Saving Jenny by Vivian Percy

Author:Vivian Percy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: PSY038000 Psychology / Psychopathology / Addiction, OCC011020 Body, Mind & Spirit / Healing / Prayer & Spiritual, SEL013000 Self-help / Substance Abuse & Addictions / Drugs
Publisher: Radius Book Group
Published: 2018-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

FALLING FROM ROCKY CLIFFS

Rocky Cliffs (which has less-than-minimal one-on-one therapy but is full of groups) at first seems to be a helpful drug addiction center, and I am grateful that Jenny has been admitted. Although within a few days’ time I can sense that Rocky Cliffs is an equal-opportunity exploiter, I initially accept this because I reason that one-sixteenth of a loaf is better than none.

In the first week, during our parents’ group meeting in a small, windowless room, the rehab team leader tells us parents that our (adult) children are not well because “our children have not yet reached rock bottom” because we parents are “enablers” who have not permitted our children to reach “rock bottom.” I would like to know what their “rock bottom” is, because I have a feeling that Jenny has been there and back a couple of times. I would like them to explain and illustrate what reaching rock bottom is like, how it leads to recovery, and what a parent should do or not do. When asked, their reply is only, “That is personal for every person, and some addicts never get it” (whatever “it” means).

The group leader then states, in response to a question from one parent, that the relapse rate for our children, after rehab, “is 99 percent” (So why are we here?), but “We [parents] did not cause it, we cannot control it, and we cannot cure it.” (Again, if that is true, then what are we doing here?) I am not willing to give in to this hopeless statistic and their useless slogan, so I tell the moderator that what the rehab is really telling us is that it comes down to our quality of life versus the lives of our children—“us or them.” One woman pipes up and repeats the worn-out bromide “Well, you have to put the oxygen mask on yourself first, don’t you?” Ironically, she is the new stepmother of a young woman attending Rocky Cliffs, and she is attempting to get the biological father to turn his back on his heroin-addicted daughter—and as quickly as possible. The team leader encourages applause for the hackneyed airplane analogy. However, another family nods at me with eyes wide open and recounts how one set of parents with a son who used heroin told him they were “not going to enable him anymore, and he had to leave,” whereupon this young man went down the hall, filled with despair, and hung himself. “He was a beautiful boy, a wonderful boy,” they say. Yes, and this was another death engineered by the false rubrics of the rehab mill. The ultimate craziness is that one of their addiction counselors, according to Jenny, tells them that at times suicide makes sense and is justified. Oh, ain’t that just great?

Despite my exposure to the disingenuousness of Rocky Cliffs, I am still shocked and surprised when Jenny is unceremoniously dumped at the two-week mark even though Rocky Cliffs had told me that our insurance would cover her for a thirty-day stay in their facility.

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