Drug addict Son

A family member has been through this with her son. His addiction is drugs and alcohol. She's bent over backwards to help him, since he's been a teenager. By the time I met my husband, this family member has been in rehab once, and his Mum had thrown him out of her home. Fast forward 19 years, he's been in rehab a further 2 times, is currently estranged from his Mum and is living in a half-way house. As hard as it's been for his Mum, for her own mental health, she had to cut ties - like you've had with your son, she's had the lies, stealing, pawning goods, paying debts etc. This family member is now 41, and has zero in life, he seems to be clean for a time, then reverts to type. He's ended up homeless and on the streets numerous times. Family and friends have all tried to help, but ultimately no one can help, other than him helping himself. His Mum has come to accept, she can't help him and she can't spend the rest of her life worrying about him. She knows eventually she'll get the knock on the front door from the police, either telling her he's dead or seriously injured in hospital. It's not a decision she took lightly to cut her only child out of her life, but she ended up with little choice.

What drugs is he using.

Hi op. I went through this with my ex partner my dcs dad so I saw what it did to his family from an outside point of view.

he was a cocaine addict to start with. Every weekend then progressed to through the week. I was naive at the time and thought he was cheating and that’s why he was staying out. He lied and lied and then I had a group of 6 men on my doorstep demanding money. I packed his stuff and kicked him out.

from there his family defended him saying he had mental health issues etc. he became extremely abusive to everyone but again excuses were made. I moved house to a different village but he found me and kept harassing me so I called the police and got a restraining order and again I was the bad one because he was ill. he was in and out of prison.

fast forward a couple of years of this and his mum was diagnosed with cancer. By this time I had rebuilt a relationship with her and my dc. She realised what he was and where his priorities lied when she told him she had cancer and he said oh, can I borrow £20. He used to hound her with messages phone calls etc. turning up at her house constantly. Her and her partner went away a lot but he still hounded her. She never got to enjoy her retirement and then sadly passed away.

he died just short of a year after her from an accidental overdose. This will sound really bad but the only wish I had is that he died first so she could experience a life without his stress. So she could have had her retirement, holidays etc without the stress. Nothing would have helped him he had made his choices. The unfortunate fact is the choices he made caused so much anguish for everyone else.

he is a grown man now. Please make him stand for his own decisions

I think you need to go easy on yourself.

You have tried absolutely everything and multiple times too.

You cannot do anymore and his inability to recover is absolutely no reflection on the amount of support he received. If it was as simple as just providing support, there would be far less addicts & he would have recovered already.

Sometimes addicts have to reach rock bottom to recover and sometimes they never recover. Unfortunately, you cannot control or influence that, it has to come from the addict themself.

No harsh words need to be said, calm action will do the talking. He's probably heard it all before anyway. Quietly repeat yourself as often as it takes If needed. With an addiction professional there or even the guards if needed. Talk in 'i' terms instead of 'you'. We need to take a step back for awhile and need to take time to look after ourselves etc. And try not to get drawn in to any arguments after boundaries are set, say as little as possible if he tries because he probably will need time to adjust and could be upset for awhile. Remind yourself that you are doing this for all of you

This is a really romanticised view of the situation, and is both impractical and incredibly unhelpful to the OP.

First, as another poster has asked already, what does this even look like? ‘Not giving up on’ someone invariably means giving them something of yourself. This may only be emotional investment in their plight, which might not seem a lot to you. However, often the level of emotional investment in the chaos an addict brings to your life is massive and almost impossible to sustain.

Second, while I am in agreement with you that addiction is an illness and that a person ought not to be defined by it, the only person who can deal with the symptoms of the illness is the addict themselves. Telling someone to ‘see the person’ underneath when the illness is in control is - again - highly impractical. Of course, objectively, we all should know we’re dealing with an illness. But when that illness creates circumstances where a loved one steals from you, lies to you, commits crimes and tears your family apart, we’re not really able to extricate the illness from the individual quite as simply as you’re suggesting. It’s not really on the family to do that anyway — the entire responsibility of dealing with one’s addiction is that of the addict. It has to be, or recovery won’t work.

I don’t find twee emotional platitudes that helpful when talking about how families should deal with addicted relations…perhaps that comes from years of having difficult conversations about my own. But actually when it comes down to it, ‘being there’ and ‘seeing the person underneath’ probably won’t save as many lives as forcing addicts to face the reality of their situation by removing anything that enables them.

Detaching with love is not giving up on them. It’s letting them go in the hope that they will be forced to take responsibility for themselves - something that they will never learn to do while they have all their needs (outside of their addiction) taken care of for them.

My DM and DB are both (recovering) addicts. My DM had been clean/dry for many years. DB then became an addict. Eventually she kicked him out because her own sobriety was at risk. Only once she did, did he enter rehab. He had nowhere else to go. He has been clean for 20+ years now.

He admits that if he hadn’t lost everything he never would have got clean. My DM, by letting him live there, keeping him warm/fed/safe allowed him to focus on his addiction, to the detriment of her own wellbeing. Luckily having her own experiences of addiction meant she was aware that she was killing him with kindness. It still was an unbelievably difficult thing for DM to do. It feels like you’re going against what nature intended, but it is for their own benefit.

@M11L3 You really ought to take this advice from
@devonmum8 "We have found some useful advice in Al-Anon…detaching with love and accepting the illness for what it is is really the only way for you to have any semblance of peace. "

It's so hard to deal with love, guilt, despair etc and talking to people who are going through the same thing + having councellors to guide you can really help you detach and feel less lonely. I have no personal experience so I can't understand what you're going through but it must be awful. 💗

Nah not at the expense of everything else.

Hugs OP, my brother is the same. He's had thousands off of my parents over the years, he causes drama, worry, pain and frankly he's truly pathetic and a disgrace. I thankfully don't have much to do with him, but he's in his 40s now and still causes a lot of issues for people; he's been to rehab twice, funded care a few and he's still causing problems. Its exceptionally hard and not much spoken about, as horrific as it is to go through it's the first time I've heard others who have been through similar talk about it.

And what exactly does that look like then?

Not giving up on someone does not mean allowing them to live with you and wreak havoc.

You don’t have to give them anything just don’t give up on them he’s not his illness somewhere in there is her son

You poor things.
I haven’t been through this but my heart goes out to you, this must be so, so hard.
Are you in a 12 step programme that supports relatives of addicts? If not please go go and get plugged into a group that suits you. You need - and deserve - support.

Sending you and your son good wishes.

Sure this poster means you didn’t cause it.

Also please talk to your GP practice. There may be other local support groups for families in your area as well.
Your GP practice can help you find them.

This is laughable. What do you give when you’ve got absolutely nothing left to give? Your peace, your sanity, your possessions, your headspace every second of every day are long gone. There is nothing left but love along with fear and anger and despair and frustration and pain. Our relationships with other family members and friends are harmed by the situation, often to breaking point. It destroys everything. Eventually something has to give. It’s like the worst kind of abusive relationship.

OP, I found a local support group who were wonderful and got me through some very dark times. Nobody understands like the people who have walked the walk. Sending love. x

A friend of mine has been through this. Her son is absolutely lovely and hard-working but also a liar and thief because of the drugs. His parents have done so much for him but to avail

I run a support group for relatives of addicts IRL. And every single person there whose addict has found sobriety and recovery has done so because they were finally made to feel consequences. It is perfectly possible to support without enabling - but allowing someone to live in your home and use, and steal things, that is enabling.

For the majority of our recovered addicts, what made them find recovery was being evicted, having to face the world alone, realising they had a problem. And yes, they absolutely have expressed their thanks to their parents for taking a strong stand.

You can access support for families of addicts to help you

https://addictionfamilysupport.org.uk/
Helpline: 03008883853

Adfam runs support groups for families in various areas
https://adfam.org.uk/find-support/

Smart offers in person and online support groups for families

https://smartrecovery.org.uk/smart_family__friends/

Please remember to look after yourself.

The council will find him somewhere for drug addicts. Stop enabling

That might be future us.
I don't see any changes, at all, so am kind of expecting this.
I would have loved to have had the support of my ex mil, to have kept her in our lives.
She chose differently unfortunately.
What has yours been like?