Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Milestones

190 days or 6 months sober.

A huge milestone.  Hopefully it is real.  In his mind it is, so I guess we go with that.  It has been a long 6 months.

Then, right after that at AA, the topic was “When the miracle happened for you 

He shared this:  “I didn’t think I needed to be sober, but just recently, I decided that I not only need to, I want to.”

You do not know how happy I was to hear that!

Now THAT’S a milestone!

Another good thing from that meeting was some awesome advice:  “You need to make a gratitude list and the first thing on it has to be sobriety.  If that isn’t number one, then all of the other things will start to slip off the list as you lose your sobriety.”

I think I need to make a gratitude list, too.

I know the first thing on mine is going to be sobriety.  My son’s sobriety.  And the sobriety of all of the others that I have come to know and care about.

I am so grateful for these milestones.

And coming up next, two big milestones that I knew would come eventually and now they were finally all set up to happen.

Family communication and Commencement.

203 days, or 6 months 22 days, after entering the program, he commences.  That night, at Family Group Therapy, we were scheduled to share our thoughts and feelings from the big Family Communication packet that we were each given.

We have seen a few Family Communication Nights.  Many thoughts and emotions are bared and everyone learns a lot about the other’s feelings.  There are lots of tears and barriers that come down. 

As I tried to go through the packet and figure out what I was going to say and what my thoughts and feelings actually were, I became terrified.

I knew we had to do it, and I knew it was an important event, but I didn’t know how I could get through it.

And, once that was over with, we were going to be on our own.  He would have Aftercare once a week where the kids can come back and check in with the others in the group and report that they are still sober and talk about anything they want to talk about. 

He would still have therapy, but with a new therapist.

I didn’t know if we were ready.  I knew that he was so “done” and thought he was more than ready. 

I didn’t think any of us really knew what to expect.  I was feeling just as scared about it as I was when he came home from residential treatment.

And summer was coming.

Complete with boredom, no one to hang out with, and nothing to do.

All triggers.

All things, I was going to have to try to combat on my own every day.

Oh boy.

Gotta love these milestones.

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