The Transitioning Your Teen Trip ~ By Sally and Rocco Posted by:Sally--Wednesday, October 26, 2011

What a Long Strange Trip It Has Been

It is a long and winding road to recovery for most addicts and their families.

It has been about five years now since Sally and Rocco first saw some major red flags and realized that Cisco needed help.

He had gone from our happy well behaved kid with a great sense of humor, an inspired imagination, a love for all kinds of animals and very outgoing personality to a very angry teen who was getting in fights, having a lot of school issues, withdrawing from our family and bringing home some rather dubious “friends”.

We started on our adventure with an outdated road map, a couple of well intentioned glossy brochures and no idea where we were headed. We had no GPS or AAA TripTik® . We knew where wanted to get to but had very little idea of how to get there, how long it would take or what we would find on our way down the road.

If you have followed our posts over the last two years you may be aware that we got Cisco into counseling for anger management back in 2006. His first overdose occurred in September of 2007 . The get-a-way weekend that Rocco and I planned for our thirtieth anniversary ended up as a nightmare in the emergency room.

So here we are five years, 2 overdoses, a couple of relapses, eight or nine court appearances and seven placements down the road and we are (as we like to say in PSST) cautiously optimistic.

We have all made adjustments in our lives and we are working on our own recovery. Rocco and Sally have gradually learned, modified our lifestyle and understand addiction better now. We just got done talking with our cousin (who became acquainted with addiction herself through her two brothers who suffer from it). She said that she had noticed a big change in Cisco lately. We agree.

We thought, at first, that the toughest part of addiction was Cisco causing trouble at school and creating general chaos in our home.

We used to think the toughest part of addiction was when Cisco was getting high and was having emotional issues.

We used to think the toughest part of addiction was when Cisco was stealing and dealing to get drugs.

We then thought that the toughest part of addiction was when Cisco was confronted by the police who told us that they were filing charges against our son.

No! No! The very toughest part had to be when he was finally placed into an inpatient recovery program and we had to deal with how much he hated us and the F##ing facility and he was going to use again as soon as he got out...

…or could it be when we had to meet in court and Cisco had to go before a hearing officer…

...or maybe when we first experienced all of the buzzers and banging doors at the Shuman Detention Center...

…or maybe when he would successfully completed his treatment program and we thought that we could get on with our lives and then he would relapse.

Well, now we know that the “next” toughest part of our journey still lies ahead of us

What really is happening is that each new day holds its own set of toughest challenges, bumps in the road and detours.

Cisco, Sally and Rocco have come a long way. Cisco has started a full time job. This in itself holds a lot of challenges for all three of us. At this point we are allowing him to stay at home, on a part time basis, as we adjust to each other once again.

With the help of Cisco’s counselors, and his P.O., we are trying to assist Cisco in his transition to a “normal” life style.

We are trying to work him into living back at home until he can manage (and afford) to live independently. Cisco needs to adjust how he deals with our family, how he handles his money, how he handles friends and how he acquires career training skills. He needs to work on his skills for handling the pressures of work and his personal life.

Most important, of course, is how Cisco continues to work on his recovery. He should attend meetings on a regular basis. He should make his sponsor a big part of his recovery and his life. He should avoid people and places that affect his attitude or that puts him into circumstances that jeopardize his recovery. He needs to sharpen up his ability to make good decisions and good choices on his own. He needs to be able to ask for help when he needs it without hesitation.

As for Sally and Rocco, we need to redevelop our trust in Cisco; that he can eventually handle this on his own and to accept that while Cisco will not do it perfectly; he has and he still is making progress. In the meantime he is doing well at his job and he is following our home rules. Sally has worked up a budget with him but he is still debating it.

We have both explained that, IF he really wants to purchase a car, besides the initial price he will need to save a lot of his paycheck for fuel, insurance and repairs. That will be Stop #1 on Cisco’s own road to independent living.

Will keep you posted on how the trip is going…