To lend/give money to a friend....again.....

Hard working can’t pay rent, I’d help. Just unexpectedly made redundant can’t pay bills, I’d help, can’t work due to a real illness and needs food shopping, I’d help. A coke head claiming he uses it for MH when in actual fact it’s probably the cause of his MH problems I’d wait for the phone call to say his legs are actually broken, let him know I’m not funding that and hopefully he’ll learn

This. Addicts say ANYTHING to get out of trouble with dealers or get the next fix.

If you show that you have money you will be targeted again. And again.

For your child's sake DO NOT GIVE HIM ANY MONEY

You would be insane and very stupid to do this.

Read the good advice on this thread and let it sink in..

Next time it might be you that the drug dealer is threatening with violence. Addicts have no hesitation in throwing their family and friends to the wolves to feed their habit

Absolutely not. I would bet he doesn't owe it to a drug dealer and there's no threat to his legs at all. My guess is he tried you out with the £100 and now he's using this as an excuse to get money out of you knowing you're too kind hearted to say no - it'll go straight up his nose. If he does get his legs broken it might teach him not to get into debt to drug dealers. Sorry but no way would I give anyone money like that when I could save it for my children.

You lost me at 'dealer'

Giving him money is enabling him. Stop.

I’ve worked with drug addicts over the years. Their situations end one of three ways:

1. dead
2. in prison (generally boomeranging in and out)
3. they get proper help and support and get clean.

Nobody ever, ever gets to 3) while they are still in the phase of asking their friends for money and making you feel guilty because if you don’t they’ll be beaten up or killed. If you give him this money he’ll buy more drugs and he’ll be further on the path to outcome 1) or 2).

The best help you can give him - and the best way of being a friend - is to help him to access services to help with his addiction, but even then it won’t work if he’s not ready to face up to his problems.

Giving him more money just buys more
drugs. Don’t do it.

This. It's actually maddening. You and your partner need to grow some balls, tell him NO, and ideally give him a stark warning of "how dare you ask me for that sort of money when you know we have a baby on the way, and I've already (stupidly) helped you out recently. Do not ask me for money ever again. Sort your life out." and then maybe, just maybe, he may grow up a little and learn that no one is going to be there to wipe his ass for him, and he needs to make better choices in life. You giving him money, although may make you feel like a good samaritan, but trust me, all it does is makes YOU part of his long term problems.

Never asked you for money before, but are you absolutely sure he hasn't asked others and those others have now stopped giving it to him.
He may be moving along his line of friends asking to borrow money.

I wouldn’t give money to a druggie. If he’s in trouble, it’s up to him to sort it out. Enabling this never works. 🤷‍♀️

You'd be an absolute fool to give him £700 to pay a drug dealer. He will see this as a free pass to buy more drugs and get in an even shittier situation next month. He needs to stand on his own two feet, you're enabling at the moment, and that's nothing to be proud of. If anything, you giving him this money is going to end him in a heap load of more trouble in time. What happens next time he owes his dealer £2000? When you don't stump up for that, he'll be even more fucked. Stop. Now. Let him figure this one out for himself and then he hopefully will learn that he can't rely on others to bail him out, and may think twice about his life choices. You've got a baby on the way for christ sake, don't tangle yourself up financially with drug dealers and their "clients".

I think you're mad getting involved. He's an addict. This will never end.

Coke is a truly vile drug and destroys the lives of thousands, particularly the poor in countries like Columbia. He's an addict and trying to sponge off you is appalling. Tell him to go get himself clean or find a job to pay off the money. The threat of violence is not your problem. Tough love needed here.

From one sucker to another. Toughen up.

You will never see that money again and that man is too far gone to be a friend any longer.

Just tell him you don’t have it.

OP, you need to put your baby first. This parasite will, as others have said, be back for more and suck the very life blood from you if you let him. You need to say no now, loud and clear. I would be worried about repercussions that would affect my family - and constant, draining demands for money will surely do that. Who asks a friend for £700 to settle a drug debt? Don’t enable him, or the drugs industry. You sound like a kind person, but I regret to say you’re being taken for a mug.

Do not enable

You're being daft and prioritising an unrelated drug addict over your baby.

He will ask again and he'll up the ante too. It won't be broken legs, it'll be his life.

It doesn't matter if you tell him this is the last time.
He won't believe you.

Drug dealer threatening violence is an old scam. Even if it was true it wouldn't be long before he'd run up another debt and his legs would be under threat of breakage again. Never ending circle of asking for ever increasing amounts of money. Tell him no, no money, ever again. He's an adult, let him sort his own life and debts out. You need to focus on your baby, your little family should be both yours and your husband's first priority now. It doesn't matter how long your husband has been friends with him, he needs to distance himself.

I actually think you're both being despicable. You're involving yourself in drugs while you have a baby on the way.

What happens if this friend tells his drug dealer buddies that you paid his bill? What happens if he can't pay next time and he gives them your address? Drug addicts will do anything to avoid a beating. You'd risk any of that with a baby?

He's not a friend any more, he knows this, you haven't caught up yet.

In an ex cocaine addict, you can search me on here as I've talked about this in the past on other threads about people asking if they should support a cocaine addict.

The answer is no. Absolutely 100% do not give this man money. If you do you are enabling him to carry on taking drugs. You are funding organised crime and that's a whole other moral equation.

Cocaine addicts take take take and can not see the trauma they are putting people through in their worst to get High. BUT it's pretty common for petite with drug issues ( especially cocaine) to have undiagnosed ADHD . ADHD is a dopamine disorder and coke literally gives us a giant ZIIIING! Of the very chemical we are so desperately lacking.

If you wait really want to help him then consider if he could foot the profile for ADHD and support him in chasing a diagnosis and then legal medication.

I wouldn't no. You are funding a drug habit. I see how hard that is though.

Because he probably had another gullible person who's had enough!

Honestly you are not helping him giving him the money, next time it will be £1k etc etc

If you give him cash this time, he absolutely will ask again. Like a PP said, best start practicing the art of "no" now. When a person's in active addiction, they only have one mission in life - to obtain more substance of choice. Lying becomes like breathing.

This man won't stop asking for money because you asked him to. You'll have to put your foot down at some point, so may as well do it now. You're doing him no favours by kicking the can down the road anyway. You don't need this man's shit marring the arrival of your baby.