A Mother’s Journey: Finding Hope When My Daughter Went to Rehab

For Judith, the hardest part wasn’t just getting her daughter into rehab – it was nearly losing her twice along the way. Lucy, a 38-year-old mother of two young children, had been spiralling for over a year, drinking up to four litres of alcohol a day and hiding it well. Then came the day Judith found her unconscious and barely breathing – a moment no parent should ever have to face.

Finding a lifeline without the wait time at The Sydney Retreat

We knew things were really bad and we knew we needed to get her help. We tried to get her into the public system but they were absolutely useless. The best they did was admit her to hospital for a minimum stay of 24-hours, but they released her after six hours.

Our GP was doing a lot of counselling with us and referred us to one place but they had a three month waiting list and Lucy wasn’t really ready to commit – they wouldn’t take our word for it, so that fell through.

When we started to look for places, I didn’t think we’d be able to afford anything – I thought we would be look at $1,000 a day and we had heard stories of people going in and out of rehab and nothing worked – we thought it would be a long road.

I first heard about The Sydney Retreat on the radio – my husband called and spoke with Sharon. When I heard it was around $11,000 for their 28 day program, I really couldn’t believe it was so cheap. It was worth every cent of it and more.

In the four days between that first phone call and Lucy being admitted, the team at The Sydney Retreat were so good with her. She spoke with Toby and Will a couple of times– they were really reassuring and helpful.

The heartbreak of letting go and trusting the program

I didn’t really know what The Sydney Retreat program was and dropping Lucy off at rehab wasn’t really a relief. We had no experience whatsoever in this area and I felt terrible. I knew she was going to be looked after for 28 days but I felt totally isolated and didn’t know what was going on.

Because the program was voluntary, I expected a phone call asking us to come and pick her up… but it didn’t come.

My expectations were that she would go to rehab and they would tell us what we have to do to help her – but it wasn’t the case. Any of the staff that I spoke to said that we can’t tell her what to do … it’s up to her.

We came in every Sunday to see her and it was great to see her getting stronger each time we visited. We went to the Family Group meetings there – they were strange – I thought they would tell us what to do but it didn’t happen.

Living in freedom from addiction

It was up in the air about how Lucy was going to cope when she returned home but

whatever they did at The Sydney Retreat has really helped her. I don’t know what they did but they put her on the straight and narrow from the get-go. She regularly goes to The Breakfast Club and has three friends from her time there that she is still close with – one of them is about to celebrate her 1 year sobriety milestone.

Since graduating from the program, she has had a lot of challenges and there were a few times she could have gone back to drinking but she didn’t. She has her self-esteem back and she’s back to her old self again and it’s great.

As a mother, I still worry about her if she doesn’t answer the phone… that terrible anxiety is still there even though she is doing great and is strong… but it is still early days and I hope in time it will pass.