Its been three weeks now and with the exception of sneaking a cigarette in her room and thinking I won't notice (I do!), Deb has been exceptional since she has come to stay with me.  I'm afraid to speak too soon, but she got a job yesterday and even though it is a comedown from her old career as a bookkeeper, she is willing to start with what she can get and that is a good thing.  She goes to her therapy three nights a week and a couple of n.a. meetings on the weekend, she cleans the house, keeps her things picked up and cooks dinner every evening. I know this is too good to last but if she will just abide by my main rules...no men in the house and no late night phone calls and of course, no drugs or alchohol, we will get along just fine. I'm sure that as time goes on, she will start to take me for granted and we will have problems but if it keeps her clean until she can make it again on her own, I won't complain about a few disagreements.  You all will remember that I really wasn't sure whether this was a good idea, I was thinking of all the negative things, most of which were due to her drug use.  When it really got down to time for her to come out of the treatment center, which she completed successfully, I realized I couldn't ask her to stay clean but live on the streets the same way she was before she got clean and expect good results. She needed to remember what it is like to be clean and safe and warm at night, to have respect and the normal comforts that come with a home, so that she can begin to want those things again on her own.  I have to learn not to give her everything she wants, but to let her earn things the way a normal forty year old woman does.  I also have to remember to pick my battles, some of the things that drive me crazy about Deb is just her being Deb and she isn't likely to change easily (like the cigarettes in her bedroom) and forgetting her purse on the bus the day after we had just gotten her new i.d.  These are not really due to her drug addiction but just her general lack of consideration of rules, for the first part, which has been her problem since she was a kid and her small attention span for the second thing and that is due to drug use but not current, just a side effect of all she has done in the past few years.  She needs to learn but I can't expect miracles over night, and like I said, this is not about drugs, just about Debbi being Debbi.  I appreciate all the support and prayers I've received from you all and am thankful for Authorsden, my haven when all gets crazy.