Cedar, when you look at it this way, "no" as the default is the easy part, I think. How did you explain to them what you would need to say "yes" and how do you determine it yourselves?
We did not explain to them the "yes". That was for us to know. We used the words to the kids that we all use here ~ "I'm sorry that happened; oh, no ~ what are you going to do. I love you. You can do this. No money. No, you cannot move home. You don't need me. I am practicing something called detachment parenting. The more I help you the more I am making you weak and dependent and I won't do it. Stop using drugs. That is the problem. You are better than this. You were raised better than to do what you are doing. Here is Social Services number. Here is 211 number for referral. I love you. I worry for your sake. Stop doing this. No money. No you cannot move home."
That kind of thing. And at first, I needed to write it down. I would read it instead of saying "Where do I send the money." (Which was my usual go to response.) It tore me apart to do it. But something had to change. Being the one addicted, my child could not change.
So, thanks to everyone here who helped me know what to do and what to say and how to think about myself, I changed.
It's really hard, but we can do it.
They can't. So, we have to.
***
To ourselves, we said: "If the kids are working and need money for a down payment on a house, or if they need an assist finishing a degree, then we would help. If they asked for rent money, we gave it once with a warning and said no after that. We would help one time, always with a warning that we would not help the next time. No stories were allowed about how unusual the circumstances were because we did not want to turn our children into liars. We said: You are not a beggar.
Next time, we will not help.
Though it was more detailed than that, that was pretty much it.
We did not want to turn our own children into beggars.
And when we gave them what they wanted if only the story was bad enough, that was exactly what we were doing.
So, we stopped.
***
The reason it is hard to say no is that we don't want our children to suffer, and we can't believe what is happening to them is happening ~ but it is also that we don't want to be someone who turned away from someone ~ anyone ~ who needed help.
That part is what keeps us awake at night.
Who are
we? How is it possible to send our children away when they are so troubled? And the answer to that one, as every parent here has had to learn, is that if we do not send them away, the trouble gets worse, for us and for them, too.
There are parents in their eighties caring for addicted "children" in their sixties.
There are parents in their eighties whose sixty year old children are addicted but who don't see their children.
And both sets of parents are very sad. It is the addiction that is the problem. Not the parent, and not the addicted child. The difference between those two sets of parents is that the parents caring for their addict children are very poor, and may even have been physically and emotionally and financially abused.
There are no pretty choices, here.
Addiction is an ugly, destructive thing.
One of the moms here has worked very hard with her own mental health issues. She taught us that even with those kinds issues, each person has to take responsibility for him or herself.
So, whatever their situations, our kids have no excuses, then. If they want us to take care of them, then they have to do what we say. If they don't do what we say, then they don't get any money.
We are the ones who need to know that, not the kids.
Whether we say yes or no, we are setting up the rules of engagement from our side. We need to understand this. We are setting up the rules of engagement from our side. Respect from our children? Have we let that lapse?
Whose responsibility is that.
Ours.
***
We are going to have to stand up at some point. The sooner we begin saying what is true ~ that the kids were raised better than to do what they are doing, that we expect more of them, that we will not fund their drug use. (Which they will deny, so we tell ourselves we were not born yesterday and tell the kids to stop making fools of us and say: NO MONEY. NO YOU CANNOT MOVE HOME.)
One of our moms here names addiction a terminal disease.
I agree with her.
Terminal.
There is nothing easy about any of this. We are their parents. We have the power of defining our relationships to our children. Drug use changes our children. That means we need to stand up.
There isn't too much more to it than that.
Addiction is an ugly, terminal disease. Nothing pretty about any of it ~ not what it does to our kids, and not what knowing they are suffering does to us.
I feel badly for all of us.
For the younger moms, especially.
But it is what it is.
Radical acceptance.
Cedar
