My day started on a happy note - a meeting with my Dream Group, then lunch afterwards, and a shopping trip to Hancock's. We've undertaken a sewing project to make patchwork/fleece jackets with our Chickadee insignia on each jacket, and I still had not bought my fabric. One of our members referred to us frequently as Chickadees, so we adopted the name for our group and another member designed a Chickadee logo for us. It should be a fun group project for a cold winter afternoon when not much else is going on.

Then I visited Mike and had a very difficult conversation with him. He's homesick and wants to come home and promises to do whatever I say if I just let him come home.

I stood my ground as gently as possible without giving into his emotional plea. I'm not sure he understands that he has new injuries that need to be treated, so I explained it all again. He refuses to agree with me that his judgment is impaired due to prefrontal cortex damage, and thinks he can stay sober just by saying, "I'll never drink again."

He doesn't want more therapy except what he was already doing for the stroke, and he certainly doesn't want treatment for alcohol abuse. "I hate all that Big Book junk!" he told me. He claims not to remember drinking more than 2 glasses of wine on the day he fell.

Is it denial, memory failure, confusion, stubbornness, what? He did agree to cooperate before I left, and when I got home there was a message from him thanking me for caring enough to help him.

Just keep praying, that's all I can say.