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We are in the middle of a snowstorm and I just got a call from my AS that he was at the hospital and they were about to call police if I didn't pick him up. He was found unconscious in a hotel last night and management sent him to the hospital by ambulance. He had alcohol poisoning and they gave him charcoal. They had released him but since he couldn't find a ride to his apartment, he was raising cain. He has been on daily probation for 4 weeks and attends an all-day drug and alcohol treatment program. He is looking for a job. A friend gave him the apt. for free for a few weeks and I just started paying the rent until he found a job. His dad and I both have been helping him out with food and other necessities and just got him a cell phone. I was hoping it wasn't enabling since he was working "his daily program." Now we are thinking we have indeed enabled him and it's time to stop all help. Right now he has little food, no money, I think the three day old phone is lost, and his friend will be evicting him if no further rent is paid. He has 7 court cases with probably more coming because of debt. I am so torn about this whole situation. He can't go on like this and I am not very strong about tough love. He is 21 and his life is a mess, and mentally I am.
I'm so sorry you are going through this. I think you're doing great to even be questioning your part in this.
I do not have any experience with enabling an AS , but I have plenty of experience enabling an AH. My goodness, I did such a good job I could teach "enabling 101" at college! LOL.
At first, I thought my enabling was loving. But I've realized it was actually preventing my AH from feeling consequences of his behavior. Maybe I was even setting him up for more harm in the future. It took me quite a while to figure out where to draw the line on what I would do for him. It was easy to agree that I would help with his recovery (rehab)etc. It was also easy not to buy his alcohol for him anymore. I also stopped intervening in his choices about business appointments, chores. Where I cannot draw the line is in him having a roof over his head if he will accept it. If he won't accept it - then it's out of my control.
I wish you well as you grapple with this. I know there were folks in my face to face group who were dealing with addicted grown up children. I would encourage you to share this in a meeting.
(((Trinia))) Wow this sooo sounds all to "the same" to me... I have a brother to which is younger then me, my mom coddled him most of his life (2-24), he is now 29 years old... (2) kids who adore him, an "A" GF of (8) Brutal years, (calling the cops every other weekend, wreck'n cars, dwi's, dui's, CDS charges, you name it) ...I finally got my mother to throw him OUT of her house at about 21, he had to see what it was like to "pay the rent, pay the cell, pay the electric, and let me say... IT HAS NOT been a good time...He has more court dates then I can count, he has been on probation since he was 18, and still is!!! Tough love is just the 1st steps to giving him what he needs...He needs you to detach, so that he can figure out "who HE" is, and not who you want him to be... and if it means going hungry once in a while to see that you can have good things when you work hard enough to get them...With my brother, well... We just lost my father this past Thanksgiving... My brother was (1) of only (2) people that could see my father after he past... Me not being the other one... It hit him right in the face because our fathers death was from nothing more then the bottle he wouldn't put down... I can say that lovingly now... And mean it, because I did love my father, and he knew that. My brother never really had a relationship with my father outside his drinking so that is how he chose to live his life as well..Now he is a father, without a father... And SLOWLY he is starting to see were he is headed... He doesn't make ALL the right chooses, nor do I, He does try a "Little" harder, and he is building confedense with everyday...I thought it was my job as a big sister, to straighten him out, and make him see all his mistakes, but in reality, my job as a big sister is to encourage him every chance I Get, One day at a time, and since then...We have a new love for each other, because he is slowly, making his own path... Give yours a chance to see what strength he has, and if it hurts for a while, well you can get thru... All A's are differant yet the same, if you want to help him... Let him help himself... When he ask for your help to "better" him.. Help! when he wants money, rent, phone, extra's... Let him work to get them. Or do without...No matter his schedule...This Program I am a little NEW too, but I do try to share my thoughts and past experiences from my heart, so good luck to you... You Can do It!!!
Keeping you in my Prayers... God Bless... IM me if you ever need an open minder thru tough times... We are all here for you... Missing Out...
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Forgiveness- Isn't about forgettingwhat happened,its about Giving Up,All Hope,of a Better Past!
(Trinia2) You received some very good ESH from Rocky38, and missing out. My suggestion for you would be to type in "Enabling" in the search bar at the top of this page. You will have page after page of posts simular to yours. You will be able to find how countless others who have handled the problems and decisions involved with enabling.
There is a passage in one of the Al-Anon books that goes something like this: "We should allow our A's the diginity to make their own mistakes and suffer their own consequences without any interfrence from us". That is hard in the short term but pays it's rewards many times over in the long run. Nothing changes when nothing changes. When we do the same things over and over and get the same results everytime, we must learn from it. If the A's in our lives have a net that catches them each and every time they fall they will never seek the help they need. They have no reason.
What ever your decision I think when you read other post after you search for "Enabling" most parents and their children will both state that the turning point in their lives was when the enabling stopped.
(note) When I was young and Daddy stopped buying my car tires and the money came out of my pocket, trust me, I did not take off as fast. LOL
I understand because I have an AS too. It is h#ll, that is the only way to describe it.
Let me share with you something that was told to me, we (parents, spouses, siblings, children, etc.) are not powerful enough to control or correct addiction, this power rest with the addict alone, we can only control what we do (it is much harder to control what we feel). They have to take the responsibility, but you will both feel the pain.
Go to meetings, and read as much as you can about being the parent of an adult child that is out of control. I don't know if we should recommend material, but you situation is so parallel to the best book I have ever read on this subject "Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children" by Allison Bottke, get it and read it, keep it by your bed.
Please keep us informed about you and your AS, I will remember you in my prayers.
Thank you DreamsOver. I am of the belief that we can never have enough to read and learn. I appreciate everyone that shares other resources.
Trinia,
I thought the hardest boundary to set for me was last July when I told my 20yr old AD that she could not live in our home until she completed a 30day rehab and was committing herself to recovery. In December she found herself homeless and entered a program. However, she only lasted 2 weeks. I am guessing 2 weeks was enough time for her to figure out other places she could go.
However, it has been almost a month and she has run out of her own resources again. When she left the rehab, I told her she could call me if she needed a ride to an NA meeting or to a homeless shelter. Yesterday the call came and she wanted a ride to a homeless shelter. The pain of driving my daughter to a homeless shelter was more intense than when I turned her out of our home last July. On the drive downtown, I could see she was struggling with her decision to go there as she wanted to borrow my cell phone to try and call a few more people. No one answered her calls.
As we approached the shelter, you could see the homeless streaming towards our destination. All layered in clothing so bulky it was impossible to recognize a human shape or whether they were male or female. When she saw the line of homeless waiting at the door, she asked me not to leave her there. As we drove away, I simply asked her where she wanted to go. I told her that I was sorry that I couldn't offer her any advice because she was travelling down a road of unknown territory for me. I admitted that I have no idea how homeless people survive.
She still has another week to go before the rehab center will re-admit her. She asked if we would allow her to live in a tent in our back yard until she could get back into the center. We gave her a tent, sleeping bag, gallon of water and are now providing her with one meal a day.
My head tells me that I am still enabling her and that I'm softening the consequences of her actions. My heart tells me that I'm her mother and that I'm keeping her safe so that she can get back on the road to recovery. Only time will tell.
Trinia, no one can ever say that you don't love your son, and its clear to me that you still have hope for him. The only way you can help him is to let him feel pain. In one of the clases I took they described the brain of an alcoholic as toxic, the only functioning modes are denial, delusion and compulsion. The longer they have been using the more delusional they are. The only thing that gets through is pain, and when the pain is unbearable they will change. For your son (and mine) doing less for them is doing more.
All your great efforts are only destructive as they prevent him from feeling the pain. It harder on us moms because we have been programed not to let our child feel pain. Our job was to avoid pain and make it go away fast. Now you have to learn to rejoice in your sons pain because it means something is getting through. You have to learn to be happy for a crisis to occur because that could be the crisis that changes his life.
If he can't go on much longer like this, let him finish falling so he can get on with recovery.
I've definitely been there. I still have the ex A call after a year of not talking to him. They do call and they do expect to be rescued.
You need help in setting boundaries. You need support.
I think this is a great place to be. Another resource is live face to face meetings or meetings here (twice a day). Yet another resource are the books, anything you can get from al anon, Melody Beattie. Books on boundaries are also helpful.
