Now where Aspen Achievement Academy is going to be merged into another program here is reflexions from parents about the stay their children had at the wilderness program
From a webpage called
Nothing but love:
DON'T ASK IF YOU DON'T WANT MY ANSWER
we were tired last night and in bed and asleep very early. shortly after 9, the phone rang. she asked for me. it was a lady who was considering sending her 16 year old to aspen achievement academy. aspen had given her my name as a parent reference.
i rambled not very cohesively for well over a half hour. and i gave her jackson’s web site link. i hope she looked at it. i’ve been thinking about the call all day and thought i might be able to speak more coherently here.
aspen achievement academy is a treatment facility for troubled teens. these troubles range from defiance and oppositional behavior all the way to severe addiction. honestly, i can only speak about what aspen meant to jackson (in MY view) as a drug addict.
the strangest thing about jackson (before aspen and sobriety) is that we had NO problems with defiance, disrespect, and general oppositional behavior. i’m not going to tell you that everything was great with him except for that pesky little drug problem and the $8,000 he pretty much stole from us to feed it.
jackson (as a human, emotional, functional machine) pretty much stopped working properly soon after i was diagnosed with m.s. he was 9. it seemed to me that in a big way he stopped learning, stopped making friends, stopped functioning in his real world. this continued, and the disconnects led to bigger and bigger problems in school, and ultimately, i believe, led him to the comfort of mind-altering substances.
except for the stealing and lying that accompanied the drug using, jackson was respectful and loving. i’m laughing (snorting) at that last sentence, too. if i said be home at 10, he was home at 10. if we said no, he said ok. weird, huh?
so when we finally found out what was going on, and made the decision to send him for treatment, he made a small attempt to be a pain in the ass; but jackson was jackson. he knew he needed help, he knew he wanted to be a better person, he knew it was up to him to use the opportunity. so, bottom line is that we were so far ahead of the game there.
so, for jackson, aspen was great. it gave him 7 weeks to sober up, 7 weeks to learn about himself, 7 weeks to see a glimpse of what he COULD be. aspen didn’t cure jackson. i don’t think aspen can cure anybody. aspen is about showing the kid a small piece of his own power to cure himself.
don’t get me wrong here. the kid cannot do it himself. if he comes home and right back to the life he WAS leading (same friends, same shit), it’s only a matter of time before he’s right back to where he started. i’ve told these parents who call me that it takes 100 percent commitment. every minute of the kid’s day must be supervised. if that means home schooling, and you can do it, you must do it. if you can’t, you have to find a place and person who will do this for you. i don’t know what this means. for us it was home schooling, with bill working out of the house, jackson accompanying him EVERYWHERE. or dropping him off at my office. not easy. but what are your choices, really?
jackson told us he wanted to go back to school, we found a school for him to attend; but two weeks before classes started, he told us that as much as he wanted to be with other kids and live the life of a normal kid, he realized he just couldn’t go to school. that for him it would be like spending 5 days a week in a bar. i’ve repeated this to people who’ve laughed derisively at the thought that a school is like an open bar. fine. ignore what he’s trying to say.
so my advice is this: send him. but be prepared for the real work to start when he comes home. if you don’t have the stomach for THAT, don’t waste your money.
every single kid that jackson kept in touch with went back to same old friends, etc. every single one relapsed.
Posted by Stacey at February 3, 2004 03:43 PM
