winnie12

Stainedglass - i think maybe your missing the point of what I'm saying. what you're talking about is trying to control the addict by throwing away pills not tough love. But its possible that what you consider tough love is not what i consider tough love so i will try to explain what i have experienced of tough love.

For you tough love is throwing out their pills -something that many here have tried and never succeeded. For me the turning point of control and tough love was the first time i had my AS arrested so he could face the consequences of his actions. Believe me if i could have thrown away his stash and stopped the problem then we wouldnt have gone through the last two years of ERs, jails, and rehabs. Throwing away pills is delaying the inevitable - tough love lets them face the inevitable sooner before they have killed themselves.

And yes sometimes you do have to sit back and let them hit bottom on their own - that too is tough love. Yes it can have deadly consequences but its their only chance. I could run after my son, following him every where he went pulling the drugs out of his hands but he'd always find another way.

Tough love meant sitting back and letting him fall on his a$$ alone and without me. It was letting him sit in jail and not making any attempt to get him out. It was letting him wake up in the hospital alone after OD'ing and wondering how he got there. It was giving him the gift of insight into what life was going to be like if he stayed on this path. Before you claim that this is not tough love I will tell you that this is by far the toughest thing i've ever done in my life and i'm only doing it to try to save my son's life.

You are seeing the addict's problem in the little pills you find and i see the problem in the mind of my son.