Hi,
I’m so sorry to hear your story, it must be very difficult with children in the house, and having gone on for so long.
My son is a heroin addict, and we have been stuck in what feels like hell for the last 5 years with it. As you’ve said, opiates are really hard to quit. My son has done it for a good few months, I think probably with 7 months being the max, but then relapses. It’s hard, because they hide it, then you think its you and that you’re being overly suspicious or just going mad.
I have been looking at Rehabs, the free ones and also the charitable subsidised ones.
The problem I have found that where I live the local Addiction services make an assessment and then hopefully the council will pay the fees if the client is ‘deemed suitable for residential rehab treatment.’ I can’t find out if anyone gets as far as being sent to rehab with the council paying. My suspicion is that the local addiction service decide that most people are suitable for home detox, with visits from a drugs worker. Its a lot cheaper and probably a lot less effective. My son lies in bed all day, just getting him to shower and put his clothes out for washing is becoming a real challenge. I am sure in a residential detox once they were through withdrawal they’d have to get out of bed and do some kind of work. I think that if we could get to that stage we could introduce a new set of rules when he comes home. Lockdown has been terrible in that all rules went out of the window and its hard to establish any structure and boundaries again. My son has recently started looking at the 12 step programme and I think that would be a real positive, because they support each other so well, and have somewhere to turn if they relapse. I have just read Russell Brand’s book on recovery with the 12 steps and that was a real eye opener. I know you’re probably thinking ‘Russell Brand????’ but he is a complete advocate for the 12 steps and so far hasn’t relapsed once since around 2002 – so it is possible!
Keep talking on this site there are loads of people going through this, helping and supporting each other. Take care of yourself and your children, they have to come first in this.