Drug addicted son

Jessica1953

New Member
My son currently has a year sober. He is in school and is doing very well. we have an agreement tht while he is in school i will support him.He is in a sober living in california. I pay 2,500 dollars a month for him to live in sober living and to get drug tested 3 times a week. His attitude is concerning to me. He hates AA and says he does not need it to have a great life. He wants me to pay for his own room and for him to continue to go to school full time. everyone that works at the sober living says that he wants to leave to get high. His response is that they will fight tooth and nail for the money and are ripping me of and that I am very ignorant to what this place really is. we recently had a fight about a check from work he had before he went to school. he was going to use it to help pay the rent. it was 2 months and he still never got around to giving to them. when he finally did i asked why it took him so long and he said it did not seem to important. I said it was 350 dollars and that it was important. He said "ok let's take this situation and see what a normal person would think, you spend 2,500 dollars for a 8 by 15 foot room i share with a roomate and a bathroom i share with 3 people would a normal person think you care about 350 dollars?" He :censored2:es about living in sober living all the time. he hates the people,AA meetings everything about it. He said AA did not help him get a year sober and it as not for him and that i should respect how he wants to continue his sobriety. besides doing well is school the sober living tells me his attitude is :censored2:. should I move him to a cheaper sober living? or his own room with no drug testing? his thoughts are that he took out loans for school and if he screws up then it was not meant to be and that i have to let go and see if he can do it. What should I do?
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
If he wants to move out, and the workers dont trust him, id tell him he can move out when he has a job and can pay for himself 100%. I would not trust his intentions. Nor pay fpr him to dodge drug testing.

On the other hand paying $2500 if he isnt committed to sobriety is also insane. We never sent my daughter anywhere and she quit twelve years ago. If all this is more for you than him, maybe cut out the money and let him decide how to straighten out his life. He sounds very entitled, laughig at $350. Do you know how he spent it? Did you demand he pay it back or deduct it from any otner money you give him. DO you give him other money?

In the end, you cant control his choices. You cant make him stay clean (nor can beggaring yourself to send somebody not comitted to sobriety to a very expensive rehab), you cant force him to finish college (most adult kids who bring us here never finish college) nor can you stop him from being who he is. Our children are who THEY are, not what we dreamed for them to be. Sometimes we love them but dont like them. I have one like that. They are heartbreakers for sure...

Drug addiction is hard for parents. We feel we have to aggressively act, yet we really cant do anything if our adult child wont try. They have to want it as much or more than we do for results.

Sounds like ypur son has no concept of money and he expects you to keep supporting him no matter how old he is or what he does. My daughter was a cocaine/meth addict but we are of modest means. In high school, even using drugs, she worked part time. If not she had Walmart clothes. We gave her enough for, say, pants at Walmart...she had to earn the rest or shop there. She had no car of her own and after her first accident we never let her use our vehicles again. She always, as did all my kids, have to work hard for all she had. It paid off in the end. They did not hate us. They understood.

After years on this site I totally believe our lack of funds helped all my kids, especially daughter. They all knew they could not come to us for money or rent so all of them paid their own way and my daughter quit using drugs by 19 (we made her leave after finding her having a pill party at home). She started using at 12!

I never think a good solution is to through money, support snd toys at our kids, even if we have it. It just makes them more helpless and dependent and very abusive when parents finally get fed up and say NO.

All four of our adult kids grew up working hard and are thriving on their own.

If I were you, and I am not and we are all different, id maybe pay for his rehab room, but nothing else. And if he decided to leave, he is old enough to work and pay his own way, toys included and car expenses. The less he gets from you, the less he has to go back to using drugs. He may then end up like my now very sweet daughter who tells me,"Using drugs was too hard and expensive." She went back to school on a loan, has been with one guy for twelve years, oens a house, and is an awesome mom to my granddaughter, the love of my life.

Isnt it time for you to be kind to yourself? You sound like a wonderful, loving person. Isnt it time to have fun yourself and not be abused by the child you are trying so hard to help...who wont try? Who laughs at $350 like it is chump change?

I dont envy you. I remember crying all night when my daughter was on the streets using drugs. It hurts us right in our hearts. You love your son to the moon.Hon, I so get it. Now love yourself too. Dont let him be youe boss. Use ypur mom gut to decide if he will really stay sober if he is in a rental that you pay. Will he take care of it or destroy it and cost you more? You know your child best.is he ready to do life sober?

One last thing. AA doesnt work for everyone.
 

RN0441

100% better than I was but not at 100% yet
Hi Jessica

You are really paying a lot for sober living. We moved my son to Florida after his last rehab for several reasons. He did not do good coming home after rehab before and he really had bad contacts in our home and we wanted some peace. Also we have a condo in Florida a few hours from where we took him and I figured worst case he's homeless at least he won't freeze.

We were able to negotiate a price for all the sober livings he attended. Usually paid 1/2 or less on what they originally asked for. By the way, he was in 3 in Florida and drank or did something stupid and ended up getting kicked out or put back into a higher level of treatment. After the last one we let him be homeless for about a week and he hated it naturally but we wanted him to know we were no longer playing games. He did not like the meetings either and did not like AA.

He ended up finding an apartment to share on Craigslist and since has been working 30 hours a week and is now taking one college class which is all we could afford since we're paying out of state tuition. He is living with a nice middle aged lady that lets him have full use of the apartment and it's walking distance to school and work. He was very lucky. We are paying 2/3 of his rent but he pays for everything else for the most part. It's not a lot. We will do this while he is in school. He likes his job and he is liking school and wishes he could take more classes. Is he 100% sober? No. He is not. I know he drinks beer sometimes and smokes weed. Do I like it? No. Can I control it? No. Do I really care? No. I know that HE has a commitment every day of the week and if he was using hard drugs he would NOT be able to keep it all going. He never could before.

He's now being responsible and figuring things out for himself and problem solving and for the most part we are pretty happy with the way things are. He knows if he screws up and loses his job he will be homeless again and that is a big fear for him. That may be what keeps him on track. I don't know. I have had to learn to accept the way he is whether I like it or not. I hope that as he matures he will evolve into the man I would like him to be and that I feel he can be and he says wants to be but I just don't know if that will happen. We remain optimistic even though we've been through hell and back. We don't know what caused him to go off the rails. He was brought up in a very loving home like most of these kids. He is just wired differently.

It works for us and that's all that matters. Everyone has their own journey and their own story and there is no one size fits all for any of us.
 

mof

Momdidntsignupforthis
I can relate. We were paying quite a lot also...he hates AA mtgs...NA he will tolerate...no, mtgs don't get them sober, it they are a tool that can help.

Sober houses are businesses....I found that the staff also wasn't all that great with our son...but, he does much better here at home and works way harder.

What do you want for him? Year in sober living is a long time...let him prove it. He may lapse, but does not Mena be will die completely.if he really wants to get high....he's gonna do it.

Ours won't even consider school...so your fortunate he has goals.
 

mof

Momdidntsignupforthis
I meant...he might lapse, but does not mean he will hit bottom. He has the tools to stay sober if he wants that.
 
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