Yarghh!

As feared, there is pretty significant backsliding. Now he no longer believes he's an addict. Saturday was hard and ended pretty badly with him saying he loves us but holds us responsible for derailing his life and his romance. He say he wants to return home long enough to get a job, save money and move away and be done with us, at least for a while

He balked at the parameters we laid down (clean room, wash dishes, clean and sober, no Kat) He says we're treating him like a child. I tried to point out, no this is how adults live.

He has never down well with unstructured time and he has no plans at the moment. Andrew suggested a certificate program in music recording he could do at SFSU starting the fall, but he's not too hot on that.

I went to an Al-Anon meeting today. Cathartic but not especially helpful.
It's Monday today. He's due out Friday morning and we still have no firm exit scenario. We are willing to drive up for a meeting with their staff to help the three of us come to a solution for the time being. Wish he were willing to try to live in an SLE (Sober Living Environment.) There's one walking distance from here and he knows someone who's going in there this week.....

Not Yet Dead

(Monty Python/ Spamalot quote)

Just reread my last posting and realized there is oh so much more drama now. I think everyone who follows this sporadic blog also saw my FB comments about Ian in rehab. If you want more details, I can email them to you in encapsulated letter form.

Let's assume then that you now know Ian completed one semester at Musicians Institute in Hollywood. He was living with a girl he met immediately before going down there. It was a highly codependent drug fueled relationship. Now he's back in NorCal in a 28 day program up in Santa Rosa. Last week he expressed gratitude to us for placing him there and getting him clean/ sober.

But now there is back sliding and I am worried.He says he wants to return home, get a job, (staying clean and sober while at home) and then get enough money to get his own place and then smoke weed again. This is against everything he is hearing from every professional in the addiction field. He still maintains that he's not an addict by some definitions.

I am naturally more pessimistic than Andrew. Wish it were otherwise, but it is what it is. I fear that he's going to get hooked up again the very bad drugs he was using.

In the mean time, Andrew has decided to give up booze. Some friends are asking me to question why I am going on the wagon. My reasons: 1) I have a tendency to overdo the drinking myself 2) it would be hard on Andrew if I still drank 3) keeping a clean and sober living environment for Ian when he's back here.

Last night I dreamed that I inadvertently drank champagne at a party --out of a Styrofoam glass to boot! It was amusing really. But I felt so bad that I had broken the agreement to remain sober.

Andrew has promised Ian to go to AA meetings together. In fact Andrew and I have gone to two so far up at the program in Santa Rosa. Andrew found one at the local kink place and he's attending tonight after work. Maybe he's hoping to find some potential play partner there...

Family situation

This time, it's Ian's turn to act irresponsibly. After getting all his app paperwork in for that music school, he bought a one-way ticket to Jersey without telling us, without a coat or boots, no phone charger. He won't say what this was about, but I suspect he wanted to show up on the doorstep of the girl he loves who was always going back to NY to return to school. She also got back together with her old girlfriend when she returned. Ian was staying with a guy he met through our neighbors who lives in NJ. He sounded pretty miserable when we finally got through to him, but a bit better yesterday. We bought him a return flight for today.....It's even more complicated than this, but I don't want to go into everything here....

Some good news: the school - Musicians Institute (without an apostrophe - yikes! - are they illiterate?) sounded quite impressed with his application. The next step is them FedExing him an at home test and audition instructions. But once received, he needs to return post it to them within one week. So I asked MI to hold off sending that until we call them.

Weekday Update

Things here are stabilizing some. A is notably down and there have been stressful times with all three of us. (Younger son really gets uncomfortable when A and I argue. I mean, *really* uncomfortable. I never remember getting that freaked out when my parents fought. And it's not like it's ever coming to blows or anything violent or even loud.)
But overall, it's okay.

I have been working very diligently on the apt. It's almost ready for the new tenants who are moving in this weekend. I think I sort of needed to prove something by doing a very good job. Especially with the uncertainty about getting paid work.

Am thinking that I will start back in retail. Ironically, I was very ready to get out of retail back when I was in management after college. (Maybe 5 yrs worth). It never felt like real work somehow. And it doesn't pay well.

Precipice

Turns out A has been harboring resentment for all the travel I did this summer. Other areas of resentment were building as well and this all culminated last Friday into the proclamation that I need to return to the working for a paycheck world. Ian is looking into private school to complete his bachelor's degree (audio engineering and guitar). So additional income will no doubt be helpful.

Now, A told me this by phone which felt rather like a bomb had been dropped on me. I have not held a regular type job since 1987 - aside from the part time fundraising I did for the boys' school a few years ago. Well, and the carpentry I dabbled in and do not want to do again, thankyouverymuch.

To make a sordid story a bit more contained, we ended the night with A proclaiming he wanted a divorce. There was other stuff going on around here and both of us had been drinking -- more than usual. A long night and many tears and phone convos and two baths and sleeping in the guest bed followed. In the morning, he had changed his mind and we found some more solid footing.

He still wants me to get a job. This is back burnered right now because I am readying the downstairs unit for our new tenants who will move in Nov 1. They have a dog so the first thing I've done was repairing both fences. There is stuff to do which will take me the biggest part of this month both inside the unit and outside downstairs and in the garden/ patio.

But what do I want to do for paid work?!

This feels huge. I have been so long out of 'the workplace' that I feel overwhelmed. It's not that I lack confidence or even skills. I know lots of stuff and truly believe I'm capable of holding down a job. But what field? Who'd hire me when there are so many others out looking? And can I make enough money to make it worthwhile?

Yikes!

Cha-cha-cha-cha-cha-cha-changes!

After more than five years living in our street level flat, K is moving down the street. She found a small house to rent and will share it with a long term friend of hers. There is little doubt that she is fed up with being surrounded by our energy, noise, etc. We believe we are thoughtful neighbors, rarely having late nights, loud noises, etc. But this house was not built like an apartment building and every day noises travel downwards. My washing machine drives her crazy, for instance. Apparently she had mentioned before that we seem to slam our back door and it rattles her dishes. (The door used to be hard to close and we all tend to be firm with it to be sure; otherwise it blows open.) Et cetera, etc, etc.

All kinds of issues come up with this, not the least of which is younger son's small business ventures which entail visitors arriving for short visits and test drives down on the lower deck. And the music he produces and or listens to many hours daily. He's actually very respectful of time limits and noise issues. But there are random people coming and going around here often. K is amazingly good about all of this and she gets along beautifully with both our sons.

But -

It will not be easy to find a simpatico new tenant. Andrew has shown the unit (still inhabited) to someone he works with and her husband. I don't think they were that interested. Personally, I feel it's too small for most couples. Ostensibly it could be billed as two bedrooms if the big room functioned as living room/ dining/ kitchen.

An ideal tenant would be one person with a job which occupies much of their time. Even better would be someone who listens to their own music or TV and isn't noise sensitive to ours. Again, I think we are relatively quiet but the house actually shakes when people come down the stairs, we use our washer and dryer fairly often (at decent times), we do entertain some.

Andrew's style as landlord is decidedly different from mine (and K's). He values being strictly business, I value being friends with my neighbors. K had problems with this and essentially stopped interacting with him a while ago. She and I get along fine and I actually think her moving down the street will improve our friendship some. She's a child psychologist which has been very useful around here with the changing family dynamics.

She moved in just as we were moving to the Bahamas. Older son was expected to be finishing high school with an adult living here. That did not go as planned. I ended up backing and forthing and eventually younger son also came back. Then Andrew returned. Then we remodeled the basement to regain a bedroom. Now the street level unit is completely surrounded by our family. She no longer feels comfortable using the hot tub or lower deck because our bedroom is right there. I have tried to assure her that's not an issue with us, because it truly isn't.

In many ways, the unit is more like an in-law than the legal separate flat that it is.

This is gonna be a sticky wicket. Ironically, Andrew doesn't seem at all fazed.

Money Woes

Not us per se. Dan. This last year he has shared a three bedroom apt with a slew of other students. Officially it was six ppl but my guess is on any given night there were 8 or 9 people. Dan is the oldest, found the place and took care to get the rent in, pay utilities, etc. The other kids were flaky for the most part. He is not comfortable as a disciplinarian or 'heavy'. In fact, one of the guys borrowed over $1000 from him pretty early on and left before the lease was up shorting out two months of rent plus what he already owed Dan. Another guy is a few months in arrears although it is supposedly coming next week when the student loans come in.

Dan has learned his lesson in that he now seems to get it that you don't loan money you can't easily kiss goodbye. "Neither borrower nor lender be", the motto at Bob's Bank (thanks, Garrison.)

Plus in general Dan is not a good money manager. Last time he was here Andrew took time to make him learn Quicken. So now he can keep better records. But Andrew and I are paying for everything and it's an expensive place. There is basically no way Dan could hold down a job and go to this school full time. Last week alone he spent over 50 hrs of active studio time and that is just for one class (out of two).

And then he totaled his car. We aren't replacing it. That's going to make things tougher for him but cheaper for all of us. He and his friend have found a cheaper one bdrm apt closer to the two campuses. Dan has a bike and his friend has a car and Dan can pitch in for gas when they do stuff together. (Brooks tells students they need a car because they are lugging big equipment around all over for assignments.)

I end up as intermediary between father and son. Son hates asking for money and father doesn't get that son can't live within a budget. When Andrew was a student, apparently he tracked every penny he spent! I feel that I wasn't very good at teaching responsible money handling to either kid, although Ian seems to manage okay. (Mind you, he's held down a job for over two years. He is quitting now because his school work load will get heavy in a few weeks.)