A woman calls to see if we have room for her son in our halfway houses and asks several questions.
"Does he get his own room?"
"When will he be able to start working?"
"Do we supply toiletries?"
"Is there a place for him to wash his clothes?"
"Does he need money to get in?"
After several minutes of this I ask a question of my own. I wondered why she didn't want to know about recovery services. You know, about groups, 12-step meetings and drug testing. Questions related to recovery.
Often parents think that if living conditions are right and jobs available, everything will be fine.
But if that were true their kid wouldn't be with us in the first place. Because most everyone has had a job at some time. And a place to live. But those things didn't keep them from using drugs or drinking. From trashing their lives.
The reason people come to us is because their lives are out of whack. And one way for them to get their lives back on track is to get into recovery.
Their problems aren't jobs, housing and other amenities. It's working on recovery. If they do that, everything else falls into place in its own time - usually within a few months.
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