1000 Sunsets, you might want to take your town and state out of your signature/introduction. For your own sake, you need to be anonymous on the site. You do not want anyone who does not understand reading posts that come from the heart ~ some angry, some filled with pain, some filled with details it is no one else's right to know ~ and using that information to hurt you, or your wife or son.
Just put south central United States. Or, leave that area blank.
Also, I wanted to say that we went through something similar when our son was using drugs. Here is a phrase I found most helpful: "I love you too much to watch you self destruct."
There is truth in that phrase. You can fill it in any way that fits the current situation. "I am not giving you money. You were raised better than to do what you are doing. I love you too much to watch you self-destruct."
We found that there is a time in that process of self-destruction when the addicted person actually thinks their situation is funny. (The old "I woke up in a mudhole/fell down the stairs/got picked up/ lost my license again ~ ha, ha, ha.") To that, we would answer: I love you too much to laugh at you, with you. What is happening to you is tragic. There is nothing funny about watching someone you love wet himself in public. You were raised better than to do what you are doing. I love you too much to watch you self-destruct. Stop using drugs."
Just keep repeating a version of those phrases, whatever the addicted child says, however he blames you, however he condemns you, whatever he expects.
When we started talking to our son like this (thank you to everyone on this site) HE seemed to start believing it, too. There were a number of years when he hated us and made no bones about it. But he hated us, anyway. He hated us as he took our money, lived in our home, destroyed himself right before our eyes and from our own home, time and time again. Until WE turned away, until WE started telling him the real truth ~ that he had been raised better, that he knew right from wrong, that we loved him too much to watch him self-destruct ~ I don't know how to describe it, really. It was like, before we changed OUR ways, we were slyly complicit in his destruction. We would be so angry and would hate where he was and what he was doing...but we would never actually SAY it to him, just like that.
Once we did start talking to him like that, once we clarified our own understanding of what was happening to him and why ~ that it was drug use, not poor parenting, not family trauma, not the weather the day he was born or his diet that had wrecked his life and our family...things got better. It started with US feeling better. We had words to say, now. I posted those words and phrases by the phone. If I didn't? I would fall back into the old, lost patterns of trying to understand, of trying to help, of taking responsibility for things I hadn't done and had no control over.
What happened next is that, over time, our son changed his life. He is struggling financially now, as he pulls himself out of the hole he dug through his drug use. But he is a fine man, and he will do well.
Here's the thing: If we don't tell our children, in no uncertain terms, that they were raised to know better and to do better...it's almost like we are giving them permission to do what they are doing, instead.
We never stopped believing in our son, never stopped agonizing over him or missing him during the holidays or Saturdays or ~ oh, all the things, big and little, that make up our lives. But we were sure, in our own hearts, that drugs were the problem. There was no one for him to blame, anymore, because we had learned to say "I love you too much to help you self destruct or to watch you do it. You were raised better than to do what you are doing. Stop using."
At the bottoms of our postings, many of us have links to sites we have found helpful. The link "McCoy" at the bottoms of my postings gives us words to use when talking to our adult children who are in trouble.
Barbara
