Re: I need strength to stop enabling and kick my drug addicted son out

[ziggy1usa]

Hello, I am new to this forum, and have an identical situation with my own son with a slight twist that complicates it and I was wondering if anyone had any good advice. I took the tough love approach and kicked him out several times over the years and each time he ends up worse on his own than the previous. My son is currently living with me and full blown addiction with all of the same headaches and previous problems and nightmares previously mentioned in this post, the last time I kicked him out he ended up getting arrested about a dozen time, entered and got thrown out of scores of detoxes and eventually ended up shooting heroin in the gutter living in homeless shelters with no one. On paper he will be 22 in May, but emotionally I feel he is 14 or 15 (the age he started using drugs). I don't think based on history repeating itself that he stands a chance of surviving on the street if I throw him out again, I have tried that and I feel lucky the streets didn't take his life. - His problems I feel are now becoming my problems and this is strongly starting to effect "my" own mental health and work performance. Where do I go from here????? I feel like I am on a hamster wheel and the joke is on me.

[keista]

Welcome ziggy. All I have for you are some ((((HUGS))))

Please start your own thread so you can get the attention and support you so desperately need.

[toughlovin]

Ziggy....I hope the moderateors may put this in a new thread that is all your own.

I am in a similar situation as you.... although my son is on the streets right now in another state and there is no way we will let him come home. The main reason is I have a 16 (almost 17) PC daughter and I will not subject her to his crazy drug addicted behavior again. My son has recently gotten into opiates... not sure if he is yet using heroin but I know without serious help that is his next stop.

Sometimes I wonder if we had not kicked him out would things have been better... then I think back to our worries when he was sniffing gasoline at the age of 14... and I know that even then I knew he would try anything that was offered to him and it was only a matter of time... and so my focus then was on getting him help and really it continues to be that.

I realize however that he won't get help until he is down and out enough to want it. Having him live at home would just mean we would all join him in the agony of his drug addiction. I continue to try and find options to offer him, although what he chooses to do is up to him. I do think in some cases, my son included, that more is needed than straight detox and AA. He needs some mental health help as well... and I am trying to find some of those types of resources for him at this point... again though only offering options not making decisions for him.

So at some point for your own mental health you may have to tell your son that he cannot live with you while he is using....and tell him you will help him find treatment when he is ready.

I think it takes many addicts many times at rehab and many relapses to finally turn things around. And yeah having them live on the streets is the scariest thing of all to me....at least when my son was in jail for a couple of weeks I knew he was basically safe.... on the streets you don't know that.

If you havent already try to find some family group for yourself. I have found a wonderful alanon group for parents and it has been a life saver for my own sanity... just being with others who understand exactly what I am going through and also as examples fo people who have found a way to go on.

TL

[Nancy]

Ziggy I asked to have your post moved to it's own thread so that more members will read it and respond.

When my gfg was in a treatment facility they told us that addicts are the emotional age of when they began taking drugs. So your gfg's emotional age is 14, so is mine. We each have to do what we are comfortable with. We coud no longer live with our daughter doing drugs and drinking 24/7. We spent years trying to get her help and in the end it didn't help. I worry about her every day and sometimes I can't evn sleep because of the worry, but I found out that I cannot fix her and the only hope she has is hitting bottom. I don't think that will happen because she loves the life she is living but I could no longer live with it.

Nancy

[exhausted]

Ziggy,
There is hardly anything more emotionally draining that a sick kid. We worry for their lives and yet they have no regard for their own lives. we worry for their development when they could care less about anything but their next fix, what ever that may be. I do not have an adult child with an addiction, but she will be an adult in a few months. I have been reading about options and what other's do to get their kids help and coming here also helps me. I recently finished a book called "Love First". The author's were featured on Oprah awhile back. Here is he website, http://lovefirst.net/wpt/.

They agree with 12 step and not enabling but they believe that we need to raise the rock bottom for addicted loved ones before they make life altering-drug induced mistakes that will make recovery almost impossible or very difficult. They believe in intervention. The book teaches you how to do it and when you need a professional. There are government subsidized/nonprofit/sliding scale treatment programs for adults. Many deal with addictions and mental illness as well.

My addict is a female and her drug of choice is sex. She uses MJ as well. I am having trouble with throwing her out in a few months because she is so medication (including birth control) noncompliant. I could not bare it if she got pregnant because she too is 14 mentally and would not be able to take care of a baby. She would not adopt it out either and you can guess where this will lead. I could not allow a baby to suffer and I am in no situation to take on the care of an infant.

For most addicts it takes many rehabs and relapses. I think the ones that start younger or who have mental problems-take longer. I think you have to do everything you can to get him help if you are not going to kick him out. If that fails, then you must preserve yourself by doing what is necessary for you to have a healthy life.

Hugs to you.