Teen On The Road To Recovery
During the past few days we watched an 18-year-old girl face her addiction to drugs and alcohol. We watched her family pull together and arrange a professional intervention.
Next, we watched as Jennifer Jicka bravely climbed into a car and was taken to an airport where she flew across the country to a treatment center.
CBS national correspondent Tracy Smith has walked through this extraordinary process with the Jicka family. In the final part of "Jennifer's Story," go inside rehab as Jennifer takes the first step in her recovery.
"I finally said, 'Hi. My name is Jenny. I'm an addict.'"
In the time-honored 12-step program of recovery, step one is owning up to addiction and the damage it's caused.
"My family lost trust in me, they have no trust whatsoever ... at all," Jennifer told the group.
The 18-year-old agreed to come to this rehab called Solutions4Recovery after her family arranged an intervention.
"God, I was so messed up. I feel horrible now," Jennifer said.
Though the work is painful, Jennifer's learning to talk honestly about her addiction and is finding ways to get through life without drugs and alcohol.
What was going through her mind those first few days at the treatment center?
"A lot of denial at first," she said. "I don't belong here. I don't deserve to be here. What'd I do? And then I kind of realized that I was really screwing up, really bad."
Jennifer was taking between 20 and 30 milligrams of the anti-anxiety drug Xanax a day and drinking alcohol.
"I didn't realize, actually, how many I was taking because I would just have a bag of them," she said. "I would just go in my purse in the middle of work and just pop one, pop another one. Someone would aggravate me and I'd pop another one.
"I'm happier that I'm not a constant zombie anymore," she said. "I can feel emotions. I can feel sadness — it hurts. But I can also feel happy."
Like most people in rehab, Jennifer started to feel better physically as the drugs slowly left her system. It is a feeling that is easily confused with being cured.
"What happens sometimes when they're so young, they get here, and they want to accelerate everything. In 10, 15 days, they think they're well and it's time to go," counselor Patty Bell said. "If she went home, I believe, all the behaviors and the situations that she had put herself in, she'd go back to the same thing."
In fact, the healing process, which is an emotional rollercoaster, is only just beginning.
Jennifer's gone through alternating states of elation and rage — much of it aimed at her parents
"She was so manipulative and would call me while George was at work (saying) 'I'm coming home. I got a ticket. I'm getting out of here.' Oh, she was so angry and nasty and mean," said Dorothy Jicka, Jennifer's mom.
Bell agrees and says, "she's very manipulative and that's part of her disease of addiction."
Finally, after many sleepless nights, Jennifer's dad put his foot down.
"If you make the decision to leave there, I said, you don't need to be bothered with us anymore," he said.
"When he said that to me, it really got to me, you know," Jennifer said. "It made me realize to the fullest that I must have a really bad problem if my father's saying that to me."
In the end, Jennifer decided to stick it out. She ended up staying at the treatment center for more than 50 days.
"I gave up," she said. "I can't be stubborn for the rest of my life. If I need help, I need to get it."
George said the hardest part of the ordeal "is having her come home."
"Well, you know, you got to a point after she stayed there for several weeks and the time started passing," George said during a visit with his family to The Early Show. "You started to feel more comfortable that she was in a safe environment with people that she was getting to know who had similar problems — that she was doing well there. It was almost like she was in the safety zone at that point. You didn't want her to really leave."
Dorothy said things were not so easy at first, but are getting better.
"Well, the first two weeks I think were really difficult for all of us," Dorothy said. "Everybody was walking on eggs and really scared to say anything or react to anything. But as time has gone on, I think Jennifer has become a little more stable. We've become more stable dealing with her and the problems that we've incurred and the family dynamics. She also goes to therapy. We have a good therapist."
Jennifer says it's "been kind of hard" since leaving rehab.
"It's good. I'm a lot happier. Sometimes I wish I was back there," she said. "It was a bubble for me. Real easy, you know. Everybody has the same problem I did."
How does she feel toward her parents and their intervention?
"I could never thank them enough," Jennifer said." I got a lot of things back that I lost. My friends, my family and my sanity. I was in — I don't know. It just wasn't working out for me anymore."
With a long road ahead of her, Jennifer says she is dealing with her sobriety one day at a time.
Smith witnessed first-hand what this family went through.
"From the moment I walked into your lives you were so honest with me about the pain you were going through," she said. "All those emotions came out — the rage, the guilt, the frustration. But, above it all, there was so much love. That was so obvious."
Also obvious are the changes she now sees in Jennifer.
"Now I feel like you're being more honest with these guys and with me, too," Smith said.
Jennifer says she no longer has suicidal thoughts.
"I have a new Jenny back," Dorothy said. "And I think it's better and it's more honest. And I think it's a learning experience for all of us. You know, if the family dynamics need to change — there are things that go on in the family and how we interact with each other that is not good."
Where would Jennifer be today without the intervention?
"I have no idea," she said. "Probably — I probably would have completely stopped talking to my parents."
Because the family agreed to make their story public and help others in the process, Solutions4Recovery agreed to treat Jennifer at no charge.