Hey Reddit, I am getting kicked out of my home as soon as I turn 18, all due to my horrible decision making. It's quite frankly surprising how badly I managed to fuck up my life at the ripe, young age of 17. To give you guys a quick recap of the past 4 years of my life, I have gone through 3 different rehab facilities, been suspended from school 3 times in total, and my most recent fuck up has been an expulsion. I can not, in good conscience, harbor any resentment towards my mother for choosing to abandon her child. I have been nothing but a nuisance and am constantly burdening her with my relentless issues and problems, all of which are drug related.
I am now in the process of figuring out what I want to do with my life. My mom and stepfather have concluded that I can no longer continue staying at our home and are currently searching for a residential program to enroll me in. I'm being told to start making plans for what I shall do once I'm released from the program. In all honesty, I can't even begin to imagine how I'd financially support myself when I haven't even received a diploma yet. Despite being an honor roll student through out most of my high school career, I'm quite far from receiving my diploma due to a lot of missing credits from multiple rehab stints and lots of absences. I'm not the least ready to become self sufficient at this point of my life at this moment nor will I in 8 months from now. I began brainstorming and here are some viable options that came to mind so far.
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I could enlist in the army. If perhaps, I manage to obtain my diploma in the residential program (or GED) and I meet majority of requirements. It'll also serve as a good opportunity to become more disciplined and I'd be pretty isolated from drugs or at least in the first couple months. I'm not very certain if I could work the 12 steps from the army to its full potential but I can definitely make an attempt to do so. I'll also be earning a considerable amount of money as I'm going through basic training and if I choose to progress farther in rank, it'll accumulate into a substantial amount which can be very convenient once I'm discharged and in search of a place to stay.
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I could apply and start living in a half way house. A half way house is a sober living home, in which you live with multiple people, all of which suffer from substance abuse issues. You are required to go to meetings and work the steps, are drug tested weekly and must have some sort of a job in order to pay the weekly rent of 115-200$. Although I'm not quite sure what to expect from a place such as this, it all depends on what sort of community resides in each one. I'd say it's mostly a hit or miss and it might take a while to find the right one with the right support network. I might be able to take online college courses as well which I may be able to convince my parents to pay for with the promise of reimbursing them later on. But again, I feel like living in a home surrounded by struggling addicts might not be the best way to go. If for instance, I come there one day and walk in on someone getting high, who's to say I wouldn't succumb to the temptation. It's pretty risky but then again, I'm not very familiar with all the aspects of these places so I may just be projecting the wrong image of these homes.
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I move back to Russia and live with my grandmother who could provide an okay paying job and a home for me. All of my relatives besides my mother are currently living in Russia and I lived there myself up to the age of 11. It'll be very depressing however having to go back. It's frankly very sad having arrived here, so excited to enter the land of freedom and opportunity, and returning so broken and miserable. However, if my drug use persists (which in all likelihood, it will without proper work), the drugs in Russia are far more dangerous and deadly than they are here. If I begin meddling with heroin and crokodil and spice, I doubt I'll live to see past 20.
So far these are my most viable options, any suggestions are welcomed. The most significant component of all these scenarios is that I maintain sobriety which I hope I manage to attain. I still can't believe that my life has come to this point but there's no use dwelling on the past nor do I have time for remorse. I must come to a conclusion because once I turn 18, I'm practically left to fend off whatever may come my way by myself and all I can do at the moment is prepare for it. All criticism is welcome, I'm looking for any and all help guys. Thanks for reading and please let me know what your thoughts are.
Submitted January 16, 2018 at 08:54AM by ldamien65 http://ift.tt/2DkftGL
