Advice?

dayatatime

Member
My difficult child (16) was most recently in a hospital based day treatment program for substance, anxiety, and ODD. (He got kicked out last week.) His main drug of choice of is "just" weed. Honestly, if he could smoke weed like a "normal" person it wouldn't even bother me much…. say if I thought he was getting high once a month or even once a week or so… but it's a everyday and a lot and has very seriously interfered with his life and he also experiments with other substances. He's a year and half behind in school. Periodically violent around the house. Though we are in a calm patch right now.

He got kicked out because he got high with other kids from the program, which was basically the program's one rule-- don't get high with other kids from here. Meanwhile, I thought he has been staying sober. We had gone 2 weeks of having a pleasant household- turns it it was 2 weeks that he'd been getting high-- so he was nice because he was stoned.

So, he was in the program for one month. Now he's waiting to be admitted to a residential rehab-- didn't have school all last week because he's been expelled from one place and not yet in the next place. There's always some new program waiting to happen and I don't have to coordinate this next one because the day testament place is handling it, which is lovely. I am proud that I really stayed out of it.

But this is the thing, and the place where maybe someone has some wisdom to offer. He's very much in a f* it state of mind-- like he can get as high as he wants as often as he wants and it doesn't matter because he's about to go to rehab. He has no intention of actually getting sober. The clinical rec is for a year long program but he would agree to a month so that's where we are starting…. Tonight he came home drunk. I've never seen him drunk before and I find myself responding at a whole different level. I feel disgusted. He disgusts me. I've seen him on adder all, on benzos, on ex, and certainly high on pot but I've never felt this tone within myself-- it's triggering something in me and I don't know why. So what I have on plate is two fold-- sort of what to "do" with this new feeling (I guess just feel it)… but the thing is-- I want there to actually be something I CAN DO about the way he is acting-- like it's a just a big party that's because he's about to go away so nothing really matters. I know in my heart though that there is nothing I can do. Is that true? I just have to watch?

The money is another issue. He works some for me. He's helpful and good at it and it's the one iota of us getting along, being connected that we have. But it means I give him money. The thing is that I thought he was sober. I will always keep my safety first and when I learned that we were back to limbo and friction, which, traditionally, can be a dangerous place for me-- if I remove the working there is more likely going to be danger-- it isn't uncommon for it to start because he wants money. …but he has no problem steeling from me. I "lost" about $30 just yesterday. I can't prove it was him. There's no consequence I can impose either. So I just let it roll off of me and remember to start using the safe more diligently again…. It isn't healthy for me to shove the anger but I don't know how to express it. There's a lot of futility. Maybe expressing it to him isn't useful. Maybe it will be good enough for me write here that I am angry.

I texted his probation officer that he came in drunk (30 mins after his curfew). (Probation officer is in place bc I had difficult child arrested for criminal mischief -- breaking stuff around the house). PO is great-- but he texted back that he will let the new treatment place know and reminded me that he's going in next week. I am frustrated. Frustrated that there can't be a consecquence. Looking forward to the 1 month break, but I will miss difficult child. And also dreading the whatever comes next because 1 month is only 1 month.

Futility.

The only resting place seems like knowing that 1 month does mean 1 month closer to 18. In 17 1/2 months he will be 18. Only I'm not sure anything will be easier then. The most mystifying part of this process is the utter lack of resolution. It's a story that just keep tumbling along.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Hi there. Welcome to our Nightmare...haha. Joke. It's actually a nice place to feel understood. It is hard for us to know how to handle our underage drug addicts, of which I had one who DID quit. I'll tell you how I handled her...since it worked, maybe it will help you or give you ideas, maybe not. Each kid is different. My user daughter is now 30 and we just got home from visiting her, her SO and my adorable infant grandbaby...and they are as boring as any normal family. And she abused almost every drug you can think of, speed being her drug of choice. Your son may be doing more of "not just weed" than you think he is. We had no idea how much my daughter used and what she used until s he quit and was willing to tell us the whole ugly story. It was quite a shock.

First of all, we stopped the money completely. She got an outside job and that was fine, but no money came from us. We got her the bare necessities...healthy food and clothes from a thrift shop of Walmart or else she had to pay for anything better. She was not allowed to use the internet. There weren't really cell phones back then, but if there had been, we would have stoped paying for that. She had been paying us for car insurance (her part of it) and putting her own gas in, which all of my kids had to do because we wanted them to have strong work ethics (they do), but after she was obviously on drugs, her use of our vehicles ended. We also regularly searched her room and found lots of interesting stuff and did report it to her parole officer. In fact, once a cop brought his dog in to sniff her room. I forgot about that until our ride home today when my husband reminded me and we had a laugh over it (thank God we can laugh about it now). We simply told her if she did illegal things in our house, she lost all privileges from us and had lost her right to privacy. Our house/our rules. She knew that if she didn't quit, she'd eventually have to leave when legal age, and she did leave. And she quit.

In my opinion only, I think it would do him more good if he worked elsewhere from you. Hate to say it, but drug users are big on stealing because they want free money for more drugs. They are not trustworthy. Or as my now clean daughter says, "Never trust a druggie. They lie all the time."

As a minor, most of the consequences have to come from us. And, yes, they rage and scream at us for it (shrug). Oh, well.
 

dayatatime

Member
Thank you, MWM, for that bit of humor. I needed it.

I did stop his working for me for the last week he was here. We will see when he comes back. It's so confusing because I know that if he wants drugs, he will get them, yet having money in hand does make it easier for him.

Raising this child is radically the hardest thing I've ever done. He's at rehab now, but that's such a temporary solution. My resolution for myself is that today when they call and talk to me about family day I am to tell them that I am not coming. I have many years of alonon so I'm not in the dark, the rehab is a few hours away and I don't drive (live in a city), and I take off work for that kid constantly. I'm not taking off to go up there.
 

Nancy

Well-Known Member
Dayatatime, I could have written your post a few years back. My difficult child also thought pot was no big deal because everyone did it, but she did it 24/7 and drank too. She was completely unmotivated, just laid around and watched TV and went out at night. We did send her to rehab for sixty days and it was the first time I slept all night in a long time. She came home and relapsed and went into a sober house and got kicked out and rented an apartment and got fired from her job for coming in high and ended up with creditors after her and no place to live. It was three years from h3ll. The good thing was she was not a minor so we just refused to let her come back home.

I wish I had some good advice for you. My daughter is now in a much better place, although she gave up a chance to go to college and is now paying for that decision. Her life will always be difficult but she is no longer smoking pot. She has a job and is getting by. It's not the life I hoped for her but it's so much better than it was.

I hate to say this but it will probably getter worse before it gets better. He is young and they think everyone is doing it so why can't they. They see pot being legalized and they justify it. I knew my daughter had the addiction gene but there wasn't anything I could do to stop it. Hang onto your hat and keep posting.
 
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