Hello, I have been on the site reading many posts for the last few weeks. I am very new to this whole blogging/forum thing. You see, my 21 year old son (AS) has been on heroin for about 2 years. He was in jail for the last 4 months as he stole almost every piece of gold/precious metal from our home and when the last straw about 5 months ago when he took the family PS3 from the living room and hid his dirty work with a monopoly JR. game under a towel (how original huh?), long story short, after many enabling encounters, where I thought I would be able to "help" him, it came clear that he didn't want any help from me. In that moment of my absolute fear for his life and anger at the drug, I called the police. All I wanted at that moment was to get back my stuff, but the system took over. He was given 90 mandatory days in jail, with the option of serving the remaining time of his 365 days in custody in a rehab. By the time he was finally arrested/turned himself in, he had nothing to his name but a hand me down pair of jeans and a sweatshirt because his car broke down (which he apparently was living in when we kicked him out) and all of his belongings were in there. Even at that time, he called me for help! I told him he had to handle that on his own, since the betrayal was so fresh in my heart, mind I was in no position to want to or felt the need to do anything for him. During his time in jail, I supported him as best as I knew how, with emails and letters but no visits. He did NOT want me to see him in jail. Long story shorter, he was finally released into a state residential rehab on Monday 10-24. I am very relieved that he is in a place where hopefully he chooses help. I also realize that I am part of the problem. I have been a professional enabler for my entire life. I now see how that has NOT helped any of the issues going on. I took a lot of comfort in all of the posts on this site, and wanted to thank everyone. You don't know how good it feels to validate that I did the right thing. Now it is entirely up to him. I am resisting every day/hour my strong suit, which is to "FIX IT" for him. I look forward to hearing his progress if he chooses to share when his "blackout" period is over and done. To top it off, my Mom is battling Lung cancer, and she is my only ally in this horrible time in my life. I really love my son "JJ" hence my sign on name. I will share and learn from others who have "walked the mile" before me. Thank you all and it is so wonderful to know there are sites like this that really speak to the issues and devastation of loving an addict. I also will admit, I am a former addict when I was young, did crystal, pot, LSD , the works back in the synthetic 80's and relapsed in the early 2000's with some "friends" who never grew out of it. As an addict, I think I was more lenient and did NOT understand how heroin is so so addicting. I thought my son would learn his lesson. Now I see that the lesson will be learned the hard way, and I pray to HP that he can learn. It is the hardest thing in the world to handle, but I am beginning to accept the things I cannot change, and courage to change the things I can. Thank you to everyone again.
TT
