20 year-old son coming home from rehab

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Carrielv
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20 year-old son coming home from rehab

 Hello, 

 Our son is currently in a rehabilitation program and will be there for 4 to 6 weeks. He is there for attempted suicide, depression, anxiety substance abuse and gaming addiction. 

 Because of his suicidal thoughts/attempt and our family situation (4 other younger children), We did not actively confront the gaming before he entered the rehabilitation center. 

Our son is extremely bright has some hoarding tendencies and anxiety seems to drive the depression.  He has always struggled with identity  and feelings of inferiority. 

 During his early childhood and all the way through his teenage years, he would take up hobbies and sports to the point of perseveration.  But when he did not excel at something or master it quickly enough he would drop it like a bad habit,  and move on to something else. Each time needing to have the best equipment and the best knowledge. Gaming is the one thing that has stuck. Although, he will change the games he plays, it is clear that he has found a community and claims this is the only thing that makes him happy. Tinkering with the equipment and constantly changing and getting bored of his current equipment is another thing that is clearly a major part of his gaming experience.

We have sought help from counselors and psychiatrists throughout his childhood and teen years only to get misdiagnosed, improper medicines and terrible counseling. We tried several. He does have a therapist to go to when he gets out, but it does not seem like he is being completely honest with her.

 Now that you know a little bit about him and our situation, I would like to get some advice on his coming home from rehab. 

Clearly, his computers need to be gone,  but the rest the family does need Internet. 

 Currently, he lives in a bedroom on the lowest level of the house. It is difficult to keep an eye on him, But rearranging everyone else’s living situation, especially considering the other children do not wish to live down there ( and there are many outdoor access points) seems difficult.

Here are some questions:

1) Are changing the Internet password, removing all his computers and keeping the remaining laptops in our  bedroom enough measures to prevent gaming?

2) how important is it to completely change  where his room is located? 

 3)Has anyone  had success with a psychiatric service dog? He does very well with dogs and I think he would enjoy training his own service dog within a program.

4) He is not In school nor does he have a job? How have parents been successful in getting their adult children to come up with  A fulfilling schedule after rehab?

5)Are there support groups specifically that meet face-to-face for people in the Atlanta area?

 

Thank you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Polga
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Joined: 02/17/2014 - 11:33am
Welcome Carrie

Welcome Carrie

Some things you have said about your son remind me of my son.

The best advice I can give you is to keep coming back and read the experiences of others and make that informaion part of you so you can feel more in control of what you think is the best thing to do.

You do not specifically  say if he now thinks that gaming contributes to his problems in any way. This will have a huge impact on how things play out.

i can give you a few pointers

1) It's a good start. It depends on your system and if he will still have a smart phone which can still feed the addiction. He may try to smuggle in stuff that you do not know about.

2) Hard to say. Would removing his bedroom door make things easier to check on him ? I have heard people doing that with addicts in the home. Addicts tend to isolate so anything that will get him in to spend time with others is good. Could someone share with him ? Or could others share rooms in the short term?

3) Sounds like a good idea. He is going to need access to healthy ways to spend time. He may like some control about chosing what he wants to do.

4) He may be quite low to start with. You may need to give him some slack as he adjusts; Just have very basic ground rules to begin with. We cannot make them do stuff they do not want to do, unless we are prepared to give an ultimatum of "my way or the highway".

5) Some addicts find groups such as GA, NA or AA helpful; but is he going to want to attend those?? If he is in denial about gaming then I can't see it helping...although if he has substance abuse problems then NA would be relevant to that. You can check for meetings in your area from their websites.

We cannot cure there addiction for them. All we can do is stop enabling them in our home by putting the right boundaries in place and then being there for support if they require it. Once you have done that, try to step back from worrying and trying to control the uncontrollable, which is up to him.

If he is not in denial, you could see if a programme like reSTART have is going to help him. It is expensive.

Also you may want to think about the effect this is having on the rest of your family. They have needs too. If he behaviour is difficult/extreme then you may have to consider his future in your home to protect them.

Please let us know how it goes and what 'helps'. Thank you !

INFO

Help for gamers here

Help for parents of gamers here

Help for spouses/SO's of gamers here

Parent's online meeting THURSDAY 9pmEST/EDT click here

Online meetings gaming addicts click here

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