No, Handsome hasn’t relapsed. Yes, he is still sober (2 years next week) but he is … stuck. He goes to his meetings and he makes all of his appointments. Intellectually he knows what he needs to work on and how to go about working on it. He just can’t seem to bring himself to actually DO much. His emotional regulation is still crap. He has a decent pool of resources to rely on, but when his ship is sinking he is unable (unwilling?) to reach out to anyone or to do much of anything about it. He simply can’t bring himself to call on anyone for help when he needs it and yet he remains utterly unable to right his own ship.
Both our CSAT and Doc 2 have strongly suggested that he attend a 30+ day inpatient rehab where he can focus on family of origin issues, traumas, and other things and where he could hopefully develop the emotional regulation skills he so desperately needs. I believe that for proximity issues alone, they’re pointing him towards KeyStone Center outside of Philadelphia. I hear that Russell Brand did a stint there. He writes fondly of his recovery but less so of the facility. Also, rather than staff physicians and counselors they use an “independent contractor” model which seems a bit sketchy to me.
Handsome can go anywhere in the country. He isn’t stuck on the East coast. If you or your partner have insight on any inpatient rehab programs, whether positive or negative, please share them. We originally connected with Dr. Minwalla through relationships built here in the blogosphere (and he was an absolutely fabulous asset early on in Handsome’s recovery), so I value and appreciate any recommendations or criticisms you may have for any facility. Information would be particularly helpful on the program broadly (particularly substance versus fluff), duration, family involvement (if any), and insight on whether sex addiction is truly a specialty or area of expertise. It seems that there are a number of facilities that profess expertise in sex addition when they actually have little training or meaningful experience in that area.
It’s not a sure thing that Handsome will be going, but I’m type A enough to try to get some ducks in a row just in case it actually happens. As always, I thank you all for any assistance you can provide.