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Dennis came home at about 3 pm and he seemed perfectly normal, I dont know what I expected. He said he had been to see some mates but I was dubious but gave him the benefit of the doubt. I told him he had an appointment at the Doctors at 5.30pm and explained what Dr Green had said to me about a drug program and he seemed quite keen. Time will tell.

When he came back from the Doctors he seemed very keen and impressed and said he would try his best , also that Dr Green was going to come and see Mike and I after surgery so we could all be in the picture , our participation was vital as drug addicts are notorious for distorting the truth.

The children went up to their bedroom to play as I didnt want to discuss all this in their presence. Dr Green started by saying Dennis had only just started taking heroin and only took it occassionally so it would be easier to attempt to wean him off . He said it would take a lot of patience on our part as part of the treatment would be with anti-depressants. The Doctor gave Dennis his home telephone number in case he felt like going to score drugs so he could try and talk him out of it.

He said drug addicts are renowned for abusing even the drugs that were supposed to be helping their symptoms of withdrawal , he thought the close relationship Dennis and I had would help enormously. He arranged to see Dennis monday, wednesday and friday to help him keep on the right track with counselling.

After Dr Green had left Dennis said he thought he could do it and would try his utmost with Dr Green and our help. Things were going well Dennis kept his appointments and occasionally took more tablets than he should have but on the whole things were going well.

This went on for a month and Dr Green was really pleased with him and suggested he should try and get a job to keep him occupied as too much time on his hands could be detrimental. Fate must have stepped in as that very evening there was a job in the local paper for a shop assisstant at a toy and model shop in Hemel Town Centre and Dennis said he really fancied that as he was still a big kid at heart. My children absolutely adored him.

He was up bright and early put on his suit and off he went to the shop to see about the job. I wished him luck and hoped he would get lucky as this could be the making of him.

I was getting a bit worried as Dennis had been gone about 2 hours and doubts were creeping in my mind , had he gone to the town or had he skipped to London . I was really scared. Then there was a knock on the door and Dennis stood there with a huge smile on his face, he picked me up and spun around saying he had got the job there and then and had to start on the following monday it was now thursday. He had his appointment with Doctor Green on friday so he would have to sort out his appointments to fit in to his work hours. We both agreed that he should definitely carry on with the counselling as we all wanted this to work.

I wrote to my Mum and Dad and said we were all coming to see them on saturday as we had some good news for them. Up until now they didn't know about the counselling and how well it had worked so far........not counting our chickens its early days but any improvement would help them as I knew they felt guilty about sending him to us but we really didn't mind.