A Mother's Testimonial: Michelle's Experience with VRC
Michelle brought her son to us for help and he has never looked back. Now he has new friends and a new outlook on life.
I got the recommendation for Ventura Recovery Center. The person on the phone was extremely kind, listened, was compassionate. He told me how they’d take care of my son…that he would be detoxed and everyone would be watching him all the way through the process. He would be well taken care of.
When he was using drugs, my son had almost a blank look on his face. He was not even there. I would ask him questions and he would answer, but he was just in another place. I couldn’t reach him.
He escalated to using heroin and he was using needles. He wasn’t doing that before, but after a couple of months he started doing it (injecting heroin.) I think it was because he was bored or he changed jobs. When I realized that was what he was doing, a death came over me like,”Oh my God! I’ve got to deal with this again.”
We went to a relative’s house for a party. All our family was there. He got to the party and disappeared. I got this bad feeling. I went upstairs looking for him and I found him in the bathroom. It just killed me. I didn’t know what to do. I thought I was going to pass out.
So I went downstairs and I had this white sheet on my face and my husband looked at me and he knew. He said, “What’s wrong?”
I said,” It’s Spencer. We’ve got to get him out of here.”
The next day was Christmas Eve. Christmas Day was not great. We caught him using drugs on Christmas Day. We were trying to open presents and we caught him using. It was just terrible.
It was difficult getting him to go, but the person on the phone at Ventura Recovery Center even talked to my son.. He explained to him what treatment would be like and how everyone there was kind and compassionate. He could sleep if he wanted to.
He went into drug treatment at Ventura Recovery Center and he hasn’t looked back. It has made me so grateful. He has made a lot of friends. He has people in the program that he respects and has even said that he has friendships that he’ll probably have for the rest of his life. I am so happy.
Now we can move on with our lives and sleep soundly knowing he is in a better place. He’s well taken care of. I don’t have any worry at night that he’s not in his bed or he’s out using drugs.
I know that he’s happy. I think that’s the biggest thing when we got him into treatment. We felt comfortable with him being watched and well taken care of.
Thanks to the staff at Ventura Recovery Center. The doctors, the counselors, even the patients themselves talk about what a great place it is. They say, “Oh, I love it here.”