Originally Posted by
Elana 
I do suggest you pull the plug on spending money he has not earned and on the manipulation to get more spending money out of you. No one should be rewarded for lies.. and the problem is that, by your own admission, you do not know what is true and what is not. This is typical in relationships with addicts.
[B]I may not have been all that clear in my originial post. I'm limiting his access to my funds to school expenses or at least making every effort to do so. What I'm unclear on is whether I should limit access to his funds. He gave me his summer earnings to hold so that he wouldn't "blow" them. But as I dole them out per his requests he's going through them at an alarming rate. It seems to me that if I am supposed to be treating him as an adult, I should be giving him HIS money when he asks for it, whether I "know" or "feel like" it's being used for drugs or not? At this point I've asked for a budget for his spending of his own money. That feels to me like guidance, but it feels like more guidance than I should be providing at this point.
On the lying, this has been true since he could talk. I remember very clearly backing him into a corner and demanding that he admit to an act of vandalism when he was 7years old. He looked me straight in the eye and denied it. I frightened a classmate so badly that, that child confessed. It was 5 years before my son admitted it had been him and not the child who took the punishment. I've heard a lot of alcholics in AA, say they were born alcoholic. Could be. Could also be that there's more at work in our lives than just addiction issues.
B]