How is your child doing today?

Today Jack is doing great. All I have to go on is what he says. But he sounds good. He and another young man who is in the sober living house with him have started their own business, with no coaching from us at all. They had their first paid gig this week. He still needs to find a regular job where he is held accountable and goes in on a daily basis. Jack FaceTimed me yesterday. He’s good. He’s still mad. But he’ll get over it.

My son is over a year in solid recovery. He used Vivitrol injections for six or seven months this time around and then decided he wanted to try recovery on his own with no more medication. He’s doing well now. He is starting his own business. He has a girlfriend, two cats and a dog and he’s trying to make everything on his own. Struggling still. It’s very hard to find a job when you have a criminal record, whether you deserved it or not. My daughter is freshly out of 120 days in recovery facilities. She spent a month in a recovery facility in Michigan a couple of years ago and that didn’t hold. We’re still fresh into recovery for her. We’re very hopeful, but we’re always hopeful. She wants to get her children back and that’s her main drive to remain in recovery. Her children currently live with me. We started helping her with the care of her children many years ago. She also has a criminal record and her son was in CPS back when he was 6 years old and then again starting in 2016. We have both children now since 2016 on and off, but mostly on. When my daughter got very sick this last fall, we took over the care completely and wouldn’t let her see them until she got into a treatment program. Her son is 12 1/2 and her daughter is 4.

Well, he passed away June 9th 2012.

Fantastic. We had a point when we saw where the rubber really hit the road and she did great. She works full-time in an office and part-time on weekends at a drug and alcohol-free social club. She fell in love with a gentleman there, got engaged. He was in recovery for crystal meth. He broke it off a few months before the wedding. I’ve got to think that he realized he couldn’t do it and just ended it. For us, that was a time to find out how our daughter was going to handle it. Now you’ve got the rug pulled out from underneath you … will you go back to old patterns? She didn’t. She rose strong, for which I am incredibly proud of her.

Right now Riley is just amazing and she’s a whole new person. She has a positive outlook. But she’s incarcerated. Hopefully, when she gets out she’ll keep that good outlook and keep her head on straight. And Bailey, she’s fighting the fight with all her might. You know, it’s a daily thing for her. She’s been getting in an average of nine meetings a week and she’s got a great sponsor that she’s close with. She’s surrounding herself with good people. When she witnesses somebody abusing something, she knows to get away. She walks away from it. So I’m pretty hopeful for her, again.

Travis: Tyler overdosed and died on September 28, 2014.

Wayne – Tyler overdosed and died in 2011.