LMS1, I am so sorry. Regardless of the actual situation---and you already know the drill---it hurts badly and keeps you tied up in knots when this happens. I don't think we ever get used to it, although we have been through it over and over and over again.
It's impossible to
understand, because we are not addicts. I doubt they understand themselves either. I believe they actually want a different life, many times, but they won't/don't/can't do the sustainable daily practice of hard work and change to make it happen. The lure of the drugs is too great.
In Al-Anon, there is a brochure about the Merry-Go-Round. See the link here to the text:
http://www.bendfeldt.com/alcholism.htm
I remember the first time I read this brochure. It was the first time I was in Al-Anon for about 18 months when my ex-husband and I were in the throes of his disease. I felt like I had come home. My ex-husband had been blaming and denying and victimizing and changing the subject----we were going round and round and round. This brochure---this simple thing---helped me more than I can ever tell you. I knew then I wasn't crazy, as he kept telling me I was. I was living in the middle of crazy, because addiction is a family disease, and we are all affected deeply.
Where we got to is that we will help him if he is doing the next right thing and helping himself and we wont if he is not.
I like the way TL said this. What is the next right thing? If that is what my difficult child is asking for, I may help with that, but if not, no.
Sometimes it is very hard to even know or figure out what the next right thing is. We get so caught up in their drama and we react, because we love them.
Setting very clear boundaries with him about your communication is one way to begin. Because being always available via phone or text or email or FB, and always responding, just keeps the merry go round turning.
We have to get off the merry go round, and stop reacting, and start deciding what we will do and what we won't do, regardless of what they do. We have to disconnect. That is where the detachment with love comes in.
We love, we encourage, we are kind, but we don't "dance the dance." They can't dance if they don't have a partner.
And that is where there is a space for something new to happen, maybe. Maybe.
We have to be the ones to change. For most of us, that takes such a long time to understand, and then even longer to start to do it.
That's okay, LMS1. That is okay. We get it when we get it, and we can't get it before we can get it.
Neither can they.
Today, just for today, write down a few small things you would like to start to practice. Whatever those are. Let writing a gratitude list be on that list...just take five minutes to write down a few things you are grateful for. It will change your view for the day and then, you might be able to take a few steps forward in setting those boundaries that will be so healing for you....and we hope, for him one day.
Warm hugs. We are here for you. We so understand.