Rehab and all. Did it work?
Being through all this with my ex and sending her off to rehab was extremely difficult. A month in a rehabilitation center is also very difficult. To stop an addiction is a journey into the darkness with plenty of fear.
Slowly the rehab paid off. The phone calls home was less angry and more of a “sorry” tone. The simple fact of admitting to a problem is a step in the right direction. As the calls became more about a better life for us and her, I felt that all this mess would come to an end. Yes, I was optimistic that I would get back a brand-new human at the end of the month.
The New Human. Did it pay off?
After a month of calls and 30 days of peace, my ex returned home. Picking her up from the airport was an afternoon of mixed feelings. What do we expect to see and what was she like after the 30 days? Did she arrive home sober? Well, yes, we assume she would be but will she be able to stay sober? Did this reset work? Did the 12 thousand dollars we spent on the rehabilitation center come through for us?
These were questions that would have to wait. How long did we have to wait? Well not as long as we had thought. She returned with quite a few folders and assignments. We went through some of them and while they were interesting it was up to her to follow up on much of it… Keep things in check so to speak.
Life, Moving Forward. Staying Strong.
This life we live is never easy. Not with things moving at the pace that they are. Sometimes we do not have time to think and reflect. Reflection as part of her therapy. Following up with it all we found out some interesting facts. My ex was diagnosed with depression, anxiety and being bipolar. Now this mixed in with alcohol addiction or alcoholism was a recipe for disaster.
Something like this can be avoided but I would not be able to tell you how. Going forward needed one of two things. Medication was the number one choice, followed by a strict routine of meditation and self-reflection and reading. Reading through materials that were handed out and keeping oneself in check.
Needless to Say… It didn’t Work.
One major suggestion for any alcoholic or addiction was this. If you can change your environment, do it. If you can move or leave the current location you are at do it. We had the luxury of selling our house and moving to a new one. It was a fixer-upper and this with the hope of being busy with the renovation seemed like a great option.
The point is to move out of the house where the hiding of booze, the drinking and the bad times had happened. This was to instill change and help with the healing. Help with moving on and not be around where the trouble had been taking place.
Well… It all Failed.
The long and short of it is… A person’s willpower is tested every day. An alcoholic is tested nearly every minute and this test is often not passed. With the coming weeks, things deteriorated quickly. She was caught drinking and driving with my daughter. She admitted to the construction people that she had been hiding her alcohol in the plastic laundry detergent bottles. Of course, she did this while drunk and they told me.
At this point, I was done and with many other complications, my ex moved out. After she failed to show up to her court hearing she left Canada and moved back to Indonesia. The divorce proceedings began shortly after that. In the end, she could not be helped and to the best of my knowledge, she is an alcoholic to this day.
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