When I was married to a good man suffering from this disease, I went to the bookstore on a regular basis looking for books about how to help my husband get sober. What I found was tons of stories and memoirs about brave men and women who have struggled with addiction and found a way to get sober. But there were no stories about the women who loved them. So late one night when I was in the bookstore, I made a promise to God that if I ever found the answers, I would spend the rest of my life teaching other women.   And that’s exactly what I have been doing for over six years.   My three online, do-at-your-own-pace programs are designed just for wives, girlfriends, and mothers who love someone who suffers from alcoholism or substance abuse. Today we are going to talk about something a little bit different: rehabilitation. I get asked questions like, "Does rehab really work?" and "What makes a good rehab?" all the time. But before I tell you the top ten things you need to know about rehab, I want to share my experience with getting my ex-husband into a rehabilitation program. I go more into detail about it in the Love Over Mistakes program, but I'll keep this story short. Several years ago, at one of my many trips to the bookstore, I came across a book written by a man who started his own fancy rehab center based on extensive research. His approach was dramatically different than most 12-step rehabs, and there was something very persuasive about his writing. The more I read his book, the more I was convinced that I needed to get my husband to Malibu so he could experience the breakthrough this author was promising. I spent days dreaming of what it would be like to have him sober for good. How he would be the loving, supportive husband I always knew he could be. My children would finally get the engaged dad who was sober and loving all the time. Our vacations and holidays would not be centered around his next drink. But there was an issue: this rehab cost $60,000. We were in our twenties at the time and coming up with that kind of money seemed impossible because we lived paycheck to paycheck. I called our health insurance agency, and they told me they would pay for some of it. Then I called our family and my father kindly offered to take out a second mortgage on his apartment. I drained our bank account, plus his family agreed to pay a portion as well. After a month of planning, the money was there. Now it was time to fill him in. I planned on hosting an intervention, but (since God had a better idea) the night before our intervention was going to take place, he overdosed on drugs. I’m not sure what kind of drugs he took, but he came into my bedroom and was talking really fast and acting crazy. I’ve never seen anything like it. He had always done his drugs away from the house. It scared me to the core. I was watching a stranger in my bedroom who had absolutely no resemblance to the man I married. I prayed that the kids would stay asleep so they would not witness his paranoid behavior and hours later he settled down.   I told him that we had planned for him to leave, take a month off of work, and attend a rehab. That everything had been taken care of for him. I didn’t know how he would react and I was prepared for the worst. But then he looked at me and said he was tired of living like this. He agreed to go just four hours before his scheduled flight to the rehab center. Like I said, I go more into what happened in the next month in the Love Over Mistakes program. But for now, I want to share with you the top ten tips that you will find helpful when considering rehabs. I wish I had these tips all those years ago. He will NOT lose his job if he goes to rehab. The Americans with Disabilities Act and the Family Medical Leave Act guarantee that addicts and alcoholics who wish to undergo treatment for substance abuse will be given the time they need to do so by their employers and that their jobs will be saved for them while they are a