Answering Questions & A Bit About Jake

I have gotten some wonderful comments on my last post. Several have been anonymous and I wonder do you leave them that way because you don't want me to know who you are or because you don't want others to know who you are?? Either way, I greatly appreciate all of the support and compassion that you all continue to show me. You are a great help to me in this time of my life.

I have gotten a few comments and/or questions that I would like to address though. First of all, to Jess, I have not told you about Jake because it is not a HUGE deal (well it was on Tuesday but it's not now). I intended to do a post about it today but then last night while reading all the old journal entries they seemed more important so I wrote about that instead.

The deal with Jake is that he is not progressing as quickly or as much as his counselor would like. Basically he is still stuck in a lot of his old behaviors that they are trying to change but he is not doing it. I don't think it's for a lack of trying on his part, I just think it's hard to change everything about yourself. (Which is what they ask them to do there.) I know for me I'm doing a lot of self evaluation and while I can see the problems it is much harder to actually go about fixing them.

What really brought this situation to a head though was that Jake told a lie. Last week he called a group on his father. Out of respect for his dad I won't go into great details here except to say that his dad drinks and Jake is uncomfortable around it and so they had told Jake how to talk to his dad about that and a few other things. Jake did call his dad but he didn't talk to him about that stuff because he thought it would embarrass his dad or make him mad.

However, when the group asked him, he lied to them and told them that he did talk to him. Then when he got back from pass he was upset about his dad again, he stood Jake up when he was supposed to meet him at the fair, and so he called another group. In this group he mentioned that he had, in fact, not talked to his dad about the drinking and other items. So, when they had treatment reviews on Tuesday he was essentially "called out" for lying.

That basically brought the whole thing to a head. His counselor talked to Jake about how he has yet to come up with a good reason that he's in treatment. When asked he will say because he wants to get sober for me or Zack, but really he needs to have a reason to be sober for him and he hasn't found that yet.

He also still has a huge problem thinking for himself. He consistently looks to me or to the counselors for approval when he has an idea. He wants desperately for someone to tell him how to do things instead of coming up with his own ideas. He does his homework to get it done and then he has to redo it 3 or 4 times before it is right instead of taking the time to think it through and do it correctly.

And those are just a few examples. According to his counselor everything Jake is doing is typical addict behavior. It is all things that she works with all of her clients on. The problem with Jake doesn't stem from these factors it stems from the fact that he is in a rut. He has basically been going no where for about two weeks and so she told him that he needed to come up with a list of reasons for them to let him stay.

He came up with that list and for now he is there and hopefully this will be what he needs to begin moving forward again. At this treatment facility you can stay as long as you need to but you have to continue to move forward to do it. You can't just sit still and take up space.

So to answer another question that I got, no he is not coming home right now. Will he come home eventually, yes that is the plan. If he does what he needs to do and he graduates this program than yes, he is welcome in our home. If he can't get it done than I'm not sure what will happen. I want desperately to tell you all that if he doesn't graduate he won't come here but right now that's not realistic for me to say. I have learned that if I am going to say something I need to follow through with it so I'm just going to leave it open ended for now.

About what I love about Jake. Someone said that it shouldn't be hard to think of the things I love about Jake. I think I made it harder than it was. You all have opened my eyes to that quite nicely. I think I just needed to dig through some of my emotional baggage and get to the real Jake. The Jake that keeps me smiling. Once I dug through that and realized that they don't have to be the "huge" things that I love they can be little things too it became much easier. I should have it finished as soon as I finish this post.

Finally, on to my last question. Do I feel obligated to stay with him so that he stays successful with his recovery? Wow, when you guys ask questions you go for the gusto don't you? Actually this has been something I have struggled with quite a bit. When people asked me why I didn't just leave him and let him rot in the getto this was my answer. If I left him he would have no one else who would go get him. And for a long while that was true.

Now, however, I don't know how I feel about it. That's a fair answer isn't it? If nothing else, it's honest. I do wonder what will happen to him if we do not stay together. That is why I fully support his counselor when she says that he needs to find a reason that he wants to be sober that is for him. For a long time he has told me that I'm all that he has and without me he has nothing. While that's a sweet sentiment and all, I'm really hoping that he can build back up some of his self esteem and get to a place where he loves me and he wants to live with me but he knows he could live without me. I don't want to feel like if I can't leave him (should something happen where I feel we can no longer stay married) because he would relapse without me. That's a hell of a burden to carry around. Even for me.

So now, I think I've answered all of your questions and told you a bit of an update on Jake in the process. If you have any more questions or if I was unclear on anything please don't hesitate to ask or e-mail me. I am one of the most open people you will meet and part of my reasoning for writing about all of this is to educate and to make sure that no one else who is going through this feels alone.