Dealing with Addicted Children
By Bruce K.
I’m awakened out of a deep sleep. I hear yelling. I look at the clock. It’s four in the morning. What now, I think, getting dressed. As I walk downstairs, the voices grow louder. Am I hearing this right? Josh, my son, is yelling at his girlfriend, babbling about her not having told him her ex boyfriend, who she was sexually active with, is a heroin addict.
“Now I’ve got to get tested for STDs” he screams.
The closer I get to the basement stairway, the clearer their words become. I stand at the top of the stairwell and listen. “I don’t have any diseases,” Terri, his girlfriend, says. “I wouldn’t do that to you.” I hear her crying. Her tears and denial make Josh angrier.
I want to intervene, help them both calm down. I turn the knob on the basement door and start walking down the stairway. “Everything okay?” I ask.
“Go back to bed,” Josh says.
I go back upstairs, grab a book, and sit on the couch pretending to read. I’m hoping the yelling and fighting will get better but it doesn’t. Now, I can hear Terri sobbing all the way from the living room.
“I just want to go home,” she says over and over.
The more Terri cries, the louder and meaner Josh gets. I walk to the top of the stairway and tell Terri to come upstairs, I’ll drive her home.
She hurries upstairs, welcoming my offer. Josh storms after her and positions himself between her and me. “Butt out,” he says. “I’ll drive her home.”
Something’s wrong, but I don’t get it. Josh seems different. We lock eyes. He looks like a caged animal. I tell him to not get in the car but he ignores me. Everything happens quickly, like someone put the DVD on fast forward. I feel helpless, paralyzed. Josh loads Terri into the car, starts the engine, and then jams the car into reverse. He steps hard on the gas pedal. The engine groans. The tires start spinning wildly on the icy driveway.
He pulls out, and I watch him roar down the street, veering from side to side in the car I bought him two weeks ago. I hear the front wheels spinning, trying to make contact on pavement covered with ice. Minutes later, Josh stomps back into the house.
“Now you have to give her a ride,” he says. “The car got stuck in a snow bank.”
After dressing for the cold winter night, I get into my car and drive down the street to Josh’s car. The engine is running. The lights are on. His car, stuck in a snow bank, blocks the street, while Terri sleeps, passed out in the passenger seat.
“Terri,” I yell.
She opens her eyes, looks around.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
Josh walks over to the car. “Asshole,” he screams at me.
I pat my pockets. I don’t have my cell phone with me. Why didn’t I grab it? Josh paces around the car, swearing and yelling at me. If I had my phone, I could call 911. Josh has a felony for drug-dealing. The police would arrest him. Things would calm down. I look around, hoping his screaming doesn’t wake the neighbors. I expect to see house lights flash on, people come outside to see what’s taking place.
By now, Terri is outside, crying and arguing with Josh. Then suddenly Josh calms down. “Terri’s acting stupid because she’s drunk,” he says to me. .
I ask Josh if he’s been drinking. He doesn’t answer.
“Yes, he’s been drinking,” Terri says.
I tell Josh to give me the keys. Surprisingly, he does. I suspect he knows he’s crossed a line. Now, I’m the one who’s angry — beyond pissed. How stupid can I be? I’ve been sober in Alcoholics Anonymous for twenty years and I can’t even tell when my son’s drunk!
I drive Terri home. When I get back to the house, I ask my younger son, Ben, to help me get the car out of the snow bank. It’s five in the morning now.
“Look Dad,” Ben says when we get the car pulled out. “Josh broke the bumper.”
Great, I think. I buy him this car two weeks ago and he’s already wrecked it. Damn it! I can’t talk to anyone in my family about how crazy my home life is. I’m too embarrassed and they won’t understand. Besides, I don’t need lectures about how I shouldn’t have bought Josh a car in the first place.
Around noon, Josh gets out of bed.
“You’ve got to find somewhere else to live,” I tell him. “I can’t take this insanity in my home anymore.” I’ve already told my wife that if Josh can’t respect anyone or anything, if he’s so selfish that all he cares about is himself, then he’s not welcome here. I say that either she’s on board with me about throwing him out, or I’m moving.
Still reeking of alcohol, Josh starts yelling. “She’s my mother, Ben is my brother. But you’re not my father,” he says. We lock eyes. “I hate you,” he says.
I try to remember some of what I’ve learned about letting go, detaching. I hold my ground, telling Josh he needs to move. He makes a few phone calls. Within the hour, a friend picks him up and they leave to go get Terri. The whole house relaxes. Finally, he’s gone and with him, that crazy, insane, addicted energy leaves. But sadness takes its place.
I try to not take it personally when Josh says I’m not his father, that when I die he’s going to piss on my grave, but his words cut into my heart like a knife. I tell myself that he’s hurting and he doesn’t have any self-esteem. I tell myself that it’s the drugs and alcohol talking, not Josh. I know intellectually that’s true, but his words still hurt. I can’t make the pain disappear.
I flash to yesterday, and the nonrefundable check I wrote for his college tuition. That’s great, I think. Now he’s going to blow off school. I just threw thousands of dollars away. One more loss in a long line of losses.
I feel angry and hurt. Josh is my adopted son. I want with everything in me to raise him right, to do right by him. But when he throws words at me like that, I feel like I’ve failed as a father. Then hurt turns into self-pity. I wonder why my got so screwed up, why I have to go through this.
Maybe it’s payback for what a jerk I was when I was a kid, payback for the disrespectful way I treated my parents, I think. When I was 15, I wanted a leather coat, a real leather coat like the other boys had. But my mother bought me a vinyl coat instead. I felt hurt. Angry. Cheated. I wore that vinyl coat once and then I wouldn’t touch it again. “Nice fake coat,” some of the kids at school said. I accused my mother of not loving me enough to buy me a real leather coat, said I wasn’t important to her. Then I constantly reminded her how much I hated that vinyl coat. Now I realize she must have felt that same pain I feel.
It’s hard to watch Josh act so crazy and mean. It feels awful when he punches me in the gut with his words. He had asked me to buy him his dream car, a Dodge Charger. Instead I bought him a Toyota Camry. The Toyota was the practical choice. All his dream car would have gotten him were a lot of speeding tickets. Instead of being grateful I even bought him a car, he tells me over and over how much he hates the car I gave him.
“Then give me back the keys,” I say. “Nobody’s forcing you to drive it. Get a job and buy your own dream car.”
That night, I take my wife to the movies. During the show, my cell phone starts ringing with phone calls and text messages. It’s Josh. He’s sorry, he says. He can’t find any place to stay. I focus on the movie and ignore the messages. Josh continues to call and text. When the movie ends, I read all the messages. Josh is back at our house. He knows the code to the garage. He let himself in.
My wife and I look at each other. We don’t have to say anything. We both knew he’d be back. We also know the temperature is below zero. We can’t toss him out, not in weather like this,
I try to find an answer, but I know the solution is accepting no solution exists, at least not now. It’s uncomfortable to live with unsolved problems but I’ve learned I can do some things. I can take situations one day at a time. In the end, that’s the only way this becomes manageable for my wife and me.
That night I take Josh’s car to a self-service car wash. I wash off the salt and dirt. Josh has had the car for two weeks. The trash from it fills half a 55-gallon garbage can — empty soda cans, plastic bottles, cigarette packages. In the trunk, I find an empty bottle of Captain Morgan’s rum. The filth disgusts me. I clean up the car anyway and put gas in it. When I get home, I urge Josh to go to school.
I tell him he can use the car for school or to look for work, but if he wants to stay out past nine at night, the car stays at home. I hand him the keys. “Josh, I cleaned the car because I want you to feel good about yourself and the car you drive. All I want from you is something positive, something productive in your life. My father and grandfather worked hard. They taught me how important it is to be a useful, productive person. Please go out in the world and do something good for yourself.”
Then I tell him I found an empty bottle of alcohol in the car. I say if I ever find a bottle in the car again, or if I ever find out he’s been drinking and driving, there won’t be another chance to use the car. I ask if he understands. He mumbles yes.
This story doesn’t have a happy ending. It doesn’t have an ending yet. I wish I had the answers but I don’t. This is what I know: my job is being my son’s father. When I see him going off the track and becoming abusive in my home, I don’t ignore it. I call him on his behavior. He doesn’t like it, but I don’t care what he thinks. I won’t tolerate verbal abuse.
I’ve learned I can do a few things to help me stay sane. I can write in my journal. Instead of isolating, I can reach out to people who understand. Talking about my problems with my closest friends in Alcoholics Anonymous and asking my Higher Power for guidance helps me make it through another day. It’s easy to lose myself when Josh blames me for everything that’s wrong in his life. I know the blame game well. In the end, what keeps me sane is the Twelve Step program. I’m fortunate to have a sponsor who’s going through a situation similar to mine with one of his sons. My AA sponsor is a caring, patient, and kind man who understands me better than almost anyone I know.
I feel lucky that there are so many AA meetings in the Chicago area. I can attend meetings morning, noon, and night if that’s what I need to make it through the day and keep my serenity. My sobriety is important to me. I’m not going to let Josh – or anyone – take it from me. I don’t know how to solve this problem, but I know that drinking will only make things worse. I know I don’t have to go through this grief alone.
I’m learning that letting go doesn’t mean we stop caring. It doesn’t mean we stop feeling. It means we accept who we are and what we feel, and we do the best we can with each day. It’s a process of learning to love other people and ourselves. At the end of the day it’s Progress, not Perfection that counts.
Today I found this site, by typing in google “help I’m killing my son, I cant stop him from using drugs! My son is 30 years old, I have been enabling him for 18 years. I have been a co-dependant all my life (55) years. My father had been addicted to rx drugs & alcohol for 27 years brfore I was born, my mother was a very depressed 43 year old co-dependant when I was born. All I can remember about my childhood is trying to keep my father from taking too many pills and drinking port wine. My father told me and my older brother how much he hated us every day, how much he wished we would die, how if we were bad, the devil would come at night when we were asleep and drag us out our bedroom windows. My brother and only sibling began using drugs when he was 14, I begain trying to get him to stop, My father died of overdose when I was 17. I thought our problems were over. My mother only got worse after my father died, I found out when he died they were never married, my brother got his girlfriend pregnant when she was 15, her parents sent her to home for unwed mothers, they wanted to get married and keep the baby girl, but her mother tricked her into signing adoption papers, they married 4 months after baby was born and went to get their baby out of foster care thats when they found out she had signed adoption paper when she was told the papers were for foster care & they could get their baby as long as it was within 2 years, they never got her back, my sister in law was crushed & tried to kill her self 3 times while she lived with us, they had another daughter when my brother was 19, my sister in law was unable to care for her because she could not get over the loss of their 1st child, she left my brother and her 2nd child after being sent to mental hospital when she atempted sucide the 3rd time, my mother and I care for “our baby” from then on, she was 2 when her mother left, my brother was worse addict by then, didnt work or care for his daughter, my mother soon was not able to care for her at this point it was up to me to care for all of them. I quit school at 17 and went to work full time, my mother got a small disability check & my brother got SS check for his daughter that was all income, my sister in law was murdered 2 years after she left, she was 22, my brothers addiction got worse, I worked and paid babysiter for my neice & paid bills, we were very poor, I forgot to say when my father was alive he worked as a house painter, but when he had a job he spend most of the money at the bar. My brother and I fought all the time. We were very close before he started using drugs, he would keep me from being hurt when my father was drunk and on pills he would fall asleep and wake up thinking someone was after him and he would break out the windows and beat holes in the walls, we moved every year. This was my life untill my mom had to go into nursing home when I was 20, she began hearing voices and seeing things that were not there, I felt this would kill me. I told my brother he must take care of his daughter and I moved into an apartment with a roomate, for the 1st time in my life I had no one to take care of but me. I started going to bars, drinking and using drugs for the 1st time in my life, I had a wonderful boyfriend from the time I was 14 until this point, I was 20 years old now, he had opened his own business an auto repair shop and he worked all the time, I broke up with him and began looking for someone to love me. A man who would love me and only me and I wanted to get married and have a family! When I was 12, I had a crush on one of my brothers friends, his name was John, my father and brother’s names are also John. When I was 21 my brothers friend John broke up with his long time girlfriend and asked me to go out with him. I was crazy in love with him, so I did, for the next two years he went behind my back to sleep with her & behind her back to sleep with me, I found this out, but thought I loved him so much I could get him to be faithful to me I kept seeing him even when I knew he was seeing her, then one day a friend called me at work, by now I had earned a hairdresser license and was working in a hair shop, this friend was also a friend of John’s he told me that the other woman was pregent! and to see for my self I should go to our county fair the next night because he was going to be there with her, He had just been with me the night brfore I got that call. I went to the fair that Friday night, I walked right into them comming down the midway, arm in arm and she was indeed pregent. I wanted to die right there! I cant even remember what I said to him and her, I left that fair running as fast as I could after I said whatever I said to them and when right to the closest bar. I never went to church or really learned much about god, except I knew from my mother that there was a GOD, but my mother belived he was a punishing GOD, she belived that if you did not live the right way GOD punished you, each time something bad happened to someone it was GOD puninshing that person for not living the was GOD wanted you to. Like when my brother got his eye knocked out when he was 21 years old by a fishing rod him and his friend were sord fighting with a fishing rod they had taken apart, and when my sister in law was murdered, my mother belived GOD caused those things to happen because my brother and sister in law did not take care of their daughter the was GOD wanted them to. Back to the bar, I was standing in line waiting to get in, and after two different people yelled at me from across the room,” Hey does Johnny got anything” meaning did I know if my brother had any drugs to sell, I forgot to tell you my brother sold drugs for his living. I saw a man that I thought I knew, He was drop dead georgous! at that moment, for just a few seconds I did’nt feel the pain that had brought me into that bar. This man, was someone I had watched grow from a cute younger boy near where I lived, into a very, very handsome man. I felt I was here at this moment on this day at this exact time because this was my fate, all the things that had happened that brought me here were for this reason, to, after years of seeing this boy, time and time again, I now knew why I had noticed him each time I would see him around over the years, I never met him, didnt know where he lived or even his name, I was ment to meet him now, this night, right now at this time in my life. Sounds so crazy now, that I thought this was, but I still had hope then, at that age that I deserved to have something good happen to me. I sat at the bar aond ordered a miller light, he was sitting in a both right across from me with another guy & girl, they were together, he was alone, without a woman. This happened 31 years ago and I can remember it like it was yesterday, I can even remember his sent. I also forgot to tell you that I am not pretty, and even back then when I was young I was never pretty, I am a very ugly woman and I always have been, only then I was Young & slim, with long hair and I was good at putting on make up so that helped me not look so plain with tiny squinky eyes, huge nose, I got from my father, bad skin, and even back then when I was young & thin I had a double chin, now it’s a double chin x 6, LoL, humor about my looks and my life was how I got throught things, I always could make people laugh, I was very good at telling jokes back then. About all the things that hurt me, I just would make a joke about all the painful things I did’nt know what else to do. About being so poor, so ugly, I’m very sure the people who knew me then had no idea what my life was like, even my friends I never talked about the pain, I felt I was such a bad person that GOD was punishing me for all the bad things I did, like my mother said, and since my own father hated me so much he wished I would die I had to be a very very bad person. He hated my brother more than he hated me, cause I did everything he he ever asked me to when I was young, he did”nt start hating me like he did my brother til I was about 14. Back to the bar, I never ever could aproch a man in a bar unless I was half drunk, so I sat at that bar with my back to the handsomest man I ever saw in my life till I finished four beers, it did”nt take much, I had not drank at all before my mother went into the nursing home and my brother begain to take care of my niece. After those four beers, after the thoughts of why I was here in this bar alone, and my crazy thoughts that I was ment to be here, I got off that bar stool and went over to the booth, and introduced myself to this man/boy (he was really only two years younger than me) that’s how I met my 1st son’s father, my son that is now 30 years old, is a raging herion addict and is sitting in the county jail right now, has been using drugs for 18 years, and steals to support his habit. And I can stop the pain in my heart, I dont understand how to stop enabling him. I dont understand how to let him go, I know I’m hurting him. I love him so much but I can not tell him no, I just cant get it, it’s been so long I dont know if I can even learn what to do. Sorry this was so long, but I have no one who cares enough to understand, I have never been able to write about this like I have here. Thank you. I read some of your books years ago.
Hi Ruthann. My good Lord, woman. I read every word of your email — do you have any idea how much pain, grief, loss and abuse you’ve been through? It’s no wonder you’re filled with pain. I want you to start by reading the e-mail you wrote to me. I promise you: I read every word, and read from my heart. Now, I want you to read your own words — read your e-mail like you’re listening to someone else tell you her life story. See if you can find some compassion for that person, and then remember that the person you’re having compassion for is yourself.
You’ve been trying to survive, trying to save the lives of people you love, and medicating unbearable pain. Everything you’ve done makes absolute, perfect sense. We do the best we can until we learn better ways. If you still have my books, I want you to re-read Codependent No More and then daily read Language of Letting Go.
I don’t know how busy you are, but it would help if you could find a twelve-step group, where the focus was on having kids that used drugs. If you can’t find a good group where the members really work WORK the STEPS — because they are the ladder out of the pit we find ourselves in, then look online. There are good codependency and Al-anon groups you can attend by turning on your computer. I would suggest 90 meetings in 90 days. If you think alcohol and drugs are a problem too, then that might be the first thing to deal with. I cannot diagnose you; I can speak only as a friend. I’m not a therapist or a doctor — I’m a writer. But I first had to deal with my drug and alcohol problem before I could start dealing with my codependency — then later came the grief. (I thought the pain would never end and wish I would have dealt with it first.)
I’m overwhlemed by all the pain you went through, and that you survived as well as you have. When I was in grade school and later in high school, I hated myself and the way I looked so much I destroyed every single picture that existed of myself. That self-hatred is a monster. It colors everything we see, especially ourselves. We need to get you looking at yourself with eyes of love and compassion — the way I see you.
You’re very brave, you told your story well — you covered a huge history in a short amount of time. I get it — I get as much as anyone can how much you’ve been through. Please know that you never have been alone, and you’re not alone now — even though it may feel like you are. You’re going to start with one thing, the first thing that presents itself, and then every day, as what it is you need to do to take care of yourself.
I only give people two rules: Dont’ hurt anyone else, and don’t hurt yourself (which includes letting others physically hurt you). Please do this: draw out a calendar that covers 90 days on 3 sheets of white paper. Then each day, do just one thing that’s different, and that’s good for yourself. Check in with us here at the site. Meanwhile, find a group in person or online. I don’t know how your finances are, but whenever I bottomed out, I didn’t have much money. If you can afford a therapist, great. if not, that’s okay too. Sometimes free help, or the help where we put one dollar in a basket is the best we can get.
You have a lot of emotions inside that need to come out. When you let go of them, you’ll come into balance. You’ll start becoming a new person. You’ll start to see yourself through eyes of love. You’ll look in the mirror and you’ll even see you look different. You’ll feel different inside. A day will come when you look back and think, “was that really me?” At least, that’s been my experience, but again the real key is working the twelve steps. The really good news is, the twelve steps are free. If we take the smallest step towards them, they’ll jump out at us.
Again, please stay in touch. Start by reading your letter to me, slowly, as if it were from another person to you. Really see how much pain, grief, aloneness and abuse you’ve been through, how much you’ve taken care of others until there was nothing left to give to you. Then find a group online or in your city. And do one thing each day to love and take care of yourself. But stay in each moment — don’t worry about tomorrow. Just be in today, and when tomorrow comes it will still be today.
I’m glad you found the site. I hope you can find some pieces of what you’re looking for here. I’m so sorry about all the pain, loss, abuse and tragedy you went through, first as a child and then later, as an adult. It’s just … so much. It’s time to be good to yourself and not let other people hurt your heart.
Melody Beattie
Ruthann, your son is thirty. He’s a man. He has his own lessons to learn from addiction and a criminal lifestyle. He, too, has been surviving. The very best way to help him and help yourself is to begin taking care of yoruself — today. This, also, is a promise. Melody
Hi,
I’d like to say that Addictions is not genetically passed down. There may be a predisposition to it, but it’s more environmental. So, if you are an alcoholic, chances are the conditions your child or children grow up in will be chaotic, and unstable. This in turn plays the biggest part on brain chemistry or what is called neurobiology. I am adopted and research shows that when a parent is stressed, which a mother who has to give up a child definitely will be, affects the cortisol levels in the mother which in turn affects the child’s brain development. You can research all of this yourself. I suggest reading Gabor Mate’s book: “In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, close encounters with addictions.” It explains in layman terms everything about addiction. You can also Google him, he’s on You Tube and TVO Big Ideas has a great lecture he gives at Mount Sinai Hospital well worth it. Understanding should be the Universal Word! “To understand is to forgive. Once you actually understand, it’s not so much that you forgive it’s that you actually realize that there’s nothing to forgive.” ~ Gabor Mate speaking for Harm Reduction.
He also says that “To connect you have to first see it as a possibility not as a problem. If every time you see your child you see nothing but dysfunction and problems then, who wants to be seen like that? Why would they want to connect with you for God’s sakes?”
There is so much more to this than I write here. Education is key. Acceptance is the answer to all of my problems today!
Best wishes,
Much love,
Suzanne
Thanks for your comment, Suzanne. There has been much debate and speculation – medical, scientific, and spiritual – about the source of addiction and alcoholism, including diverse opinions by experts who claim to know THE truth about what causes it.
What makes one person able to enjoy a drink or two and then go home and get a good night’s sleep while that person’s sister who tells others and herself she’s only going to have one or two drinks, but can’t, won’t, or doesn’t stop drinking until she passes out and wakes up the next morning in a stranger’s bed? What causes the loss of control — the bare-minimum definition of addiction? More importantly (or just as) why does one person sitting in a therapy or A.A. group watch days become years and then a lifetime of sobriety while the person sitting next to her in group has one relapse after another until everyone who cares about her realizes that being sober — not being drunk — is the slip?
I can only speak for myself. But for me, the more I learn, the less I know. What causes alcoholism? Nature? Nurture? Genetics? Brain chemistry? Then I get to the classic “What came first, the chicken or the egg” debate. Does a person’s emotions create his or her brain chemistry, or does the chemistry cause the emotions that lead to loss of control?
Whew. That’s a pageful of words. When I went to chemical dependency treatment in 1973 I did not want to stop using drugs, but the State of Minnesota did (want me to) and I didn’t want to go to jail. My plan wasn’t to get clean and sober; it was to manipulate the system, stay high as much as I could while in treatment, and quickly get out and back to my life of full-time use of alcohol and drugs.
But I lost control again. Because of several enlightening experiences and a quietly-spoken prayer (and a few other things too involved to mention here) I became clean and sober in spite of — not because of — myself. Which brings me to this response now.
One doctor, an internationally-recognized expert on addictions, conducted two studies: one informal, of people attending Alcoholics Anonymous. When he asked them what contributed to their becoming addicts, over 70 percent said they were self-medicating emotional or physical pain. “Alcohol and drugs may have saved my life. They numbed pain that was more than I could handle until I discovered better ways to deal with it,” said more than one recovering alcoholic. This type of pain cure ultimately becomes a primary problem of its own.
In another study, this time conducted scientifically, the same doctor discovered, as part of it, something missing in me since birth. This condition has now been written about in medical journals and may affect as much as thirty percent of the population. The gene in my liver responsible for metabolizing medication of any kind — from antibiotics to heroin — isn’t there and never was. It takes enough of anything before it noticeably affects me as it would take to kill a horse. Pneumonia? Three or four months of heavy doses of antibiotics before I get well. Heroin or dilaudid (a synthetic opiate)? Before I feel or register its effects, the average person would be overdosed. The implications of not having the gene in our liver — the Great Strainer of all that we ingest — and its potential contribution to alcoholism are enormous. Could this genetic deficiency contribute to loss of control?
I don’t have the answer, but I have more questions. Could the emotional pain people medicate be the pain we label “codependency?” Could codependency be another word for grief? If we add two more stages — guilt and obsession — to the five stages of loss identified by Dr. Elizabeth Kubler Ross, these seven stages resemble codependency. People with codependency are people known to be struggling to deal with loss — loss of a dream, a person, a family, or love they’ve never known.
The doctor who conducted both studies is the first doctor to test NFL football players for use of illegal drugs. After using urinalysis to test the NFL players for part of a season, it turned out that the majority of the dirty urines showed up in Black (or Afro-American — whatever is most politically correct) players. The media cornered the doctor, wanting to know what caused the disproportionate number of Black players with dirty urines. Was the doctor out “to get” the Black players?
“I don’t see Black or White,” the doctor calmly said. “All I see is yellow.”
Many factors contribute to alcoholism and addiction. Treatment has changed since the seventies. My hope is that we can return to the spirit we had in the beginning, when treatment first caught fire — the days before we thought we knew it all, that time when we approached recovery with an open heart. “Beginner’s mind” it’s called. Back in the old days, we knew one thing: treatment is an experiment. We didn’t know what caused addictions then, but we didn’t worry about it either. We focused on solving the problem. Then we learned we couldn’t control that, either. There was no predicting who would get sober and when, and who wouldn’t and why not.
The only person I can speak for is myself, and I know what triggered my recovery from addiction to alcohol and drugs: fear of going to jail and the staff — Ruth Anderson and Gene Bishop — at the chemical dependency cottages at the State Hospital in Northern Minnesota. They saw me as something more than the raggedy-ass junkie I was because they looked at me through eyes of love.
Two weeks ago, I celebrated my 38th sobriety anniversary. But I had nothing to do with it.
The Grace of God is a gift, and gifts can’t be controlled.
My best,
Melody B.
Hi Melody, Thank you for asking. I am doing well. Working as many hours as possible trying to get everything caught up. So very thankful to have my job. My next to oldest daughter is home from rehab doing really well. Looking for a job now. My youngest has to go to court oct. 26, she is trying to get into treatment but has to have a medical release before they will let her in. But I……am doing well. Hope all is well with you. I love you and I am so very grateful for you. Love, huggs and prayers.
I am living with a 27 year addict, my son. A few years ago he admitted stealing my debit card at night to finance an oxycotin addiction(after I became hysterical that money was being taken out of my account somehow). On his own he started going to a Methodone clinic…I started attending narconon meetings…he eventually agreed to a 4 week inpatient stay out of state…followed by 3 months in a sober house there…but he left to return to his girlfriend. During the next year he attended a few classes, held a few jobs, mostly laid on the couch watching TV…until I realized that he was pawning things like his brother’s XBox games, my laptop and diamond rings, etc. He blamed it on gambling…until I found the syringes and heroin balloons….not that he ever admitted that they were his. Why is it that in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he continues to deny the truth? I told him if I found out that he pawned anything else that I was kicking him out…of course, we have all our valaubles stored away from the house…what valuables are left anyway. I had bailed him out of jail twice on traffic related issues…I told him I wouldn’t do it anymore because he never followed through with courts and I never got my bail back. The third time he ended up withdrawing in jail. He thanked me for not responding to his pleas, threats, etc to bail him out. We were planning family a beach vacation with back east…I told him that I didn’t want him to come if he was on Methadone or drugs. He came…and spent the week withdrawing. When we got back I gave him the name of a local recovery center…he qualified for outpatient program because he wasn’t currently on drugs. I am trying hard not to remind him about counselling sessions, NA meeting, etc…my therapist said to let the rcovery program staff worry about him…but I am waiting for the other shoe to drop…. The only positive thing I can saw about my recovery is that I am slowly learning to set boundaries….albeit not nearly enough and maybe not high enough. Anyway, l agree, its far easier with a spouse…I was able to divorce my son’s father after a year of drinking & gambling…your book \Co-dependent No More\ saved my life back then. But I can’t seem to do it with my son…even though he continues to control my life. Any suggestions?
Hi. First, I want to say that I’m sorry both of you are going through this. It’s like living in hell — pure, absolute torture. Secondly, I have two experiences to share with you — mine as an addict (heroin, cocaine and methadone) and what helped me and what didn’t — and also my experience with “kin” other than spouses. It’s difficult to do this without breaking anonymity, but I’ll do my best.
I started drinking when I was 12, an alcoholic by age 13, and when I turned 18 I could clearly see the damage that alcohol was doing to me. I thought I made a life-saving decision then — I decided to stop using alcohol and just use drugs. It was the sixties/seventies — drugs — anything that even remotely promsied to change the way you feel was “in.” I didn’t want to get high though; I was searching for complete oblivioin. Even the other addicts and junkies thought I used too much. (Have since found out that I’m one of many, many people in our country born without a gene in my liver that metabolizes drugs — any kind, whether it’s penicillin or methadone. Don’t know the future implications of this discovery, as it’s recent, but it sounds exciting.) Anyway, we didn’t have the word “codependents” back then, when I was an addict — but I knew who they were. They were the ones who bailed me out. They were the ones who screamed, hollered, threatened — but whenever I needed themn, they were there to bail me out of whatever mess I was in. I’d been a straight A student at a private Christian academy high school; we didn’t kinow kids could be addicts or alocholics. I fell through the cracks. Everyone told me to “shape up” but I didn’t know how. I thought there waas something fundamentally wrong with me and that using drugs obsessively and to oblivion was “my lot.” I absolutely, completely, could…not…stop. Because I lived in Minnesota, there weren’t good drugs on the street. We had our own little “Minnesota Mafia” with it’s subculture — and we knew who had the good stuff, and it wasn’t the dealer down the block. By the time it (the drugs) got to Minnesota, they’d ben cut so much you couldn’t get “well” much less high. So we did what any resourceful group of addicts would do — we set about burglarrizing the people with the good stuff — the drug store. Pharmaceutical drugs had complete quality control. Many drug stores didn’t even have alarm systems back then. I didn’t do much alone (robbin) as a woman but I did the next most creative thing — I fell in love with the bst drug store robber the state of Minnesota had ever seen.
I overdosed a minimum of five times, probably closer to ten — truly overdosed where my mother was called to the emergency room after they’d administered last rights. Every time I stepped out of the house, I got arrested for something. The car could be fine when I left but within a block, the taillightsw would go out and I’d get stopped by a cop. When he would inevitably ask me to step out of the car, drugs would tumble out of my pockets and purse. I always kept a stash of pre-loaded syringes in my knee high boots. I had clothes, a new car, jewelry — and more drugs then I could use in a lifetime — I thought. But the trick is that no matter how much you have (drugs), you always run out (which I inevitably did). I was also on the methadone program until I got kicked off. I walked in there one day and likely because I’d taken 20 vallium earlier, before they could even administer my daily dose of methadone, I passed out — overdosed. When I woke up in the hospital attached to the methadone program, the doctor kicked me off — so I bit him as hard as I could, pulled all the tubes and medical equipment out of me, and took off.
I couldn’t be stopped by anyone else because I could not stop myself. Whenever Ii’d appear in court the judge would read my record, see my mom and her group of attorneys, see that I’d graduated on the Twin Cities honor roll and the inevitable question came out: what’s a nice, educated girl like you doing in an addicted, horrible place like this? So, not wanting to ruin my life with a record, he’d sentence me to living with my mom (the heart of my problems). And living with your mother has never, ever, in anyone’s book of “how to go into remission on a daily basis from addiction.” Not only did it not make me stop, living with her made me want to use even more. We had a great hate-love victim game going on, a dance where we both knew the steps. I’d bet in trouble — she’d get me out, and then she’d want total control over me (the baby of the family) and my life. Ha! Being controlled was what I hated the most.
Finally after one particularly awful episode — my boyfriend got sentenced to jail, I got sentenced to live in Mora, MN with my mom and I hated it there (in a short amount of time). I decided I’d be better off either a) robbing the drugstore and getting really loaded (and staying that way) or b) getting caught robbing the drugstore and going to jail. At least I’d feel at home. I took a bus to a nearby town (against the Judge’s orders — I wasn’t to leave my mother’s sigiht) and did what we call “working a doctor for drugs.” I came up with all the system in the Physician’s Desk Reference that called for a remedy of barbiturates and valium. Plus, I’d returned to drinking because that’s all I could get. It took one light beer and I’d go instantly into a blackout. I was a full-blown alcoholic and I was 23.
So, in the middle of the night, I climbed to the roof of the small town drugstore, determinend to get into the store via the vent. I was stoned — blasted out of my mind. I looked around and suddenly the quiet, dark small town lit up like Vegas. I was surrounded by sherriffs, policemen, deputies. They all shone spotlights on me and pointed their rifles at me while putting the spot light on me too. “Put your hands up or we’ll shoot,” one or more people screamed. I stumbled to the side of the roof. “What?” I said.
They started to take me to jail. I said that wouldn’t do. I got them to take me to the hospital but I could not get them to give me any drugs. I went out of my ever-loving mind — and it wasn’t a far or long place to go. I pulled apart the bed in the hospital room and attacked anyone who entered my room. “I want to go to the Minneapolis jail,” I screamed. “I’d rather die than be here!”
“We just might be able to accomodate you there,” the doctor said. They wrapped me in chains from my neck to my feet — big, bulky chains so I couldn’t move, put me lying down in the back of some kind of van, and transported me to the familiar Hennepin County jail. “Ah,” I thought. “I’m home.” within a hour, the doctor had me on methadone. This is an aside, and not particularly an important one — but I always, always, always got arrested on the last working weekday night of a three or four day holiday weekend — meaning extra time in county jail before I could be arraigned. I’d been through this drill before. I knew what to expect. Call my mom, get bailed out …. but wait! Something felt different this time. I can’t put words on it, but basically it felt like “the jig is up” — whatever the jig was. I didn’t know nor did I understand this dance, although I did it very well.
On Monday or Tuesday, when I stood before the Judge, he looked at me all sweet and innocent in my pale blue dress (with tracks — needle marks — runing from my fingernails to my arm pits — three straight lines of scabs per arm.) He looked at my mother and her team of attorneys ready to come to my defense so they could “attach me to my mom.” He read my record — both of arrests and that of a straight A or A plus student at one of the toughest academic high schools in the state. He scratched his chin, then he looked at the records again.
“Do you know you’re responsible for your own behavior?” he asked me. His question stunned me. I didn’t. I thought that if we didn’t get what we wanted, if we didn’t feel loved, if people abandon us — or worse yet abuse us (I’d been abducted off the street at age 4 and regularly molested plus emotionally abused from then on — a series of eight stepfathers and only one of them was “nice”), I thought that if all this bad stuff happened, then we got to do whatever we want. The truth is, we do. We’re each free to chose our own behaviors. The part I didn’t get was the second part, the “cause and effect.” Because while we can do whatever we want, we also get the result of our behavior if the codependents get out of the way and force us to learn the lessons life and our addiction is tryng to teach us — if the codependents stop helping the addict and begin to truly help themselves.
There was no way in God’s green earth my mother could help me. Not in a million years. I couldn’t even help myself. But at least I had the presence of mind to answer the Judge’s question with “yes” but the truth is no, I didn’t know that. I didn’t understand cause and effect, spiritually or materially. I thought I as being tortured (and I was — by myself). While i many ways (and this is just in my case) I believe I was self-medicating feelings too overwhelming for me to feel. I’d received no help for the abduction and the abuse didn’t stop, even when I turned 21, because then I began abusing myself (or letting men abuse me). I didn’t have the courage to kill myself but I had the sense to see that if I continued living this way I’d soon be dead. That idea didn’t bother me. I couldn’t see anyplace in theis world where I fit in. I didn’t know what it meant to give and receive love.
The Judge offered me a choice — treatment for as long as it takes or jail for zero to five years. In that instant, etting high stopped being fun. But with five years of prison time hanging over me, I still had to think about my choice. Life without drugs? That was the same as being sentenced to death. I hadn’t had a day without drugs or alcohol since age 12. But my mnind was still somewhat functional. I was sentenced to (no not Hazelden or a fancy place but instead a State Hospital with a couple cottages devoted to addicts and alcoholics). Chances were pretty good that I’d run into people I knew. In no time, I ghout I’ll be able to con and manipulate my way out of here.
But even in the back of the Sheriff’s car on the way to Wilmar, Minnesota — I knew something was different this time. As goofy as this sonds, it felt like I was going to bible camp for the first time. (I’d been to Bible camp before as a child. My mom often sent me to church. But the last time I was at Baptist bible camp, they busted me for having alcohol in all my bottles where there should have been perfume. They gave me a choice to — either get saved or they’d call my mom. Then, just to make sure, they made me get saved twice. Finally they believed I was “healed” and that the walk to the altar had “taken.”
I hoped that it did, too. but one day back at home and I was back to getting drunk every day. All the signs around me said “God is love” but nothing I’d experienced so far in my life felt like love to me. At age 12, I told God that “I’d handle it here, because if this was the best He could do, well, I didn’t need or want his help.”
Fast forward three months. I’m in treatment using whatever I can, whenever I can. I heard nutmeg will get you stoned. If you eat a large can, it does do sojmething to your brain butr I wouldn’t describe it as “getting high.” I sniffed the aerosal from a can of spray deodorant. I ate the stubs in inhalants for people with alergies. Finally, finally, I scored some real drugs. Speed. Good, clean, speed. The only problem was, I got the drugs about eight o’lcok at night and my probation officer was going to be at the state hospital “examining me” at 7:00 a.m. the next day. What a tight spot! I hid the drugs in my closet and thought I’d save them for another day.
Now, mind you — one of the hallmarks of addiction is loss of control: loss of control of what we use, how much we use, when we use and what we do when we use. We’re always and consistently getting stoned at the very worst time. I laid down to go to sleep, I swear I did, but those drugs in the closet kept calling my name. “Just one,” I thought. I took one pill. ‘That’s the same as throwing it away,” I thought. “One won’t do anything for me. I at least need two.” By three o’clock a.m., I had taken the entire bag of speed I’d scored the night before. I was laying there, bug eyed, sweating and paranoid. What was I thinking of? In hours my probation officer would be there. I could go to jail. Nope, getting high wasn’t fun anymore. I didn’t like this part. I liked the first part — doing whatever I wanted to do — but I didn’t like the second part — the consequences from doing whatever I chose. Hard to run away from karma because we turn a corner and Whap! There is is — waiting for you! By then, I was piling up consequences from criminal and just plain bad behaviors faster than I could process them. I couldn’t keep up. But for the first time in my life, something was different. I felt not high and happy, but downright scared. Plus, having to sit in all those goofy meetings we had to sit through, something had stuck in my craw. Someone had said something about “Admitted we were powerless over alcohol (and drugs) and our lives had become unmanageable.” In a blinding flash of light I went — Yup, that’s me. Until then, I honestly thought everything I’d done made perfect sense. I thought I was in control of the drugs. That was the beginning of a spiritual awakening. I saw that the drugs were in total control of me. I was scared out of my mind. I was also depressed because now that I saw I was powerless, I also saw that I didn’t know how to stop.
Bummer. I figured I had two choices: escape to South America and work in the cocoa fields and chew cocaine leaves or marry a doctor. I couldn’t find or see any other way out.
I made it through my meeting with my probation officer. Thank God urine tests were popular yet. thank God for so many things. But how could I thank God — I hadn’t said or spoken one word to him since 1963 — when I was twelve. I sat on my bed after the probatio officer left. “I don’t know if you’re there, and if you are I don’t know if you care aboutr me. Plus I don’t know if there’s a program that exdists anywhere in the world that could help me stop drinking and using drugs, but if you are (there), and you do (care) and thre is (a program), would you please help me get it,” I prayed — looking up at the ceiling in the dingy room.
Nothing happened. Not one single thing. It was like talking to broken glass. I did the only thing I knew to do — and that’s what I’d been doing all my life: get high whenever I could. Three days later I was sitting on the lawn. Now, I hated marijuana. But beggers can’t be choosers and that’s all I could get — so it would have to do. I laid back on the sprawling lawn — it was fall in Minnesota by then — a beautiful day with massive tress ursting with orange and yellow leaves. The air was crisp but not too cold and it was a rare day indeed as the sun was shining too — something that happens in Minnesota only about seventeen times a year. I laid back down to watch the clouds. In that moment, the sky turned a purplish color. I saw, I felt, I knew — I DIDN’T BELIEVE, I KNEW THAT GOD WAS REAL. I also knew I had no right to keep doing what I’d been doing to myself. One more thought occured to me. “If I put half as much energy into doing the right thing as I’ve put into doing what’s wrong,” there isn’t much in this world I can’t do,” I thought. I decided at that moment to throw myself with everything I had into the program the state hospital offered. My therapy consisted of: one group of outsiders coming in and putting on a AA meeting; one group therapy session; and one meeting with my counselor each week — plus a morning lecture. And that judge wasn’t kidding when he said, “as long as it takes.” I was in a six week program. I was there for almost a year.
B ut put it into perspective — it took three months before I knew my name, and then another two months to add to it, “and I’m an addict and alcoholic.” The hard cases take time. We don’t heal overnight.
I had one more slip in treatment after that, but that’s how my sobriety began. It was and still is a total, absolute and complete gift and it happened by the Grace of God. After I’d been sober for two years, I decided ti wanted to work helping other addicts get sober. The treatment center assigned me to work with “the families of the addict” instead. I was so horribly deperssed. I felt so cheated. “I’m new here. Plus I don’t know what to do with them — the spoues of the addict,” I sID.
“Neither do we (know what to do with them),” the program director said. “And because you’re new here is why you get the job.” He smiled.
Nothing I did in that group worked or helped. Absolutely nothing. By then, I had maried a tall, handsome man who was a recovery alcoholic and one of the leading recovery counselors in the state. It took me seven years to learn that the reason I didn’t understand the people in that group was because I didn’t understand myself. The man I married was still a practicing addict. Everytime he disappeared, lost the car, lost his job, spent all our money, etc. etc. etc. — he said it was my fault. I believed him and after all, we’re not supposed to take anyone else’s inventory, right?
“Judgment is mine,” Sayeth the Lord — my daughter said. “but I sure envy his job.”
After seven years of sobriety, I had a second spiritual awakening. Instead of: feeling my husband’s feelings, feeling like a powerless and trapped victim and honestly — being scared to death to be on my own, I admited to my absolute embarrassment and shame that I needed to go not to one but two groups. I needed that dreadful ting called Al-Anojn too. My fist meeting, a perky woman met me and welcomed me to the Al-Anon group. “I’m an addict, not an al-anon,” I huffed. “Oh, you’re a double winner,” she said. The implication was that was great.
I didn’t feel like I’de won anything. I felt like I’d lost. If people didn’t need me so much, I possibly may have comited suicide. I attended that al-anon meeting and for the first time in seven years instead of obsessing about what “my alcoholic” was doing or not doinhg, I felt my own feelings instead. I cried, and that opened the path to my heart.
It gave me back my life — or gave it to me for the fist time.
(Sorry to take so long answering your questions — but you asked and this is the only way I know to answer.)
I didn’t get divorced right away. Leaving or straying isn’t the answer. Marrying an alcoholic isn’t the problem — it’s a symptom of the problem (codependency). I became obsessed with learning everything I could ab out it. Plus by then — I’d had Nichole, my daughter, and then two years later my son Shane was born). I felt trapped. I didn’t think God would love me if I got another divorce. I didn’t want my children to come fromn a broken home. Then one day, as I typed the words (to a book I’d finally sold after twenty publishers turned it down), “You don’t have to stay in relationships that make you miserable,” I typed. I felt like someone grabbed a hammer and hit me on the head. I walked upstairs and initiated the divorce. David was a dear man who loved his children. He loved me — but I hated the lying. However, in answer to your question — he knew if he told me the truth ab outr his drinking, then he’d lose me. He had to lie — it was the only way to avoid the consequences of his behavior (or at least postpone them for a while). I’d spent seven years trying to make him stop before I remembered — when I was actively using, I couldn’t stop myself. How could anyone stop me?
Duh.
I wrote the book. We were so poor then when we went to McDonalds and got a happy meal, one person got the burger, one the fries and the other the Coke. And we were thrilled! Money isn’t everything, but it can solve some problems (like how to pay the gas bill and fix the car). I thought maybe 900 people would read the book I wrote about what I learned that made me so crazy when I was married to an alcoholic. Instead it hit the best seller list. I’d made up my mind that no book I wrote would ever change my life. Well, that book proved me wrong. Our whole world changed. By then I was divorced. The children — for the first time in their lives had new clothes. Christmas of 1991 was the best ever. We had the most beautiful tree. We loaded the car with toys for kids who wouldn’t have received anything otherwise. We went to church Christmas Eve and I cried (as I always do) when we sang Silent Night.
One month later, my beloved son Shane was dead. He died in a tragic ski accident at the Alps, ten minutes from our house. Hit his head. Knocked his brain stem loose. Another shitty, crappy, God-awful lesson from life. by then I KNEW God was real. Now I learned that just because God loves us, and just because we try to do the right thing doesn’t mean Life is going to treat us nice. It’s nothing personal (although it sure feels that way) — it’s just the way of this world.
Now I’m going to tell you another story and I’ll try to make it much, much quicker. A women who went through a similar situation as I did — even to having one child deceased and one child living (a teenager), learned her teenager was using or abusing alcohol and drugs. By the time the daughter was 19 (or thereabouts), the daughter had been to treatment twice. But the years before the daughter turned 19 — and even the years after — that mother describes as a “living, breathing heall.”
“I loved my daughter, but she stole from me. Imited me on the phone — got my platinum American Express and ripped me off for Twenty Two Thousand Dollars one mlonth. She stole and sold my clothes, my cd’s — anything she could get her hands on. She did whatever it took to get drugs. But for several reasons — I loved her, she was all the family I had left, and I knew about alcoholism and addiction and letting go by then — I couldn’t divorce her. The worst punishment I could think of was — on days when she made the girl in the movie The Exorcist look like the sweetest girl you ever saw, I threatened her with having to go live with her dad. Once I even followed through. Bottom line? Nothing worked. I couldn’t and didn’t want to divorce her — plus we have legal responsibilities to minor children. We could get in trouble for not doing something (only nobody tells us what that something is).
This woman would probably advise you (by the way, the daughter is now a beautiful grown woman with a fantastic career and although it took about seven treatments, she’s sober) to understand that you are living in hell. It’s going to hurt. It’s going to be hard. It’s going to test you in ways you never thought you’d be tested. The situation will also teach you things that it will make you a more efficient person to learn and to know. But you’ll learn them not because (as I once naively thought), you’ll have to use these behaviors — such as letting go, detaching, taking care of ourselves — just once. You’re going to need to use them in increasingly challenging situations — maybe — for the rest of your life.
Arm yourself with all the knowledge you can gain. Get a couple healthy friends who won’t enable you, but won’t judge you either when you make mistakes. Yes, I understand clearly that your son is definitely playing with fire and the consequences could be severe. It probably pulls constantly at your heart and brings up your worst fears. But other than the choices you make about your own behaviors, there’s not onen single, teensy, eensy weensy thing you can do to change anyone else.
That’s my story for today.
If you have anymore question (although you’ll probably be too horrified of the answer — one as long as a book), please feel free to ask. Again my heart is with you. Get it balance. Do it by feeling your feelings. If you attend a group, try to go to one with people in situations similar to yours. Maybe try finding one online? And in your darkest, most hopeless moments please remember: although time is probably crawling by — I can hear the clock ticking off the hours in your head — TTHIS … TOO … SHALL … EVENTUALLY AND NOT AS SOON AS YOU WANT IT TO… PASS.
“Practicing the skills of recovery from codependency and working the steps … working the al-anon steps … did I mention working the Al-anon steps? Doing those things will help some. Try to learn to live in the moment instead of projecting months and years ahead (Eckhart Tolle — The Power of Now). If you find or are blessed with the Grace of God (something else somewaht out of our control), you just may find yourself experiencing the Peace that Passes All Understanding. YYou’ll see with sheer and absolute amazement that you’re happy again, only now you’ll redefine happiness as “peace.” And you’ll learn something I call “radical faith.” So many of us live a day at a time — but we’re waiting for tomorrow to come, hoping it will be better than now. (Who wouldn’t?) It’s a normal response. But you’ll learn some brave, fearless behaviors that you do even though you’re afraid. You’ll understand that radical faith means knowing that everything is where it needs to be, not tomorrow but right now. You’ll give hope — genuine hope to others — to feel the same way. Compassion will grow in you beyond what you can imagine. You’ll see that you’re guided by an unseen force called intuition. You’ll just know what to do.
but to get to that place, which is by the way “a consequence” — or “an effect” — you have to do the cause which is not just going to meetings but working, truly working, the best that you can, the twelve Steps of Al-Anon.
Please stay close and let me know how it goes. Another woman said to me, one day at a booksigning, “I think that learning to detach saved my son’s life.”
May all good things come to you, may Life be gentle with you, kind to you, and may you learn to love and nurture and surrender to who you are — your beautiful, wonderful self. Melody Beattie
Wow…last evening I got a call from my son’s counselor at the outpatient recovery center that he’s only been in for about 10 days….the other shoe dropped AGAIN….he tested positive for opiates the night before…likely that they will drop him from the outpatient program (the thing that I was pinning my hopes on AGAIN) for relapsing so early into the program. Of course my son denied it….the usual myriad of excuses…mixed up samples, the counselor has it out for him, blah…blah…blah. Anyway, as usual, my world turned upside down…and I ran to the computer to see if you responded…and I cried and cried as I read and reread what you had written. I know that there are ALOT of lessons yet for me to learn in what you wrote…but one of them stood out last night… that my codependency is a HUGE roadblock to his taking responsibility for his behavior. I’ve understood that my enabling prevents him from suffering consequences of his behavior…though God help me it seems that I can’t stop myself sometimes….but I didn’t get that preventing him from suffering consequences, also prevented him from ever having to take responsibility for ANY of his behavior. So simple and yet I didn’t get it….I just didn’t see that the two went hand-in-hand.
So as I write this, he calls me and says he can’t pee with the counselor looking at him…just another excuse…laying the blame on the counselor….I told him to just do it…of course he hung up on me and I know the outpatient program is now a thing of the past. The only thing that gets me is that this whole thing played right into his hands… he’s not suffering any consequences…all he had to do was test positive once and he flunked out so now he can go back to using…which is what he probably wants to do anyway (as you so eloquently pointed out)… he got his get out of jail free card…and he can continue to blame everyone else for it to boot.
But I am going to take with me the pearl that you gave me and hopefully be able to look at all this through a different lens…to quit feeling sorry for myself and find a way to start detaching and “get out of the way and force him to learn the lessons of life” (I am going to go back and read that part in your book AGAIN)…Thank you so much for taking the time to write me back…and I now better understand the lying…again so simple really…although how to deal with it armed with that new knowledge is going to be a challenge.…I thank God that I wrote to you when I did.
If it’s any consolation at all, we only have to go through the “really, really painful letting go” of an alcoholic once — and if we learn about the behavior (letting go with love), then we learn and it helps to neutralize the pain. Of course you care. This is your son. But …. much as you think he is, he’s not “your baby” anymore. He’s his own man, with his own consequences. God it can be hard to let go, but when it gets harder and more painful to hang on, then we know that it’s time. I’m glad my story helped some, and I know you will find your path through this. I have confidence in you. Melody
Melody, I read and re-read this over and over. Thank you.
Not sure what “this” refers to, but whatever it is, I’m glad you found something that helps. Hope you are well, GREENy. My best, Melody
I was referring to the what you wrote on dealing with addicted children. All of it, ever single word of it. I read and re- read it often please do not take it off this site.
Okay, GREENy. Gotcha. I’ll leave it up. It just came pouring out of me — I was in the midst of doing sometihng else when I responded with that post and I couldn’t stop writing. I felt like I was writing a book, although I don’t remember much of what I wrote. It’s like when we speak or share at a meeting. I’m genuinely grateful it spoke to yu and helped a little. Melody (BTW, how are you doing?)
Thanks for this great support. I really thrive on it.
I’m glad you found us (not glad you need to be here but glad you are as long as you do.)
My daughter will be 23 years old tomorrow. She was gone for about 5 days. We did not know where she was. She is back at her Dad’s tonight for a while anyway. Back to the hoping and praying. She will do really good for a couple of weeks or so and then just up and disappear. We will hear from her later, usually messed up or at the hospital or police are taking her to the hospital for overdose. But for now she is ok.
I’m sorry your going through this, and it’s her birthday no less. I have yet to find anything that can cause as much pain and guilt as sometihng wrong with our kids. Melody
The only thing more painful than watching that rosy-cheeked baby turn into a raging addict or alcoholic who screams, “I hate you” each time we walk in the room is that sense of feeling trapped living with that child. “It’s the closest thing to Hell on earth” one parent of an addicted teenager said. “I felt like I was locked in prison, only the prison was my own home.”
It’s one thing to be married to an addict or alcoholic. We can leave – or tell the other person to leave. We have different obligations and responsibilities, legal responsibilities, when the addict is our child. Then the questions begin: When do we intervene? How do we intervene? If we intervene too soon, the money, time, and effort will be wasted. But if we wait too long …. One of the hardest things we may be called upon to do as a parent is deal with an addicted or alcoholic child.
“I began telling my child early on that because both parents and sets of grandparents are alcoholics, the chances that alcoholism or addiction would be in her genes were high,” said one mother. ‘It’s about loss of control — loss of control of when we use, how much we use, and what we do when we use.’ I didn’t want to instill in my child that being an addict or alcoholic was etched in stone, was an unavoidable, preordained destiny. But I wanted my child to have that information and know that alcoholism and addiction are an illness, something that can be treated and that it’s not a fundamental moral defect that nothing can be done about. It paid off,” this mother said.
“One day, my daughter came home from school several hours early. When I asked her what she was doing home, she said she had a serious drinking problem and asked if I would get her help. It took more than one treatment. That didn’t surprise me. But at least that first treatment gave her a foundation of information. When she became ready to get clean and sober, she knew how to do it. She knew she could do it. And she did it, and is doing it — one day at a time.”
Signs that your child may be involved with alcohol or drugs include: a change in mood or personality; screaming or hollering at you every time you’re in a room together (or avoiding you completely); missing money and items, such as CDs and other items that can be sold for money to purchase drugs; a change in grades, change in friends; a break-in that appears to happen smoothly when you’re not at home; and a basic feeling that the child you know and love isn’t there anymore can all be signs that your child — yes yours — may be in over his or her head with alcohol or drugs.
When one mother described her daughter’s behavior, I suggested that the child was using drugs. “Oh, no,” the mother responded. “My child would never do that.” A year later she learned her daughter had been smoking heroin and was addicted. “It explained the black smudges all over her room, her mood changes, and her constant need for money,” the mother said. “It scared the hell out of me because I realized my daughter could easily overdose and die.”
Get help for yourself by attending a group such as Al-Anon, but try to find a group where the people attending are dealing with similar problems, parents who are dealing with addicted children instead of women or men dealing with an alcoholic or addicted spouse. Call 211, a free number for resources in every state. Get information. You can’t change your child, but you can improve the environment in your home (somewhat) and make better-informed decisions about what to do next. Don’t expect it to be easy. It isn’t. But you can learn to take care of yourself. By doing that, you’ll know what to do next to help your child. Sometimes “what to do next” means learning to live with a difficult and unsolved problem. Find out what your legal responsibilities are to and for your child. Protect your money and your possessions. If your child is using, take away the car keys. Most importantly, take your head out of the sand. Acknowledge the truth and take guided actions. Let yourself have your feelings. Remember, letting go doesn’t mean we do nothing. It doesn’t mean we don’t care. It means we acknowledge what we cannot do, and we do what we can.
Straight A students can be addicts. Children from good homes can be alcoholics. It’s not a reflection on your parenting skills. Alcoholism and addiction are diseases, but we treat them differently than we treat diseases such as measles or mumps. Learn how to not enable your child, how to set and enforce boundaries, and as much as possible, how not to engage in arguments and chaos. If you do engage, be gentle with yourself. You’re human and you’re living in an extremely difficult situation. Taking care of your child includes taking care of you.
Are you living or dealing with an addicted or alcoholic child or teenager, or one with problems such as criminal behavior? Is your child out of control, and has that loss of control spread to you and your life? How are you dealing with it? What helps? What doesn’t help? You can either start a group, then spin a forum off that group, or post a comment here. Share your experience, strength, and hope with others.
Melody Beattie