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I really don't know how to use this forum. God help me. I have a 20 yr old son that is a alcoholic and a drug user. I've bailed him out of jail twice. He recently had a wreck, thank God no one else was involved. This is his 2nd DUI and also has an open container violation also. He has lost his license for a least a yr minimum. The only reason that he has a job is that he works for his Father and his Father is self employed. Now he's had to move back home with us because he doesn't have a ride to work and now is going to have to take all of his money to pay an attorney for all of this!!! That's not the end of it, his 19 yr old girlfriend is pregnant. We still have 2 other children at home that's 15 and 13. With him back, that makes 3 with the thought of another baby even just visiting. We've had years of problems iwth drugs and alcohol with him. My husband can't even take a 'sick' day with me anymore because if he stays home, our son doesn't go to work and we're all three home. We lost our vacation this year because he was involved in that wreck and things were really crazy with him being in rehab for about a week.although I am the one that initially for him living with us, I had no idea of the impact it was going to be in our life. He's having to go to these classes at night that his attorney has advised and we've been transporting him back and forth about 20 miles each way after work. This is taking a toll on the whole family. I can't keep doing this. He's offered nothing for rent or even gas $$ for taking him back and forth. Are we in fact enabling him since he has lost his license?
What I have found in my own experiences is that enabling is our part of this disease. This is a family disease. Everyone is affected in one way or another. What really helped me was to go to face 2 face meetings in my area. Listening to others talk about their experiences, strength and hope helped me to understand my own part in the disease. Are you enabling? You are his mother so I will guess that yes...of course you are. He has a job and a home and a ride to work for free. What do you get out of this? The first thing I learned was the 3 C's. You did not cause it, you cannot control it(if he is living with you or not) and you cannot cure it. All you really can do is learn to cope with it.
As a parent it is understandable that you want to save him. Unfortunately, this behavior rarely if ever helps and alcoholic or and addict. It is my understanding that letting them hit bottom and experiencing their own loss of usually everything gives them the opportunity to then seek and receive the help they so desperately need. Forced rehab and monitoring never works for long in my opinion and experience.
face 2 face meeting. asap. perhaps the future daughter in law will go, too. husband, too. younger children, too. maybe together, maybe separately... JustMe is dead on.
with love
cj
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time to stop going to the hardware store to buy bread.
In a word YES. It is hard to sit back and watch someone destroy themselves. Harder than it is to help. My husband is currenly homeless, our truck is in the impound, I just signed the repo papers for it today, we just sold our house thank god, I have NO doubt that he will be back on the street in a matter of weeks and begging for my help and I absolutely will give him none. I have asked his mother to do the same and I hope she will. She has a lot of guilt, she is in recovery and was an active A when he was young. I tell her it's not her fault, he's almost 40. There is a time to let him fall. I hope she hears me now and does the hardest thing. It takes incredible strength and bravery. I am also raising 3 kids on my own with no help from him. I know that if I let him come back he would work and make good money again and I wouldn't be so needy but I also know that in less than a year he would disappear for days in a row and spend thousands of dollars because he has done it for 7 years so why would this one be any different? It's hard to accept that the predictor of the future is the past. Either you're willing to accept more of the same or you're not. I'm sorry I know this must be so hard for you! I hope you find the love and support you need here!
I noticed you said your son hasn't offered any money for the gas and rent. You may wait along time if you are waiting for an offer. How about house rules? You must pay X amount to live here. You must pay X amount in gas. GF and baby are only allowed here X times a week. It's not your fault that he has to pay an attorney. If he was paying rent at an apartment would his landlord accept that he couldn't pay rent because he has attorney fees? Nope!! Anytime we "help" it just keeps them on that alcoholic road even longer. Help makes their life easier and us helping them only to have these things happen again and again drive us nuts. They can't hit bottom when we provide a soft landing. The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. As just me said, life has to get so hard that they realize where their choices have gotten them. It takes a crash and burn in order for them to decide to get sober. Stepping back is real hard to do but when you realize it is the most loving thing you can do for them it becomes easier. I hope you can find an Alanon meeting in your area. For where and when you can call 1-888-4alanon
Take care Christy
-- Edited by Christy at 18:08, 2006-12-12
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If we think that miracles are normal, we will expect them. And expecting a miracle is the surest way to get one.
Looks to me like you are using the board exactly the right way - telling your story and reaching out for support. Welcome.
There are a couple of things we say here that you might want to think about. One is - nothing changes, if nothing changes. What happened last time you picked him up and saved him from the consequences of his choices? Chances are, that will happen this time too. Sometimes it only takes a small change to start things moving in a different direction - for instance, if there is public transit available, even if it isn't very convenient, you could let go of responsibility for him getting around. It would take a lot of stress off of you, and help you let go of a little bit of your resentment. Then you would think of another small change you could make.
Another thing we say is - there isn't much you can do for him, but a lot you can do for yourself. Even if you stop all enabling and start to do everything "Right", it likely won't have too mach impact on his drinking and drugging. Those things are just not in your hands. However, the impact on YOUR life can be enormous. Just letting go of this burden that was never yours to begin with is such a releif.
It's no surprise that your life has become dysfunctional. You're allowing it to be. Your son is soon to be a father. He is now in trouble with the law. He needs to stand on his own two feet. He runs back to Mommy because he knows he can treat Mommy however he wants and she'll still "fix the boo boo; make it right." He can even abuse and take advantage of you and you'll still take it--and my dear, he's doing that in style.
take some time rdl, listen to your words, your thoughts in your head. ask yourself tough questions and give yourself toughER answers. if we can't HONESTLY critique ourselves, how do we know where we are?
with love
cj
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time to stop going to the hardware store to buy bread.
I too am the mother of a 20 year old son who has been involved in drugs and alcohol. It definitely affects the entire family negatively, especially when they are living under your roof, and the parents continually bail them out and try to control. (That was us) We learned the hard way, we finally had to set boundaries. (We also have 2 other kids in the home, a daughter 17, and a son 14) The hardest thing we ever had to do as parents was to send our son out of the home. At the time, he had no money, no car, no phone. I think it did cause him to think about his future and what he wanted for his life, and addiction didn't fit into that picture. He did go into a Teen Challenge program for 3 months.....he was lucky he didn't have any legal problems, although I'd prayed for that if that was what it would take to get him clean......Anyway, he left the TC program early, it's a year long program, but he came home a changed person. God has really changed his life. He had a couple of bumps, one in which we all agreed he needed to move out to give us all some much needed peace. He is growing up, embracing his faith, changed his friends, and is working full-time. He struggles with his finances, and life's problems, as we all do, but he knows he has to figure it out himself. The good part is our relationship is healing....we see so much hope. I know we wouldn't be here without our faith in God and others praying for us. Also, having to do the very hard things as parents too. Letting go has been so freeing for us. My heart goes out to you, because we were there (in your shoes) about a year ago. This is a good place to come for support and encouragement. I will be keeping you and your family in my prayers! I pray you will have the courage to take the steps necessary for your family and yourself! May God Bless....
I don't even know how to 'feel' anymore. It's already causing some problems in our marriage because we don't agree on what to do. Husband doesn't want to throw him out on the streets because he said that we agreed to take him in and we can't go back on that now., but it's driving me CRAZY. I don't know how much long I can go without a break. As I said before, we didn't get to take our yearly vacation and now we can't even call in sick together because if Dad doesn't go to work, our son has to stay home also. This has become larger than I can handle. I do feel guilty because he's lost in license probably for 2 years because of both DUI's within a couple of months of each other. The Therapist that we just started seeing says that we're not enabling him, we're just helping him. I don't even know what to think about that. If we throw him about, he has no license and no way to get a job or to his Dad's work. My husband is feel like is making me feel guilty because we're putting him out on the streets since we agreed to in the beginning. All I know is I need a mental break and I can't wait another 2 years to get some relief!!
Well you will definitely get relief from this board. I've been here a year now and for a long long long long time all I did was come here and pour out my resenment. What mattered was that it helped, I felt heard, I felt validated.
Do I still have resentments against the A I live with. Yep plenty but guess what they no logner control me.
So no you don't have to wait 2 years you can plug into this program. This program isn't going to shoulda woulda coulda you.
I don't think you also have to take action right this minute as you feel you have to. Often when we feel like we absolutely have to do something right this minute its not the wisest actions. So you can come here and work out what actions can you take. How can you set limits, what will that be like. How can you get support (you will get tons here) how can you get what you need.
Yes it is terrible you did not get to take a vacation. Yes it is awful that an A seems to have a tremendous sense of entitlement. Entitlement is an issue many many A's have. I think its part of their elaborate system of denial. Its their the world against me stuff its also part of their ability to prey on others sometimes.
Limits are pretty hard stuff. One thing I learned was to stop offering. At one time I offered to help the A all the time with whatever he needed, money, solace, advice, time energy. That stopped. I stopped offereing so then I stopped feeling resentful that he took so easily.
I also lowered my expectations. I expected a lot of the A. He's active, he's got tons of motor vehicle stuff like your son has. He also has considerable denial about it and the hardship that posits on others. I no longer try to chip away at his denial. For him its like iron clad. He can have his denial I don't have mine anymore. I also don't encourage it or take actions to soften the blow for him anymore.
Your son definitely is suffering some consequences for his actions. For some alcoholics one consequence is enough for others no consequence is enough. As a codependent I used to obsess about the consequences and their effect on me. I still deal with them. I am definitely dealing with them at the moment as I am still suffering financial consequences of the A's behavior. The issue is that I don't take on anymore. I don't offer help anymore and I don't make myself as available anymore.
Monitoring and working on my resentments is so so key for me. When I am totally wrapped up in resentment at the A I am the one hurting. He's off in his seas of denial. I doubt he could hurt if someone ran him over his denial is that bad. He's numb, he's in denial he is not in recovery that is so so key for me to know because I felt I could MAKE him see and no matter what I did nothing changed until I changed.
I can't say I snapped a magic wand and everything got better. For me its been a long hard painful haul to be willing to detach, to let go, to live and let live. The A I live with may choose to be on drugs his entire life I have very very little control over that but I can choose how I respond to it rather than re-act to it.
Keep coming here, go to the chat room, get support, get encouragement, throw yourself into this program and I guarantee you won't be waiting two years for relief. When I get into waiting for things to get better with the A I am on treacherous ground. Every year since I've known him the A manages to crash something and have some crisis. The issue is that I no longer live eat and breathe his issues, I live and eat and breathe my issues and am separate from him and his life of chaos and crisis and confusion.
As you can tell, you will find many of us have been in similiar situations, some of us are still in those type situations.
Most of all I want to reply to one thing in your last post - about you feeling guilty because he lost his license for 2 yrs because of DUI's. Why should you feel guilty? Where you driving? Did you make him drink & drive?
Those are the consequences of his choices - we have to let our loved ones suffer the consequences of their actions. It is not our responsibility to save them. Especially not at the cost of the entire household's serenity and harmony.
In Al-Anon I learned about setting boundaries, unacceptable behaviors and Just for today. Your son may be at your house today, but that doesn't mean that he has to live there for the next two years. You & your H could make a plan. Example: Son, this is our schedule: In 30 days, you will need to pay $___ in rent every week. In 60 days, you also need to start to pay $___ toward gas for the vehicles. In 6 months, you will need to find another place to live. Now I'm sure you could come up with tons of reason why you can't do this to your son. Only you know what is right for you - Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. These are suggestions for trying something different.
Most importantly you & your husband will need to present an undivided front to your AS. He must understand that he can't play one against the other. He will probably try to do this.
Your younger children may benefit from the Alateen programs. They are excellent for help for those dealing with this issues.
Don't give up - There is Hope - Hope for you to live Happy, Joyous & Free regardless of the state of the A's in your life.
Progress not Perfection,
Rita
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No matter what me and my God are going to be ok, even better than OK -
There's no need for you to feel guilty because HE got 2 DUI's. Not one by mistake, but two. Where does your responsibility lie in that? Nowhere, you had no part in it. The Therapist that we just started seeing says that we're not enabling him, we're just helping him. I suggest you get another therapist! One that is familiar with addiction. If we could fix our loved ones by "helping" them, none of us would be here.
How far away is work? Could your husband drop him off and come back home? Could son get a ride with someone else? Or God forbid fend for himself and find his own way to work? As I mentioned in my previous post, If son lives under your roof life would be much easier with some boundaries, rules and conditions. Then, if he can't abide, it is through HIS choices that he be asked to leave. I'd even go as far as writing the conditions up and getting his signature in agreement. Any agreement is useless if you and your husband do not follow through with the consequences of any breaks of the agreement.
Christy
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If we think that miracles are normal, we will expect them. And expecting a miracle is the surest way to get one.
I totally agree with Christy. Setting boundaries is important, and if they don't comply, then they are on their own. I truly believe sending our son out to be on his own was the turning point for him, or as some would say, his bottom. We, as parents are not responsible for the choices our children make, especially when their choices are contrary to how they have been raised. None of this is your fault, or your husband's. And we've learned the hard way, we surely can't control it, and we can't cure it. I would also agree, that you need to be seeing a drug and alcohol counselor.....someone that has expertise with the disease. We also tried "family counseling", and the advice was great if we had been dealing with a non-addicted child. It is hard if you and your spouse don't present a "united front". We had that situation too....but it soon exploded in my husband's face....and he took it very hard. It did bring us together, which was an answer to prayer. As I said before, I will pray for all of you. My heart is with you and your family....and I pray for a miracle! Wishing you peace and God's blessings,
