Old 07-15-2010, 04:56 AM
  # 13 (permalink)  
sojourner
Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Eastern Time Zone
Posts: 1,011
I was lurking on this post but then i remembered some stuff from my own situation.

The summer after high school graduation, I turned the other cheek and really extended myself into AS's life in order to get him into a small college 6 hours away hoping that would help him make better choices. It did not work.

Then a couple of years ago I turned the other cheek and opened my home to him while he was breaking all the rules of his probation. I was turning the other cheek on all his partying/drug using behavior because i was waiting for his court date so that I could let the judge know that he was breaking all these rules, and I wanted to use that opportunity to see if the judge would get him into jail boot-camp. I was hoping boot-camp would give him enough clean time and help him realize he needed to change the road he was on. The judge did listen to me and did take my suggestion to put him in boot camp. After he got out of jail, i allowed him to live in my home. That did not work.

Then some time after that I turned the other cheek and extended myself into his life not for his benefit but because he had taken on a dog that was being totally ignored, left alone in the house for huge periods of time, no exercise, etc. IN other words, that was to rescue the dog. That did work.

Probably every single one of has extended ourselves and turned the other cheek in some situation (and more than once) with our loved ones. None of us went directly to no- or mininal-contact.

So i guess what i'm saying here is - you go ahead and do what you're doing. This is going to prepare you and the addict's father for whatever is beyond this. Sometimes this kind of "turning the other cheek" works. Sometimes it does not. But i'm asking you, if it does work, to please not judge the rest of us in the negative who have gone no- or minimal-contact.
sojourner is offline