The Invisible Transition: From Vigilance to Trust

A couple of nights ago, I was on a parent support group call with families whose children are in various stages of recovery—some veterans of several years like me, others just beginning their journey. This group, separate from our Woodhaven community, provides a unique perspective as we share across different recovery communities and timelines, and many of us have become friends along the way.

One mother was preparing for her son's first home visit in several months. She expressed feeling overwhelmed by the list of things to prepare: remove alcohol, medicine, vanilla extract, and even nutmeg. The conversation drifted into questions about nutmeg (yes, in large quantities, it can have hallucinogenic properties) and then shifted to tips other parents had learned through both their successful and unsuccessful home visits.

I remember wishing I’d had a checklist in those early days—something concrete to hold onto when everything felt so uncertain. In the beginning of my loved one’s recovery, and in those moments of relapse before recovery became sustainable, any household item felt like a potential risk. I carefully hid things away—not because I believed this would prevent relapse entirely, but because I knew I could at least reduce temptation and availability. I remember the mental checklists, the hypervigilance, the way my home sometimes felt more like a controlled environment than a place of comfort.

But this parent was looking for an answer I realized I couldn’t clearly provide: When does this change? When do we transition from hiding the vanilla extract to simply living our lives?

At some point in this process, the vanilla went back in my cabinet, alongside the nutmeg. Prescription medications returned to the closet, and hand sanitizer from my COVID stockpile still exists (does that ever expire?). The transition happened so gradually that I can’t pinpoint when or how.

It reminds me of when relatives who haven’t seen your children in some time exclaim, “Wow, they’ve grown so much!” and you look at them with new eyes, thinking, “Hey, when did that happen?” The daily changes are imperceptible, but the cumulative effect, seen from a distance, is transformative.

Over the winter holidays, our family traveled and stayed at an all-inclusive resort where our kids shared their own room. Before arrival and at the beginning of the trip, I requested that alcohol not be placed in our rooms each day. When it appeared anyway, I removed it and kept requesting that it not be replenished, but it was. I found myself becoming agitated with the hotel—not because I was concerned that my loved one would drink it (he was of legal drinking age there and certainly had other opportunities at the resort), but because I didn’t feel like the hotel staff respected our needs. I was angry that they wouldn’t honor our simple request.

I know other families might not choose a vacation like this, but for a variety of reasons—including my loved one’s input—it made sense for us. The contrast between this experience and our family vacations in his early days of recovery is stark—a testament to how far we’ve come. Yet the journey there was so gradual, I barely noticed it happening.

What I’ve come to understand is that change in recovery doesn’t always announce itself with breakthrough moments or clear milestones. Instead, it’s a thousand tiny shifts that accumulate over time—a gradual easing of vigilance, small moments of trust that build upon each other, day by day. There’s no universal timeline, no moment when someone rings a bell and announces, “You can put the vanilla back in the cabinet now.”

For each family, this journey will look different. The timeline, the specific concerns, the items on your mental checklist—all of these will vary based on your loved one’s unique recovery path. Some families might find themselves able to relax certain precautions earlier, while others maintain them longer. Neither approach is wrong; they’re simply different responses to different situations.

What matters most is that we hold onto hope through the process. In those early days, when it feels like your entire home needs to be transformed into a recovery-safe zone, remember that this intense vigilance is temporary. The constant mental inventory of what needs to be hidden away—this eventually eases, not in a single moment, but through the cumulative effect of countless small steps forward.

So to parents preparing for first visits home, and to all of you in those early stages: be cautious, take every precaution that brings you peace of mind, and then watch as, gradually, almost imperceptibly, those precautions become less necessary. Look forward to the future with hope. It will not always be like this. The path from vigilance to trust isn’t marked with clear signposts, but one day, you’ll look back and realize just how far you’ve come—and be amazed at the subtle, profound transformation that happened when you weren’t even looking.