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My son (21) has been on a binge for four months which resulted in three incarcerations and 2 hospital stays. We have tried everything to get him help, but he has not hit his bottom. He goes back to court Thursday and may get jail time. Anyway, his friends bailed him out on Tuesday and I let him back in the house thinking he would behave. He got in a terrible argument with his stepfather and my husband threw him out. I learned in Al-Anon not to give him money, bail him out, but I am having a hard time with him out on the streets. He has no money, phone, car or license and the two friends who bailed him out against our pleas do not want him to stay with them. Every professional I have dealt with in the last four months has said I should not let him back in the house. How do I get through this difficult time? I am going to meetings and trying to connect with my Higher Power, but I am in tears everyday and completely obsessed with thoughts of his safety.
This is so hard, you are juggling several balls in the air at once, you are dealing with what this can do to a marriage, do you support your husband or your son? You feel as though you have to choose (in my marriage this came when my husband, which is the father to my AS, got into a fist fight and he told our AS not to come back, my husband told me he would leave me if I let our son back into the house) I had to deal with my fear for my AS safety, my feelings of despair, depression and shame was the last thing I was dealing with (when it should have been the first).
You must take care of yourself, that is a very tall order right now, and it may take time for you to get to that place, it took me a very long time to understand this and I won't lie to you I still have to work on it. My AS is still so needy it is drama all the time, won't work, drug buddies to deal with, it is a long story with all our addicts, but everyone here understands where you are at right now. To save your sanity you will have to detach from him emotionally, you will never stop caring or loving him, but you will have to learn to let him "hit the wall" you cannot control this situation no more than you can keep the sun from rising in the morning.
I know just what you are going through, I have been dealing with my AS going on ten years, and if I hadn't taken some control back over my life ( that is the only control I have) I would have lost my sanity. I know you still look at him as your "little boy" I had to put that image aside as much as I could, I had to look at him as a grown up that was making his own choices.
You will have to learn the new concept of being good to yourself, for me it was renting a movie, popping pop corn and light some candles, taking my dog for a walk, getting into a good book. Find something that gives you pleasure, and only you, I talk to myself sometime as I would a best friend or if my mother were still alive and talking to me. I hope I am making sense to you. Don't let the drug & drinking buddies put you on the spot, don't let anyone put you on the spot about him and how you have to deal with him, no one understands this unless they have personally dealt with it, and his "friends" and I use that term loosely, will try and put a guilt trip on you. Our son has gotten out and told such lies on us, we must sound like the worst people in the world, cold uncaring monsters for parents!
oh hon, I can feel your pain. Been there. Read,Getting Them Sober. It helps lots.
As a mom we are driven to help them, they came from OUR body.
Sadly the only way to get thru it is to know, allowing them to figure it out, is what they need. They have to find their own way. If we keep catching them, they won't know how to catch themselves.
Well if he wants to be sober there are tons of opportunities for him. There are resources. He has to want them.
I understand the obsession I was there. I had to learn to detach. You can find ways to do that. I know it is a skill I never wanted to learn. Now I have it my life is much more manageable.
Trina, I won't pretend to know what you are going through. My hub is my "A" and I don't know what I would do if it was a child I was watching.
You are doing the best you can with what you have. So please see that.
Also you can't control anyone else anymore than you can control your son. Maybe a prayer to your HP that the actions his "friends" did will bring your son closer to his bottom and closer to a recovery program.
Keep coming back we are here for you.
Yours in recovery, Mandy
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"We are not punished for our unforgiveness, we are punished by it" Jim Stovall
i don't know about your son, but my own really delights in the worrys he can cause.
both our children are grown men now.
they make big grown man decisions (to drink, or do drugs, or to commit crimes) and they hafta live with the big grown man consequences.
i would never, never, never involve my own mother in my little catastrophes (i was on my own by the time i was fifteen years old). i would have died of humiliation had she found out when i had ended up homeless. why do so many men think that women should continue to provide for them after they are grown?
i routinely tell my son to 'Cowboy up' when he starts whining about how he can't do this or that because of his mental illness or his addiction, or when he screws himself out of another shelter...
and i never let him know that he cost me one frikkin' tear over his bad choices.
you didn't hold a gun to your kid's head and say, "Now chug that beer. Now commit a crime. Now pick a fight with step-dad.".
he constucted his own cross.
don't climb up there and let him crucify you, too.
just tell him how nice it is for you with your feet on the ground, sober. even if you want to cry.
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Sell 'Crazy' somewhere else...we're all full up here."
I can identify with your problems with your son. My son just got out of the military. He has a wife, baby, and one on the way. He has gone thru his money my money. Everything that I try to do is enabling. His addiction seems to be spending/making himself feel good with things. He is looking at two different jail times. He won't ask and won't listen. Time to detach with love. It is empowering to give him "his" problems. I am tired. I am not my son's HP.
Thank you all for your words of wisdom. They give me strength. By the way, my son came by with a friend and a truck the other night and did move out. I am grateful for that. I still worry about him but he has a place for now and is not on the street.
