Farfalla

Good morning.
Thoughts...
I telephoned my mother-in-law three weeks ago informing her I suspected her son, my AH, was setting the stage with multiple doctors to obtain opiates. She thanked me, telephoned him and they had an argument about the topic. My AH has indeed secured his opiate prescription and has also used since rehab. Do you think I should telephone my mother-in-law and let her know me and the kids moved out and the reason why we moved out? My AH has not told her anything. Thoughts...
I feel that I already gave her notice something was about to happen so should I even bother exerting energy and making another phone call.

KelleyF

My first thought was that as your kids grandmother, you should tell her that you've relocated; just out of consideration.
Of course maybe you don't have a good relationship, might not want any involvement etc?
And regarding her son, I also think you should tell her. It's just informative- it's not asking her to take any kind of responsibility etc.

Farfalla

She is not a favorite of mine. She is also not involved with my children at all.

The motive would simply be letting her know how her son is using. She asked me in November when her son left rehab to let her know if I suspected anything was going on.

lesliej

I know that for me the role of notifying family members felt like it would help. I also sent them links to informative sites on addiction, and I also sent them al anon lists of how not to "enable". I wrote letters, facebooked, texted, and called. I did this over and over, every time he relapsed. I usually would receive an "I'm sorry" back from them.

I think it didn't do any good. I was trying to "create" the honesty, transparency and accountability that I thought he needed. I think in the end what the transparency showed was my desperate attempts as a codependent to try to get him to get clean. My attempts were not was what needed.

As much as I couldn't get him to quit relapsing/using, I couldn't get them to stop enabling either. Its all a crazy mess and I finally quit trying to orchestrate it all. Now I post here instead, writing messages, hoping my own search for sanity might help someone else too.

Farfalla

Anvil, that is what I am feeling. I notified her several weeks back something not right. If she chooses to followup on her but I did my job is how I feel.

Farfalla

nope. thanks.

inpieces314

I would say, it would be easy for anyone's family members to know what is going on if they are close enough to the addict. That said, things can be hidden for so long until they spiral out of control. And it is always a different situation if the family members aren't in contact with the addict. Then how are they supposed to know how bad things really are?

In my opinion, I don't see a problem with saying something once to the family, because they should know what is going on with the addict. If they want to talk to him/her, fine, whatever, it's not like you are telling them what to do. You are only giving them the information, they can do with it whatever they want to do.

washbe2

Since she's not active in your children's lives, there's really no reason to notify her.
She can't do anything about his addiction any more than you can. Let what happens, just happen.

bluebelle

I don't see any reason to notify her. It would just further emesh you in the family drama.