ag0710

Hello,
We are currently starting on the road of detachment with our 18 year old AS, who just moved out of the house last week after refusing our living terms and our offer of helping him get further treatment toward recovery. After some heated discussion, we had a friendly goodbye at the end, so our relationship with him isn't totally fractured, but we are clearly disappointed at his decision and it's impact on his future (he moved in with a drug user friend of his that we did not approve of).

We have already decided not to give him money and not allow him into our house without us present.

We are trying to figure out how to deal with him in other ways. How often should we contact him? Should we just avoid the subject of his drug abuse to avoid any arguments? Should we give him advice and guidance on living on his own? Or should we just completely let go and not have contact with him?

We would appreciate any advice or shared experiences.
Thank you...

suki44883

Since the parting was on fairly good terms, I don't know that no contact is necessary at this point. I think I'd just leave it for now and see what happens. If he calls and you can have a good conversation, fine. However, if he calls and is always wanting something, or starts causing trouble, then you can consider less contact. I don't think I'd call him at this point. I'd just wait to see what happens.

Welcome to SR! I'm sure others will be along to share their experiences. If you read the stickie posts at the top of the forum, you will find a lot of helpful information there.

kmangel

I don't think you have to cut off all contact, provided that your son is not using when he visits or asking you for something you don't intend to give him. Get really firm now on what your boundaries are so you know what to say should he ask.

laurie6781

I would hope that you have changed the locks on all the doors to your home as a precautionary measure.

As to contact, well ............................................. I would wait and let him contact me when he is ready and then see how the conversation goes. IF the only time he calls or makes contact is when he wants something, anything, then I would consider going no contact.

J M H O

Love and hugs,

outtolunch

Of the many challenges I encountered was learning not to give unsolicted advise to my daughter. Truth be told, I was going to have to learn this lesson regardless of the drugs.

Is there a middle ground between stifling unsolicited advise and going no contact?

Back when, I probably needed to occasionally meet my daughter and buy her a sandwich more than she needed me. It was my way of maintaining some semblance of contact.Sometime she would show. Sometimes not. Sometimes she used these times to attempt to manipulate me for money. Sometimes not. And some times, we just sat in my car and ate our lunch and well, just sat with the whole thing.

ctg492

SO many have walked this path, sadly. You are stronger then I was. It took till 26 with my son. We all love our children so much that it can almost kill us. Please spend hours reading the sticky notes here and all the posts. They will give you strength.

KuanYin

I think the roller coaster ride has just begun. Simply sit back and wait, see what he does. My AS is 26. Typically all sorts of unexpected emergencies will arise, emergencies that of course necessitate money. All legitamite, of course, lol! ER visits, dentist, prescription, groceries, owes rent/electricity/water deposit, flat tire, stranded on side of road battery dead, no food in the house and need groceries..... the list is endless. And even if you give them a 'gift card' or 'grocery card' , those are traded for drugs, just like food stamps/EBT cards are traded for drugs, 50 cents on the dollar. So if he has $200 worth of food stamp benefits, he can trade that for $100 worth of drugs. Buying him clothes? Those can be returned for money, used for drugs. It really sucks learning this the hard way, but I did. Educate yourself and maybe you will suffer less that I did.

Sorry, I'm in a down mood tonight. Just got an email from AS, saying he doesn't have a ride to the methadone clinic tomorrow morning (Sat.) and I'm feeling, well, oh so guilty I could scream. Yes, he goes to the clinic, and still uses. I feel like I should be with him while he is still alive and support his "effort" (if it could be called that) towards recovery by going to the methadone clinic, but at the same time I know, know, know, that the real story is that he wants me to pay for his clinic, and I refuse to be pulled into that again. He always comes up with $$$ for w/e else he gets, but then tries to rope me in to paying for some of his clinic fees. Sorry for the rant.

BTW, my response to his email is going to be no response. I may not sleep a wink all night, but so be it.

tjp613

Unfortunately my experience is very much like KuanYin's and I'm pretty cynical too. Yes, the roller coaster ride is just beginning, my friend. Just remember you can get off anytime you choose.

ctg492

KaunYin, Your post could have been written about my son and my day to day with him. I wish I could have read this one,two, five years ago. Been given the opportunity to educated myself as the original poster has chosen to do by coming here. I do not know however how much one can absorb when the event is just beginning. It is all black and white now, but back then I was so in denial and the kept the money flowing for all the excuses you mentioned.

washbe2

Ditto to all of that. Have you been recording calls from my AS? How many times I have fallen prey to this!

fourmaggie

Nar Anon and Al anon works! please go the meetings they will help....

read and read some more....

somberheart

i think its up to you to decide the whole contact thing, but like others have said he will probably try to pull you into a trap, and this is only the beginning. if he is moving in with another user, chances are there will be no food in the house, and bills will definitely go unpaid. Is your son working? How is he planning on paying to live outside of your home?

The best advice I could give you, is from my own personal experience. There was a small period when my husband was sober, but was extremely depressed. During that time he yearned for just some type of affection from his mother. An email, a text, something that said "hey, i love you because you are my son." This never came. Whatever you decide, just remember to tell your son you love him, he's in there somewhere.

sojourner

ag0710: First of all, it's very encouraging in this whole thing that you have been able to have the courage to ask your son to leave your home after you have set boundaries but yet somehow finagle it so the relationship with your son did not need to be severed. Well done parents!

I have a 26 YO addicted son (AS) so I am a little ahead of you here. If you have not done so and you are readers then my suggestion is for several books (I'm sure there are others just as good): The Lost Years (written by a daughter who had been addicted and her mother who learned how to truly help her daughter). If you Google this there will be another book by that name so you gotta look. Another book is "No More Letting Go. The Spirituality of Taking Action Against Alcoholism and Drug Addiction" by Debra Jay. Another is "Addict in the Family" by Beverly Conyers (go to the Hazelden site to order this). I just discovered a radio show on the Internet "Eye on Addiction Radio" where one of the topics is how to intervene. This particular show's guest was Jeff Jay, the husband of Debra Jay. In this show, he talks about how to interact with our addicted loved one in the scenario you have with your son - when you have intervened and they have refused. I found this to be a very helpful show.

And pray, pray, pray for wisdom. Keep coming back here. There's lots of support and wisdom here. Don't forget Alanon or Naranon meetings for you both.

BeavsDad

When my RAS (21) was in active addiction, I found that trying to deal with him and knowing of his day to day activities stressed me greatly. I did get to a point where it seemed like it would just be easier not knowing anything.

The following is from a journal I keep:

25 Apr 11 Day after Easter. Day full of mixed emotions as usual. He had found a good motel room to stay in close by but got kicked out because (friend) was smoking. I wanted to check it out and he blew me off, probably because (friend) was there. Exactly what I was gonna tell him? “Don’t have any druggie friends come there, they have a place to live, you don’t.” It would have happened anyways.
He can’t focus on anything but his next high. I can’t focus on anything but his next low.
Why can’t I detach properly? I know what to do, I can tell others what to do. I hate when he’s not here. I hate when he’s here. I miss my son so much even though he’s only been gone 2 months. I mourn him and what could/should have been. It took me forever to clean out his room because I would be overcome with an overwhelming sadness after just being in there a few minutes trying to sort through stuff. It felt like he had died and I was trying to get past it. I could never get past it. Even the thought of him overdosing causes me physical pain.
First several hours of Easter he seemed impared even though I asked him not to come over high. Does anyone else notice? How could they not notice? Why didn't I ask him to leave? Niece said “he is slower when he’s high”. We all had a fun day eating, swimming, and playing bags. He had a good nap with mom and woke up looking and talking like my son. Didn’t last too long as he became fixated on his phone most likely planning the evening’s festivities. He became very frustrated by the simple task of sorting through some shirts; which he blew off.
When he smiles, I am the happiest person in the world. He doesn’t smile anymore. I had to bail out of my gig Friday night because I was a wreck. That day took a lot out of me. He was screaming and carrying on out in the front yard and it was really a bad scene.
I don’t want to visit prisons. I don’t want to visit a grave. Every time he dares the devil, he loses.

May 2011 He turns 21. Called him at midnight to wish him happy birthday while we were in Vegas. Said he was just hanging out with (friend) and not doing anything special. We tried to make arrangements to see him the next day and go to dinner once we got home from Vegas. He ended up blowing us off and going to Subway with (friend) for his birthday dinner where he proceeded to get in an altercation with some kids. The cops knocked on our door that evening looking for him. Hard to describe the feeling of opening the door and seeing police. Always takes me right back to his birthday a few years back when they came knocking and were asking about the neighbors kid who had just died in a car accident.
He finally came by a week later and when I asked him to call mom on Mother’s Day he said he didn’t know about doing that since we didn’t get him anything for his birthday. Wow. Addicts have short memories. Of course, my birthday a few weeks later wasn’t acknowledged.

19 May I offered to buy him lunch at () like we used to do. He showed up very high. I couldn’t even talk to him. When he wasn’t nodding out, he was babbling incoherently. He couldn’t focus his eyes and they kept rolling up into his head. I couldn’t wait for that lunch to end. I was very upset and called wife on the way back to work. I will not put myself in that position again. I will not be around him when he’s high. As hard as I try to detach, it seems that going no-contact may be the best option for my health. I can only imagine what kind of toll this constant stress is taking on me physically.

5 Jun I was out of town and he was supposed to be helping mom knock out some stuff around the house for money since he lost his job for head-butting someone. Told us he was trying to get food stamps. Made wife very upset to think he wasn’t eating. He had started staying at (friend) and had burned through his savings again. We had a long talk with no real resolution. I re-affirmed our position to him. Our level of support solely depends on his level of active recovery. If he chooses not to be in recovery, then he chooses to not have our support.

He has since decided to be in recovery again, lived 4 months in a SLE, moved in with an AA friend, and has almost 9 months clean.

I read here on SR to help prepare for the worst…one day at a time.

Good luck to you.

KuanYin

LOL! And I haven't even mentioned the ones my husband's AD come up with! We don't refer to each other's children as our 'step-children" because they were already grown, and never lived with us after we were married (and never will!). But only a couple weeks ago his AD called up with an emergency, she needed milk for her kids. Milk, orange juice, and just a few other things. She has 3 small kids, one with a disability, and the AD has a real honest-God physical disability in which she cannot drive or even get around unassisted. She lives with her mother, also an addict, but her mom was in the hospital. So seeming legitimate, we took over milk, orange juice, and a good bit of food for the kids. When we arrived, there was milk, OJ, refrigerator was stocked, freezer was stocked, and his AD got a phone call from someone and I overheard her telling whoever, "just bring plenty of OJ". Ok, talk about feeling like I'd just stepped into the twilight zone!!! (btw, my husband is still in a mild state of not wanting to accept that this daughter is also an addict. His younger daughter is, and that he knows, but he doesn't want to admit yet that this one is, so I don't force the issue.) We later learned, in a bizarre twist of events, that her dealer lives nearby and has small children, who apparently just love milk and orange juice! So she was apparently able to trade the milk and OJ for at least one or two roxys, or quite a few rocks of crack.

And we chalked that up to tuition on our part. Lesson painfully learned, yet again.

KuanYin

BeavsDav, your post sounds like days out of my life over the past 6 years when my son was shooting oxys. Nothing I ever did impacted his use. I suffered way more that he ever has, and my suffering hasn't helped him one bit. It's only made me older, faster.

ag0710

somberheart,
Thanks for your reply. Yes, my son has a full time job, which is one of the reasons he felt he could make it on his own. He works at a fast food place, and is even in training to become a manager. I just hope that he can hold on to the job despite his personal choices to keep using and drinking. But I've been told by addiction counselors that many addicts and drinkers put a lot of focus and effort into keeping their jobs because that is their lifeline to their drugs. The question is whether they become so out of control in their personal life that it starts showing at work.

tjp613

We sent our (then) 19 yr old son to rehab for what we thought was an out of control marijuana addiction. Turns out he'd been doing any/every drug he could get his hands on, including huffing and eating fentanyl patches. As I've heard often, and since come to believe, whatever you think they're doing, multiply that by at least a factor of 5.

He managed to keep his last job for 18 months. He lost it eventually and can't find another one to save his life. Not hard to figure out why -- one look at him and you can tell he's an addict: dirty, wrinkled clothes, circles under his eyes and about 30# underweight.

So yeah, he went downhill very quickly in the last 2.5 years. VERY quickly.

KuanYin

You just never know. It probably depends on what your AS is using, to some extent. My father managed to hold down a job his whole life and I know he was/is a pill (opiate) addict, and I think also alcoholic, but a functioning addict/alcoholic. My AS, on the other hand, has never been able to hold a job longer than the first, or the very best, was to the second paycheck.

ag0710

Very true. It took us awhile to realize the extent of our son's problems, because he is so smart and cunning and knows how to throw us off base. It shocked us when everything was revealed in rehab.