PREVIOUSLY . . . .

In just a few days it will be the one year anniversary of my daughter's month long stay in a drug rehab treatment center in Memphis, TN. Being a social work major my daughter Courtney had insisted that she needed a dual diagnosis facility because, she said, the vast majority of people who use drugs have an underlying mental problem. Well, that made sense to me so I modified my internet search for a dual diagnosis treatment center and found I had many to choose from. Since we live in Oklahoma I hoped to find someplace that was within a day's drive and we would not need a second mortgage to afford. Foundations (the name is now changed to La Paloma Treatment Center) near historic downtown Memphis, pretty much fit our needs and as it turned out fit our daughter's needs. The staff was great (the food was NOT) and according to her therapist, Courtney worked very hard.

The biggest mistake we made was not continuing her treatment in an extended care facility and/or a halfway house. I later read that the highest vulnerability for relapse is within thirty to ninety days. A psychiatrist told me that after about 30 days of sobriety the cravings will kick in again. Traditional treatment is 30 days. Obviously that does not help the odds of recovery. Thanks to insurance companies some patients don't even get to complete the thirty days. Courtney's therapist at rehab recommended a half way house, but did not stress the importance of continuing a sober living environment. Courtney was dead set against a halfway house, she was certain she would do well with an outpatient extended care at home. If Courtney had not been in love with a man who is an abusive, drug addicted felon, she might have made it. But, as she had seen with other women in treatment, going back with him has led to several relapses. The latest has caused us to cut her off financially and sent us to ALANON and therapy.

After returning home from rehab Courtney went to an outpatient extended care and attended for three days. According to her it was a repeat and most of the time she sat around doing nothing. She started seeing a psychologist and going to group therapy once or twice a week, but too soon she began to find reasons not to go. Before going to treatment she had several seizures and in Oklahoma you are not allowed to drive for a year after a seizure. We were leasing the car she drove so Courtney had no choice but rely on us to drive her around. Dopey had no car so he relied on his grandparents to drive him around and several time a week Courtney would end up at Dopey's house for the evening. That was until the evening of the fight where Dopey beat Courtney for the first time (that we knew of) right in front of his family, who just sat there and watched. They ended up outside where he picked her up and threw her down, then trying to get away she tripped over tree roots and twisted her ankle. Since she had no car she called her best friend Salome, who told Courtney she would pick her up ONLY if Courtney called the police. So Courtney called the police, who came and took pictures of her. Dopey told them that Courtney had hit HIM and he had bruises to prove it. Bruises from a previous fight with another guy. The police took pictures of Dopey and nothing else was done.

Salome dropped Courtney off at the emergency room then called me. I was shocked at first, then just hopeful that surely she would never want anything to do with him again. I had a lot to learn about women in abusive relationships. Courtney finally called me from the emergency roon and I acted like I hadn't heard anything. She was very agitated and stayed agitated for the next week. At the time I had no idea that she was gobbeling down Xanax. While she was waiting in the emergency room she became rather loud about her pain and the slowness of the staff. A man from security asked her to go wait outside. Courtney was incensed and we decided I would take her to another hospital. I took her to the newest, smaller hospital in town (which as it turns out was not on our insurance) and the waiting room was practically empty. She didn't have long to wait but that did not improve her mood.

After an xray of her ankle and a shot for pain, we were finally headed home at two in the morning. At home she sat in a recliner and I put ice on her ankle, the she went to sleep for a few hours. Before six a.m. she was wide awake and insisting she was in worse pain and needed to go back to the hospital, because the doctor had told her to come back if the pain got worse. Courtney claimed the pain was much, much worse. I wonder if the doctor would have told her to come back if he had known she was an addict? I was still clueless. So, back we went and this time saw a different doctor. Courtney's mood was nasty and the attending physician commented on that fact. I think she gave Courtney the prescription for Lortab just to get rid of her.

A couple more days of Courtney's agitated behavoir and verbal abuse led me to take her to a psyciatric hospital that was conveniently located just a few miles from our house. I first had taken her to an appointment with her psychologist with whom she became beligerent. He called me in, with her permission, and pulled out a tape recorder. He told her "some day you will listen to this and be shocked." Getting her admitted to the hospital was like pulling teeth with tweezers. Courtney did not want to be admitted. Since she had threatened me repeatedly they advised her that I could call the police and have her brought to the hospital. After the threat of being handcuffed, she signed herself in.

The next day she called Dopey and had him come for a visit. I had gone to visit her and was told that she absolutely did not want to see any family. When I saw Dopey walk in I understood why. At least I got to tell him EXACTLY what I thought about him, not caring about the visitors listening to my rant. I made sure the staff knew that this was the guy who beat her up and to keep an eye on him. It felt really good to get those feelings off my chest.

During her stay in the hospital, Courtney was started on a new drug, Subxone, which according to her therapist has saved lives. Subxone blocks cravings for opiates and it does work. She was to stay on it for about a year. It would take time to get her dosage adjusted and then she would later be weaned from the drug. There were only three physchiatrists in Tulsa who could prescribe Subxone and if you weren't covered by insurance it would cost you about $1,000 a month to take. She made an appointment with one of them and I thought things were looking up. At her first appointment with Dr. R. she decided that she really like him and believed he could really help her.

Ron and I went to see the therapist that Courtney had been seeing since before rehab and who we had begin seeing occassionally. Becky strongly recommended that Courtney no longer live with us. She told us to send her to a halfway house or rent a room or apartment, but Courtney needed to be away from ME. Becky was afraid that Courtney would hurt me. Courtney resented me so much that Becky worried that Courtney would actually physically abuse me. That seemed unbelievable to me, but on the other hand I had seen her in some nasty rages with a look in her eye that said she hated me. Courtney told me more than once that she wished I was dead. I never heard her say that about her father. It was decided that Ron would be the one to tell her that she was getting kicked out of the house.

We ultimately put her in a cheap apartment just a couple of miles from our house. It was agreed that her father would help her with the rent until she could pay it herself. He told her that since he was paying the rent she was not to let anyone else (meaning Dopey) stay there. Courtney's uncle gave her a job at his pharmacy that was located next to her apartment. She could walk to work in five minutes. She was learning to sell medical equipment and claimed to love the work and her co-workers. We thought things were looking up but that was temporary. Dopey started living with her at the apartment and one morning Courtney went to work loaded and fell asleep while waiting on a customer. Her supervisor sent her for a drug test that she failed. It was difficult for her uncle to fire her but he had no choice. Courtney was devasted.

A couple of days later, Ron's partner suggested they hire her as a file clerk at their law firm. Courtney was excited to have a chance to work with her father. We bought her some new clothes for work. I would pick her up in the morning and drive her to work and her father would drive her home. She really loved her job and did it very well. Sometimes during the week she would go with her father and a couple others from the office and go out to eat. She seemed really happy and we thought maybe things would really work out.

Sunday, July 13 in the early afternoon I received a distress call from Courtney. Dopey (not his real name, but it should be) was beating her and get Dad over there NOW and she was going to call the police. She was trying to get him out and he would not leave. Since her apartment was only a mile away we were there in less than five minutes. Knowing that Courtney has a black belt in karate gave us some comfort that she could defend herself and perhaps land a few good blows of her own. When we arrived the altercation was reduced to yelling at each other; Dopey had his few belongings packed in a plastic laundry tote and was trying to find his blue laundry bag which was NOT there, no matter how many times he looked in the corner in her bedroom for it. He was accusing her of being crazy and trying to take HIS drugs. She was accusing him of waking up crazy and grabbing her and strangling her because he thought she took HIS drugs (which he listed as Colonopin and Xanax and I can't remember what else). We finally got him out after throwing a few articles of clothing over the balcony for him to retrieve. (I thought that was fun.) He took his laundry tote and started walking.

After talking with our distraught daughter for about ten minutes, she told us to go ahead and leave, she wanted to be alone for awhile before she came and stayed at our house. We left her apartment and drove around looking to see if Dopey had left the area. We saw him sitting on the porch of another apartment of someone that he knew. Dopey does not have a car and depends on rides from his dysfunctional family and his one or two friends. We were fairly satisfied that he would not go back to her apartment, at least for a while. At the time we were not certain that Courtney had taken anything. But, I thought, why would she let Dopey bring all that crap into her home? She told us he was shooting up coke and I thought I would be sick. Looking back now, I'm sure she probably had taken something, most likely Colonopin. Dopey did come back later (with his co-dependent grandfather driving) and wanted his T.V. and dvd player back. Just because the dvd player had been a gift to her did not mean she could keep it. She wouldn't let him in and told him to come back when he wasn't so crazy and then called the police. Dopey had just enough sense left to leave before they arrived. The policeman who responded to Courtney's call gave her a pamphlet for abused women that explained how to file a protective order and told her to call if he came back.

The next couple of days staying at our house were miserable. She was moody and sometimes downright mean. Monday she wanted to go to the courthouse and take out a protective order. We discovered that we could only do that until 1:00 p.m. each day. So, thanks to one of her co-workers we found that she could go to DVIS (domestic violence intervention service) and they would help her fill out all the paperwork in order to file for a P.O. There was a lot of paperwork and I highly recommend having help navigating it all. The next day she had to be at the Courthouse by 9:30 a.m. to file the paperwork and see the judge. One of the attorney's in her father's office went with her and since she was the only person with an attorney, she got to go first. It was over and done with in a matter of minutes, except that she had to come back in two weeks to make it permanent.

Filing a protective order had been a giant step for Courtney to take. Normally their breakups lasted less than 24 hours (actually less than 12). I heard her claim he was the love of her life so many times she began to sound like she was in a cult. Her father and I were so happy but at the same time worried about if she would really go through with it. More than one person told us she would probably go back with him.

Courtney claimed that she could not go back to her apartment because she saw Dopey's face everywhere. Her therapist told her she could have tramatic stress syndrome and so we looked for another apartment. We found one less than two miles from our house and it was nicer and GATED. It was a huge complex so Dopey would have a hard time finding her apartment even if given directions a second grader could follow. Her court date was July 29 and the attorneys had them agree to a six month protective order against BOTH of them so Courtney would not have to testify about what had happened. What her father liked was that Courtney would not be able to contact Dopey either, she would be in violation of a court order if she did. We really thought she wouldn't.

She made it a month. That was a record but she later claimed that "we love each other too much to stay away" and that "we just want to be able to call each other now and then." I knew it was coming when I saw that she had posted her new cell phone number on Facebook and that he was still listed as a friend. That made it easy for him to contact her and lure her back. Last year we had put a tracking gps in the car so we could get online and see where she was taking the car. That has been one of the best investments we have made and when I happened to see her drive by Dopey's house one night, I thought my heart would stop. I immediately called her on her cell phone and asked her "what was she doing!!!" Her response was that she just wanted to drive by his house because of something she had read on Facebook, blah blah blah . . . She had picked him up.

Wednesday, August 20 - a day that broke her father's heart. She had been doing so well at her job. Better, in fact, that the previous employees for that position in years. This is according to the senior partner, NOT her father. The morning went great, but for some reason at lunch she took something and had a drink. (This was confessed to her sister later .) I don't know why Courtney would think no one would notice when she was staggering about. And, why would Courtney think it was alright to ask the receptionist to pour her a drink of wine (kept for clients, of course) and not let anyone know. Toward the end of the day Courtney's father called her back to his office and made her give him her car keys. The car is in his name and HE makes the payments. This did not go over well and she was offended that he would take back HER car -- how would she get to work? Certain drugs make Courtney manic and it isn't pretty. She gets VERY UGLY and when her father drove her home, the ride to her apartment was not fun. The nasty phone calls I received from her during that ride were not fun for me either. Courtney has said "fuck you" more times than anyone on earth.

Where has all this anger has come from?? Self esteem issues to be sure are one thing but there has to be something else. I guess her anger towards me could stem from the fact that I HATE her boyfriend and she knows it. The result of her relapse that day resulted in her losing her job that she loved. A few days later she called the senior partner and cried and begged for another chance. He told her as long as she was associating with a criminal like Dopey she could not work there. He told her he would not go against her father.