
Day One: "You cannot even imagine how good it feels to be able to see your son approach you, and know for the first time in years, he's not on drugs," says Doug.
"I felt like he was finally letting us back into his space a little bit," says Debbie. "We went to a movie, and it was exciting to see him laugh, and the three of us to laugh together. It's been a long, long time since we've experienced that."
While they were there, Doug and Debbie listened to a discussion about addiction. Debbie says it was liberating to hear that it wasn't her fault.

However, Debbie still senses that Brandon wants to use because of a comment he made about being in treatment only because they wanted him there. "It made me feel as though he were rejecting us," says Debbie.
"Those are the kind of comments that frustrate me," says Doug. "You just want to take him by the shoulders and shake him and reiterate how much you love him and how important this is."
Day Three: "Today didn't go as well as we hoped it would," says Doug. Although the statistics say otherwise, Brandon thinks he can do this on his own. "I shed some tears of hope over the last two days," says Doug, "and I guess the day ended with really a slap back to reality."
"It was just a really tough day," says Debbie, getting emotional. "It would be so nice if it were the end, that we knew he could go back out into the world. But this is a disease of a lifetime and it's not corrected in 30 days. It's corrected over a lifetime," she says.



He tells Doug and Debbie that it's time to raise the stakes with Brandon. He tells them to get in contact with their lawyer and have a court order delivered to Brandon the following day that tells him he has to appear before a judge the morning of his discharge from the treatment center. "He needs to understand that all of a sudden the judge wants to see him. And he's going to see all these statements from these people [he's been abusive to] at the treatment center. I think it's time to just play more hardball with him and I would do it while he is still in the treatment facility," says Dr. Phil.