What to do About MIke ... The Next Chapter

Great to be at the airport with my Macintoswh that I love so much ...

The ride here was uneventful. Roads had been plowed... got here quickly and am already checked in. Flight doesn't leave for another couple hours, so I'm having a snack and enjoying wireless internet. Gotta love it.

I have been meaning to blog about our thinking and planning for Mike since our visit with him on Thursday. Both Bart and I are amazed and somewhat annoyed by his sudden interest in us and our family. This is the pattern that he always follows: Get sent to treatment, have an amazing discovery of how valuable family is, beg for visits, letters, calls, snacks, presents, etc. as he professes his love for us and get as much as he can from us until he gets.

Then as soon as he is home he is back to stealing from us, completely disregarding our rules, and avoiding us as much as possible.

As you know from previous posts, I'm not all that excited about another ride on the hope train, but I figured why not connect as much as possible while he is vulnerable and wants our contact? So he can get calls 3 times a day and we're trying to call every time. Bart sent him a letter and I sent him some magazines. We'll take advantage of it.

I also am looking into a Job Corp program for him. If you're not familiar with it, kids get paid to live in dorms and learn a trade, as well as finish high school. If he qualifies it's all free and will be like college with more supervision. The supervision that he would receive there would be annoying to most people, but after a history in residential treatment he would feel quite free, I assume.

Anyway, it's a thought -- because even though I am willing to invest energy and demonstrate my love for him, I'm still pretty sure he won't be able to be successful at home. He's lived with us 9 years and never has been. He made it very clear that our home environment is what makes him need drugs.

So, one day at a time and we'll see what we can do. But we will continue to love him and get as much positive conversation out of him as we can while he's in treatment. Maybe something we say will click . . . or not.

But either way, we'll do our part because he's our son and in spite of it all we love him.