling us that her sons Michael and David are doing well. Michael, 19, is doing well in his recovery and is working his way towards having his own place to live.

Kitty also has two sons, Carlyle and his older brother Cat, a heroin addict that recently relapsed. Kitty told him that he could no longer live at home. More on this later.

Vera has been with PSST for a month. Her 16 year old son Tommy is a friend of Kitty's son Carlyle. Tommy is currently in an Inpatient Recovery Facility (IRF) and is an angry teen. He has a pass this weekend and Vera is concerned about how it will go. Vera says he has had problems for about two years. She doesn't understand why he acts the way he does, she wants to help him and save his life. Like most of our kids at this stage Tommy doesn't think he needs any help and is not accepting his recovery and is blaming everyone else especially his mom.

Thanks for coming to PSST Vera; please keep coming to our meetings, we are here to support you.

Tess and Danny’s 18 year old son Linus has been in an Inpatient Recovery Facility (IRF) since July and has over 60 days of clean time. He is doing okay and will be going to a 1/2 way house before returning home.

Olivia and John, Parents of the Year 2009, returned for a visit and to help us celebrate the 2011 Parent of the Year. Their son, Jarred is about to turn 21, has a job, his own place and is doing very well. Thanks for returning guys. It was great to see you and helps our current parents to see that there is hope.

Cheryl and Jim have an son, 18, Andy who just experience what the Adult Justice System is all about. He spent 5 weeks in the county jail. Val and Lloyd worked with Cheryl and Jim to get him back into the juvenile system and after a brief stay at Shuman Andy is in a IRF. As Jim noted they will not bail Andy out of his trouble but they will continue to get him whatever help he needs to work on his recovery.

Ruth is a single mom and relatively new to PSST. Her son Bo, 13, is in a IRF and is clean for 6 months. Please keep coming to PSST Ruth ans keep on praying. The combination can be a powerful tool.

Jenn and Brad have a son, Dylan currently in an IRF. They have been with us at PSST for about 10 months now and have become a good example of how to turn your life back to normal. Dylan is coming along well in his recovery.

Violet has a 19 year old son, Sal. Sal has been through a few IRF's and is currently attending his second year of college. Violet has stood up in court and stood up to counselors and to anyone that she didn't necessarily agree with to make sure her son received the best care that he could. Violet is our PSST Poster Mom for NOT being "Pathologically Compliant to Authority Figures".

Kathy is new to PSST. Her 18 year old son Cody is 5 months clean from heroin usage. he is attending meetings regularly and was proud to be given the key to his home group. Please keep coming to PSST Kathy, we will do what we can to support you.

Brigitte and Francois’ 17 year old son Pierre has been home from his IRF for 5 weeks and has had some issues. Never the Less, some alert actions by Brigitte has helped to get him to where he needs to be. He is doing well this week.

Becky's son Syd completed his IRF came home and relapsed and is in another IRF. This is very common. Our teens usually don't volunteer to go into their first inpatient program and it sometimes takes a few more times before the accept their recovery. Becky and Tom understand this and are handling it well.

Sally and Rocco's 19 year old son Cisco is currently in an adult 1/2 way house and is doing very well in his recovery and working towards finding a life skill so that he can eventually live on his own. He has a very good 6-step plan laid out and had a minor infraction this week. Because of this he did not get his weekend pass but was able to accept it and deal with it very maturely. Something that even a year ago he would not have been able to do.

Wilma's son Bam Bam completed his IRF this summer but was not ready to buy into his recovery. To make it tougher his dad, Fred, was acting as his prime enabler. Mary was shocked, but happy, when she received a recent call from Fred saying that he had had enough and had called the police on Bam Bam. Mary worked her best PSST skills to get Bam Bam into a Mental Health Facility. She let everyone know clearly that she while she understands that her son is allowed to sign himself out of the facility that she will not allow him to return home.

Jane another of our PSST Strong Moms has been with us for almost one year now. I remember meeting Jane at our informal "between the meetings" meeting at Crazy Mocha last October. Her son Elroy was out of control and about to turn 18. She wanted to get him into the juvenile system to get him into his recovery. Like Wilma, Jane had to do this with very little to no cooperation from her husband. Elroy also went through an IRF and a 1/2 way house but was not ready to work on his recovery. He is now back into a second IRF for the last month.

Jennifer's son Maxwell, 18, is currently in an IRF and has worked his way past the 1st phase. He is getting his first home visit since May and is hoping to reunite with his family.

Emily has a 16 year old son, Jerry. Jerry recently was assigned probation has been in an IRF for about one month. Emily is not sure if Jerry is ready to accept his recovery yet but he has his first home pass this weekend.

George and Gracie have a 19 year old son Ronnie. He relapsed this summer and checked himself into a recovery facility. He is attending 4 NA Meetings and a counseling session weekly. They feel he is doing okay but needs to stay focused. Their concern now is that Ronnie has got a job and will have more money to handle. They are Cautiously Optimistic.

Daisy has a 16 year old son Ozzie. Daisy is a single mom and an inspiration to us at PSST for how she has turned her own life around, helped her son in his recovery and reached out to so many of us here. Ozzie is another teen who did not accept his recovery and is in his second IRF. Daisy told us that she had her first good family session with Ozzie last week and is looking forward to another one this weekend.

LET'S TALK SOME MORE

Following a break for some celebratory cake for the 2011 Allegheny County Juvenile Probation Parent of the Year we reconvened for some more talk for those parents that needed it.

Kitty's older son, Cat, a heroin addict, has been clean for most of the year and was home for about 2 months before relapsing. Cat told him that he needs to check himself in to a recovery program and that he can not live at home while he is using. When she presented all of the evidence she found at home he basically went off blaming Kitty for everything from his using to his latest relapse. At this point he is not accepting help and she is not sure where he is.

Her younger son Carlyle sort of took her to task. He told her that Cat had been using in the house and that she needs to do something with him. He said that it is not good for his own recovery to have his older brother using at home. He asked her if she could ACT 53 him or something.

As much as Kitty would love to be able to do something; once our children are over 18 there is little that we can do to "make them" get help. They are legally adults and can check themselves into and out of programs. We can only be there to help them if they ask for our help.

Carlyle is doing well and has a hearing next week to determine if he can get off of home detention.

You know, looking at Kitty at the PSST meetings you wouldn't know that such a petite woman has such big shoulders...

...thanks so much for being part of PSST, thanks for the flowers and thanks for helping us. We will continue do what we can to support you.

Wilma is another lady with big shoulders. Until just recently she was pretty much carrying on the fight to help her son's recovery with no support from her husband, Fred. Fred finally had enough and called the police on their 14 year old son Bam-Bam. This has resulted in Bam-Bam entering a Mental Health facility.

Wilma is pursuing an ACT 53 hearing to get Bam Bam additional help. Bam like many of our kids has been making a case for himself. Since coming out of Inpatient Recovery he has refused drug testing, he will not go to meetings and he has stopped therapy.

Wilma mentioned that he had a text on his cell phone from someone asking for the money that he owed them. When asked why Bam still has a cell phone she told about how his counselor "suggested" that he should be able to "earn" his cell phone back and how Wilma should sit down with Bam's "friends" and get to know them.

Wilma now understands that a cell phone is not a good thing for teenage addicts and she has always known that Bam's "friends" are not good for him; Never-the-Less, when a counselor "suggest" these kind of things our teen addicts only hear "I am allowed to have a cell phone, my counselor said so!" and "What do you mean I need to stay away from my friends, my counselor said I can hang out with them!"

As we have mentioned before one of the first new skills that parents of teen addicts need to work on is NOT to be "Pathologically Compliant to Authority Figures". This is one of those things that we all need to learn to unlearn.

As Val K suggested we know our kids better than anyone and if a counselor "suggest" something that doesn't sound right to you, do not hesitate to let them know that you "are NOT comfortable with that!"

But with the counselor's suggesting and no support from Fred, Wilma was left to carry on the struggle pretty much on her own.

You have done well Wilma and hopefully with Fred on your side you will be able to do a lot more. Thanks for being a big part of PSST.

Violet is going through a phase of recovery similar to the one that Sally and I find ourselves in. Our sons have been though several years of their own recovery and have had ups and downs but they appear to be ready to move on in their lives.

We realize we "need to detach", we understand "how to detach" but we don't know "how to let go" of our fears, our own anger, out mistrust...

...as others said, our inner voice says trust him "but" then maybe if we prepare for the worst we won't be hurt as much if he falls, kind of like a post traumatic syndrome for recovering parents. We will heal but there will be scars that no amount of plastic surgery will ever fix.

Like all recovery processes, healing takes time. Healing is a long gradual process and our goal is progress, not perfection. Take your time Violet, make a little progress one day at a time.

Jim and Cheryl are also experiencing what others have. Addiction is a family disease. Their older son, Kyle, has asked them to choose him or Andy. He fears that they are being overly manipulated by Andy.

Fear and anger are two very big parts of codependency and very tough to get over.

Jim and Cheryl of course cannot and will not "choose" to abandon or keep either son. It will again take time to heal these relationships. They will talk to Kyle's heart and not his head. They will try to encourage him to detach from his fear and his anger and show him that they are okay themselves.

Jim and Cheryl, you guys have shown us how well you can reach out to others and especially to your sons. Like everything else healing the family will take time. As I noted above look for progress and not perfection. We here at PSST will be here to encourage and support you two."

STAY TUNED – THE PSST ZONE WILL BE CONTINUED