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My 21 year old son lost his license for drunk driving but did get work driving privileges. I own a business and he was working for me at the time of his DUI and still continues to work for me, I know that in itself is enabling but he is a good worker and earns his keep.
Now his driving suspension is up and he doesn't have the money for his license reinstatement or to renew his insurance. I have money put away for his college and he wants to use that for his lisc. and insurance, I said no. He also has a savings account that is money I put away from birthdays and other gifts as he was growing up, I have never signed that money over to him and he asked to use that, again I said no. I have been telling him for the entire six months of his suspension these expenses were coming yet he spent every dime he made, and he has made plenty of money and could easily have saved some.
So the conversation ended with him being mad and saying he probably will just have to quit working since he wont have car insurance. I admit to getting kind of pissy with him and telling him he will get no sympathy from me because of his bad decisions. Part of me feels I should just turn his savings account over to him and be done with it but I know he will buy drugs and booze, yet I still feel guilty.
Hello. Your son is still young and setting boundaries with yourself to not enable him is the right thing to do. You should not feel guilty for trying to show your son to take responsibility for his actions. If you give in, it will become a vicious cycle and you will have a hard time forgiving yourself if the decision leads him in the wrong direction. He needs to learn accountability and suffering the consequences of his actions. Like you said, he has been aware of the expenses coming up.
Sounds like a storming, threatening teen to me. If he quits his job, then he has no money. And that would be a consequence that could work in his favor, too?
Thanks for the replies, I know not allowing him to manipulate me with guilt is the stand I must take, but still I feel the guilt just the same. One thing about my son is he has never been the rebellious "storming" kid, he can be passive aggressive but he is very very quiet and reserved. I think that makes it harder for me as a parent because it's difficult to get mad at him, disappointed and frustrated yes, but he doesn't fuel the fire to cause anger. Another thing that adds to my worry is when I threw him out of my house back in Sept. he moved in with my daughter (his sister). My daughter is a great kid, hard working, responsible and just finishing up college. I didn't want her to let him move in because I feared she would end up supporting him, so now that possible scenario adds to my guilt.
I'm almost afraid to answer my phone this weekend, I expect calls from my son, my ex (his mom) and possibly my daughter, all expecting me to step in and fix everything.
He's drinking and drugging and still doing a good job at work? I'm curious if he would pass a drug test for work...the rest of us generally have to do that. I can see not handing money over that was saved for him for a while until he proves some stability and fiscal responsibility. I can see logic behind saying "I need more time to pass in which you show me some fiscal responsibility and also sober decision making. If I gave you that money now, I am concerned it will be spent on alcohol and drugs and also you won't ever learn to save money." The end.
I assume he's living virtually rent free with his sister? What else does he have to spend money on? There's no reason he couldn't have saved up and paid this on his own. His insurance is going to be high, but that is paid month to month. The license fine and reinstatement? How much could that be? He just needs to save money for a couple months probably at most. Nothing to fix for you. If they all call you expecting you to fix anything, I would redirect their call to tell them to ask your son about his problems saving money and why he thinks he's entitled to dip into savings you have kept for him to just erase his mistakes without using money he earned himself? What lesson is there in that.
I hear you Cooper. I back your reasoning. I can see it will be hard to stand alone against other enabling family members.
Perhaps our on-line meeting this morning could be a help for you?
My family members expected me to make life easier for my son, to bail him out, to give him a place to live scot free no matter what he was doing to trash his own life and disrespect me and my right to have a peaceful, safe home. My daughter took him in for awhile. It didn't work and I knew it wouldn't work but it was her life and her decision to discover that living with her brother was just as damaging for her as it was for me. My other family members - most especially my Dad - learned that what they did didn't help either. I could have talked all day about alcoholism and the need to let our loved one experience the consequences of his choices but nobody was listening. My choices were based on what I knew to do and not do as a member of the Al-Anon program. No one else saw a need to get help themselves in the program. They also stopped helping in the ways they had chosen because they, too, discovered it didn't help. Their thoughts, feelings and behaviors in relationship to my son - just like the disease - weren't caused by me. I couldn't control them or cure them anymore than I could control or cure my son. I was responsible only for my own thoughts, feelings and behaviors. They were responsible for theirs. We were all affected by alcoholism in my family of origin and the family I had created. I couldn't have made the choices I made if I didn't have the benefit of other Alanon members' experience, strength and hope.
Surprisingly my son does a great job at work, he is always on time and accomplishes a good deal over the day. There were a couple issues when he first started, he came in one day in what I think was a drug induced stupor from the night before, I took him to my house to sleep and then suspended him for three days, since then no more issues. Honestly I think him working for me helps him because he has an obligation to me and the business, I think it gives him a positive focus.
One thing AlAnon has done for me is teach me to parent and not enable, even when it's seems to be me against the family I still stand my ground.
For me, the enabling I still catch me doing with our 26 year old daughter comes from a quietly lurking sense of guilt over raising her in an addicted home. I am aware of it and I stop my defaults. She does not use substances, her addiction is an abusive boyfriend. She has gotten herself into a financial tough spot and needs dental work. She wants help paying for the bill; I said I would sit down with her, look at her income/expenses and we could figure it out together....it hasn't happened and, although it is hard for me to be quiet, I am doing just that. Maybe something like this will work for your son. I know this is hard, it sounds like you have a good handle on this, though.
I see enabling as doing for someone what they are capable of doing for themself.
So since he was perfectly capable of saving the money from his work income to pay the insurance reinstatement costs, then if you gave the money that would indeed be enabling.
I don't see it as enabling when you provide employment (because you are expecting competency on the job as you would expect from any employee and he is showing himself to be a competent worker).
If he tells you that he will have to quit because he can't drive anymore, ask him if he is giving notice because if he is, you want to post the position so you can hire his replacement. You can let him know that you have found him to be a responsinresponsible employee and you will miss him.
We don't give advise Coop and I don't have your experience all except turning it over when I reach the point that I should. I learned there was no law that said I had to do anything special or crazy just to relieve the alcoholic/addicts anxiety or fear. Great lesson...One night I was "sitting the board" (CHiPs dispatcher) when a highway unit in Central Valley called in for a car and character check...Was my alcoholic/addict wife and while the urge came over me to "spill the beans" with color commentary and drama I had learned to keep it simple and told the officer "The party is known to me" and then I left him to his work which he did. I never even checked into the final outcome except when he came in to finish paperwork and confirm information on who he stopped from driving UI. It wasn't any of my business and I don't think I even said alcoholic.
Enabling always worked against me and never ever helped the alcoholics and addicts in my life I thought I could fix...keep coming back (((hugs)))
I understand not wanting to give him any money that you know he's just going to blow on drugs but perhaps I don't understand the circumstances behind the birthday money. Did the two of you have an agreement that you would give him that money at a later date, like perhaps for graduation? If not, then it seems that that money is actually his, and withholding it is a way of trying to protect him from himself.
This is the OP, honestly the issue with the birthday money is deeper than that. Most of the money in that account is for things my son wanted and I agreed to buy but he had to pay me back, or things I told him I would go halves on and then I put his half plus my half into an account, I never actually kept any of the money. Things like a better dirt bike or a new paint ball gun, even his first car, plus the money he gave me for his car insurance when he was on my policy. After he graduated high school I offered him that money, he wasn't as much into drinking and drugs as he is now, but he said to save it as an "emergency fund".
He works forty hours a week at $15.00 an hour, his only monthly expenses since he has moved out are rent ($220) gas and food, how could he not have money to save for his insurance and reinstatement fees over the last 6 months? I pay all his medical, dental and phone because I'm afraid if I don't he will just go without. He takes home over $900 every two weeks but spends every dime on what? His bank accounts are linked to mine, and honestly I try never to look at them, but I do see at times where he is paid Friday and is down six or seven hundred dollars by Monday, tell me where you think that money goes? I do not consider his poor savings philosophy an emergency, I consider a car breakdown as an emergency. I even worked out a budget for him when he moved out, we opened a checking account for his expenses and his pay is divided over the two accounts, all he had to do was only use the checking account for expenses and he would have plenty of money to cover his insurance and reinstatement fees, but he didn't do that.
He figured out on his own how to deal with the reinstatement fee and car insurance, he paid the reinstatement fee and is going to pay his insurance month to month. Maybe I seem controlling by not just handing over that money to him, at this time I am 99.9% certain that amount of money would disappear in a month, without the NEED for a regular paycheck to cover expenses I'm afraid he will just quit his job, and then he loses that responsibility that I believe is helping him stay straight and sober during the week. Could I be wrong and maybe he will step up to the plate and prove himself responsible? Sure, but he hasn't in a long time, and handing him the money isn't going to be a flick of the switch to change him.
Anyway...thanks again for all the support, I know by controlling some of his money and giving him employment is in certain ways still enabling him. I guess in my mind I reason it as giving him the opportunity to help himself to a degree, I'm just not ready to totally let him sink or swim on his own, the thought of an overdose or alcohol poisoning is just to much for me to bare. I don't know, maybe shame on me.
I agree with Hotrod and no one should advise like they have all the answers or should on you, that is what I like about al-anon. You have to look at yourself at the end of the day and know that you were true to yourself. It is for you to decide how to parent/employee your son ad all that comes with it. We are here to support you in that. Keep coming back. Sending you love and support on your al-anon journey!
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Sending you love and support on your journey always! BreakingFree
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" Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional."
"Serenity is when your body and mind are in the same place."
Could I be wrong? Great question for me to learn from my sponsor which led to patience and asking for support from others with greater experience before I made "the" decision. Before that most of what I did was just react and often the consequences to reacting was terrible. I have better consequences now when I just slow down, take the time to think things out while holding on to the hand of my higher power and listening to my sponsor and the fellowship first. I was given a formula earlier in recovery that I still use to determine if I am being helping or if I am enabling. It reads, "If they have the time, the ability and the facility to take care of their responsibilities and I step in and take over or interfere...that is enabling. If they lack any one of the three tools...and...they ask me for help...and I take the time to think about the situation...that is helping. That always works better for me today. Keep coming back, In support. (((((hugs)))))
I have a lot of experience with employment and what people learn and how they mature by working.
If he is having trouble with responsible decisions he would learn a lot from working for a non related employer.
I often see adults who can not navigate life because they never worked for anyone but family. It is like not allowing a toddler to learn to walk because you carry them or because you know they are good kids so you never want them to be treated wrong... we learn a lot by being treated "wrong". We also learn a lot about ourselves by realizing that how much effort we put in determines our wage, not what the job "should" pay. Min. wage is the best motivation for someone to want to do better in life. Without it we all just think life "owes" us what is "fair" or what we need to live.
Even if he is a good employee.. and if he is maybe he can find more than min. wage on his own, we learn a lot by having to seek out a good job. Humans seem to value what they have to work to obtain a lot more than what we are given. He would learn a lot from working for a a mean unreasonable boss, being treated unfairly, having to do task he doesn't want to do and are beneath him.. all things one usually does not experience working for family. All things that teach us we have to make our life good not just avoid making it bad.
With that said I personally have worked for family and appreciated the benefit of that. I have worked for the wealthiest stock brokers in Texas and I have scrubbed toliets and mopped floors at a Dairy Queen in high school, I have even scooped poop at a horse ranch for min. wage and have worked retail stores for min. wage. I've been treated well and I've been treated not so well by employers. The most valuable workers know that even when scrubbing the bathrooms if they do any task to the best of their ability and show respect to employers and are responsible... good things happen.
I also currently work with people who maybe got college degrees and then immediately got a job with the government or a union company or something like that ....these folks may do the task of their job in an excellent manner but have no understanding of the need to excel or employer expectations and these workers tend to see an "us" vs them situation when thinking of their employers, instead of everyone working together to increase profits or provide better service. By the way these "college educated" government employed or union employed people seem to be the most terrified of lay offs or being fired. They have no confidence that they can find a new job on their own if they loose this one. They seem to have no confidence in the fact that their skills will be of value to another employer, no feeling that they can contribute. I wonder if this applies to the fact that when we do something for someone that they could and should do for themselves we are telling them that they can not do it. That they are not able.
I'm sharing my experience to say that IF your son has trouble with responsible decision making maybe a few years of having to swallow his pride, push a broom or clean a bathroom might or even a higher level job where he had to answer to someone who could and would fire him if he was not responsible could save him many more years of very bad decision making. You could think about this over time and see if a change would help, and who knows I could be wrong ... just an idea based on 20 years of experience helping people find and keep jobs. Even a part time job somewhere else while still working for you might help, one where you have no influence, for him to have to earn the dollars he "forgot" to save for his current needs would likely help him greatly.
I see people with fantastic IQ levels who just didn't have to put in the elbow grease who live on welfare or live off of family all their lives.
-- Edited by glad on Saturday 7th of February 2015 03:23:04 AM
-- Edited by glad on Saturday 7th of February 2015 03:38:00 AM
-- Edited by glad on Saturday 7th of February 2015 03:49:58 AM
After so many years of keeping my son safe from death by getting him jobs, paying for everything and keeping him out of trouble as much as possible I finally was able to let go and let him fall. I was not saving him with my actions...I was hurting him more in the long run. After the arrest and I went to see him in jail and he begged me to bail him out and I said NO was the day the change really happened for me and FOR HIM.
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Lord, put your arm around my shoulder and your hand over my mouth
Speak only when you feel that your words are better than your silence.
I like what Jerry said regarding "could I be wrong?" I am so opinionated and strong in my convictions that I often do not consider that. It is ironic even that when he first told me that, I was so heated that it only made me angry which of course put me in the wrong even more. Provided I am not piping hot angry about something, "Could I be wrong?" is very helpful to me because the answer is ALWAYS "yes" basically. I could always be wrong...even if it's just in my reaction/overreaction to something. So knowing I could be wrong about stuff...It does help me not get so upset with others because they are not doing things my way.
