We visited Red Mountain Sedona (RMS) when we were deciding where our son would go for his next step after adolescent residential treatment.
We liked the fact that there was a focus on ADHD/executive functioning as well as offering differing therapy modalities for mental health and substance use issues.
We also very much appreciated that they encouraged our son to finish his high school degree and were willing to integrate one of our son’s favorite outdoor activities into his treatment program.
We realized that they weren’t changing him into a different person, they were molding him into the person we and he knew he could be.
They helped him distinguish between healthy and unhealthy behaviors.
The pandemic limited a lot of the activities of what the program offers, but it still felt to us like our son was immersed in different forms of therapy, which were very productive for him. He did a lot of meditation while he was there, and he found that to be helpful.
As parents, it was tough for us at the beginning. At first, he did not want to be there, and he would call and say, “Get me out of here. I want to come home. I don’t belong here.”
He stuck it out, and things improved over time, especially when we started participating in family sessions.
It was quite challenging when he came home since we had not lived with him for a year. We had to learn to trust him again, and we did. In fact, we were impressed with how much more independent he was and how he had matured. Old attitudes and behaviors do surface, but he handles them in a much healthier way now, pausing to think of options and consequences.
We would tell other families considering RMS that everyone is on their own journey. What worked for us was that RMS did not try to erase any elements of our son’s character. They found his strong points and built on them.