Rozie: thanks for your post and your observation that the toughest approach seems to be the best we can do to save our loved ones. And the about-face being so hard is so, so true. It feels like cutting off your own hand without anesthesia - the edges are so raw and tender. But the alternative of enabling is so much worse for our loved ones.
I have taken the amputation approach also with ANYONE who continues to enable my son whether they be friends or family members - it is a relationship-breaker to me when ANYONE keeps my son in such a dangerous situation. I want the entire world he and I live in to know where I stand and how serious this is. This is life and death. My father committed suicide thanks to addiction and my ex-husband (kids' father) has lost too many brain cells because of addiction to ever be normal again.