TL,
I thought of you when I read that part of the article. Your thread responses usually suggest keeping communication lines open, but walking the fine line of not enabling. I always get that sense from your posts, and it has helped me in my own conversations with difficult child when things were bad. His psychiatrist used to say the same thing - I would let disappointment, desperation, fear, anger and hurt feelings color my interactions with difficult child, and communication would devolve from there. He finally avoided me altogether and just texted husband instead! Healthy communication is what I'm always striving toward.
difficult child's guidance counselor used to talk about "raising the bottom" for difficult child, instead of letting him hit bottom on his own. Different things work for different people, and, in my opinion, difficult child's "hot button" is not allowing himself to be marginalized. The drug use made him irrelevant in the circles he wanted deep down to move around in. He always was very smart, very sought after for advice, whatever, and when he finally saw that the drugs and the crowd he cultivated was going nowhere fast, he sort of stopped on his own.
The lack of emotional empathy (I think that's in the last paragraph) which makes pleading and begging useless was an eye-opener for me.