I got the new clothes together and brought them up to Ironwood. Everything from ASR was now there and ready for me to bring home. There was stuff there that was not even ours. I have no idea who it belonged to, but I brought it home as Ironwood would not allow me to leave it there.
I again wrote letters. Although she did not write back, within a month I had my first contact with her. With this program, I could Skype with her. It was great to be able to see her every week. She would let me know what she was working on and how she felt things were going. At the end of the second month, she asked me if she could be moved to another school. She said Ironwood was not going to do anything for her. She knew what she had to do as she had been through it before at Elan. I asked her what she wanted to do. She said some of the kids from Elan and her coach from Elan were all at Hyde School and she wanted to go there. I told her I would think about it and let her know the next week when we talked. She was not happy with me.
I spoke to my daughter's counselor and the administration of the program. I spoke to one of my daughter's former counselors and my Mom. Ironwood said my daughter was at the second level of the program and if I took her out even for a day, she would not be able to come back. They told me she needed to make it to the third level in order to leave campus . Being at the third level of this program allowed more privileges. I spoke to the administration at Hyde and they told me she had to go through an interview process, before she could be accepted.
At our next Skype meeting, I told her if she could make it to the third level by the end of the next month, I would make an appointment with Hyde. I explained to her about how she could not leave campus while she was at level 2. She said she would work hard to get to level 3. We then talked about how there was a family weekend coming up the next weekend. We were headed up Saturday and Sunday. She told me about the different activities going on and we both got excited for the weekend to come.
The family weekend finally came. We had not seen our daughter since June 1st and it was now Sept 3rd. We got there at 8:00 am and had a meeting with the administration to go over what was going to be happening over the next couple of days. Once that meeting was done we could go find our children. She looked so good. It was just incredible to see her again. Her father, sister and I all took turns hugging her. She showed us around campus and then we found a spot by the water to just sit and talk.
About 11:00, we went to an activity and then we had our first family counseling session. Again, one of the first things she had to do when she got to this program was to write a guilt letter. This time she had only been home two months before heading off to another program, so I did not feel there was much that could have happened. I was wrong. I did not realize how much could be done in sixty days. She had told us how she partied, smoked pot and how she only passed out five or six times. We talked about the letter when she was done. I told her how unhappy I was about her drinking to the point of pass out stage. She thought she had done really well. She only passed out five or six times. It was way less than before she was sent to Elan. She was proud of herself. She couldn't understand why I was not happy about it. Needless to say, we did not end up working this out at this meeting. We talked about her progress since she had come to Ironwood and then we went off to have lunch.
After lunch, we had a couple more activities and then a recap meeting with all of the families together. The staff asked how everyone thought the day went and then they told us what to expect for the next day. It was time to say good-bye. I was not feeling good about the day. I felt maybe it might be a good idea if I do not come tomorrow. I did not want there to be a whole lot of tension between all of us. My daughter evidently picked up on that or maybe she is more like me than I thought. We were saying our good-byes and she looked right at me and said she did not want me to come back tomorrow. I did not say anything. She said if her Dad and sister wanted to come back they could, but she did not want me there. Her Dad piped up and said, '"Your mother will be here tomorrow". She stood there for a moment and then we all got in the car and brought her back to her cabin.
Again, we said our good-byes. She looked at me and asked if we could talk. I said sure, so we went for a walk. She asked me why I could not be happy about the drinking. She said this place was not going to change anything. She was going to drink and smoke and I would just have to get used to it. It was her life. I told her, I saw these footprints in the ground made by her father. I told her I saw her stepping into each one of them and I did not want that for her. We both started to cry I told her, I felt it was our fault. We gave her these genes and she had to live with them. I told her I saw this pattern that went from her great grandmother, down to her grandfather, down to her father and now to her. I told her how sorry I was to do that to her. I told her I only wanted her to have a better life than they did. I did not want that kind of life for her. She said she did not realize that was why I had done what I had done with the programs. We cried and hugged for a while. She said she understood and we promised each other we would try harder and to always talk to each other. I told her she could trust me with anything. I told her I would always be there for her no matter what.
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