Tough love?

Old 07-17-2012, 01:32 PM
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Tough love?

My daughter who is 23 years old is an addict, we told her about a month ago that if we suspect her using again we would drug test her, and if it was dirty we would take her car and phone away, I could not kick her out of my home. Just the other day she announced that she would bring the car and phone home and would be getting her things to move out. I am worried because now she is with other drug users and she has no job, no phone and no car. What should I do now?
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Old 07-17-2012, 01:37 PM
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What you should do now is take care of yourself and allow her the dignity of making her own life choices, even if they are choices you do not agree with.

She is a 23 year old, not a 9 year old. She has the right to live her life in any way she wants. I know that isn't what you want to hear, but it is the truth.
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Old 07-17-2012, 01:37 PM
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Let her go.
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Old 07-17-2012, 02:01 PM
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Welcome to SR. Many of us are speaking from our own experience in this.

Were you thinking you could do something? Were you thinking that because you had that conversation with her about drug testing her, that was why she decided to move out? If you do feel like you were too rough on her, are you thinking you should rescind and tell her she can stay, no matter what she does or does not do?

My advice is the next time you see her, cup your hands gently on her face, look in her eyes with compassion, and tell her that you will always love her but that until she is ready to leave her drugs and alcohol behind, you cannot allow her in your home.

But dear Softball, you may not be ready to have that kind of conversation with your daughter. So in the meantime, read everything you can about drugs, alcohol, the effect on the brain. Educate yourself. Go to Alanon and/or Naranon meetings. And somewhere along the way you will be able to formulate the answer you asked in your post, "What should I do now?"

Whatever you do, keep coming back.
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Old 07-17-2012, 02:29 PM
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Reading this, is like a flashback to a couple of weeks ago for me and my husband. One of his close friends passed away last fall, leaving behind his wife, and a 22 year old son. Well the son fell apart after his dad died, and has been in all kinds of trouble. He dropped two semesters of college, has been using cocaine, drinking too much. Had major problems with his mother, and she finally got to the point where she bagged up his things and left them on the porch telling him to go. But when he came knocking and yelling and banging on the door demanding entry back in; she called my husband.

We now have "the kid" as I call him here, living with us. Same worries as you are having, if he is out there on his own, he will be living with his drug friends, maybe get deeper in addiction and drinking.... My husband got it in his head he can help him, and so that is where we are at now.

I dont have advice for you. I dont know if we are doing the right thing. Right now it is going ok actually but who knows what the outcome will be. Our thread is called "Housing a young Coke addict" if you want to read it.

I guess just wanted to say, your not alone.
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Old 07-18-2012, 03:59 AM
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Thank you.
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Old 07-18-2012, 04:30 AM
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My daughter received notice for warrants for her arrest in the mail yesterday because of about four tickets she has not paid. I wonder if I should try to contact her to tell her or just wait and see what happens?
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Old 07-18-2012, 05:07 AM
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I would leave it alone. If she comes around then give her her mail and let her deal with the consequences.

Sorry that you are dealing with this. I know it's hard to let go.
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Old 07-18-2012, 05:24 AM
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I am just wondering, she called me yesterday (from someone's phone) and asked if she could come get the rest of her things so I told her yes. Before she left I gave her a hug and told her that I love her and that we would always be here for her. I could contact her if I had to, but at this point I am just leaving any contact up to her??? She knows that we don't like where she is and what she is doing, I just keep hoping and praying that she will see the light and stop this self destruction.
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Old 07-18-2012, 05:41 AM
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I am so sorry Softball. There is NOTHING nice about addiction, in fact...it's pure evil!! Please keep reading here, there are so many mother's (parents) dealing with an addicted adult child. Many who have experienced the hope and heartbreak of failed detoxes, rehabs, and sober living. Please read the stickies as well. There is some great information for parents there.

Until your daughter decides to get clean and sober...there is nothing you can do. She is telling you that by her own actions. Helping her now will only hurt her.
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Old 07-18-2012, 06:10 AM
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Originally Posted by Softball27 View Post
My daughter received notice for warrants for her arrest in the mail yesterday because of about four tickets she has not paid. I wonder if I should try to contact her to tell her or just wait and see what happens?
I assume you gave her her mail when she dropped by. Don't even consider paying them for her--or anything else that may come to you.

My son has a heap of debt and people calling. I don't entertain the calls--don't listen to what they have to say. I don't pass along any info to the callers. Debt collectors and addiction go together. Someday he'll have to face the calls and start paying them off, but that's his problem, not mine. The debt collectors will try to place the responsibility on our shoulders if we let them.

Remember, you didn't cause the mess your daughter is in so don't take the responsibility of fixing the messes, either. As an addict she's not going to be in the place of mind to fix her messes, but some day she may be.
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Old 07-18-2012, 06:17 AM
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I feel like I should share more of my daughters story, about a year ago, she told her older sister that she didn't like where her life was headed and that she needed help. Her boyfriend is a heroin addict and she was helping him support his addiction mostly by scrapping metal meanwhile she had become addicted herself. So, me and my husband confronted her and told her we would help her to get help, she said that she could do it herself(get clean) with just a few days at home with me. (so, this was last August) about the second day she was in severe pain screaming for help, so we went to the ER, from there we ended up admitting her to Highland Ridge, a treatment facility. She was there inpatient for 30 days. We attended some family meetings there with her, through those meetings we found out that she actually started using drugs at about 15 years old (how stupid are we as parents that we didn't realize it then) she had used and abused marijuana and cold medicines, by age 19 or 20 meth, and now heroin. Anyway after 30 days of inpatient she did about 8 weeks of outpatient(driving 90 miles one way 4 days a week). We set boundaries in place to try to help her to stay clean but, by December she was back with the heroin addict boyfriend, so we took the phone and car back and kicked her out, of course felt terrible not knowing where she was and what she was doing. We asked her to please come home and we would help her, she would tell us she was clean and we wanted to believe that so much. Anyway, her boyfriend went to jail in April and will be there until September, at first she said she was using this time to get clean and that the boyfriend would get clean in jail and then when he gets out they will have this great, normal life together because they would both be clean. The first of June we drug tested her and it was dirty for opiates but, she begged and pleaded with us that it was because she took sub oxone because she was having a hard day, we let it go but, told her we would test again if we suspected, and that if it was dirty we would take the car, the phone and kick her out. So, we have noticed signs and was ready to do what we knew had to be done, and I think she knew what was gonna happen so, that is why last Thursday she told me she would bring the car and phone home and get her stuff. I waited most the day Friday waiting for her but, had to leave that afternoon, I left her a couple of notes one explaining that everything is on her shoulders now. The other one asking her not to knock on our door till she is clean and her life is in order. So, she called Monday and asked how much her phone costs per month and asked if she could come get it if she gave me 100 dollars..( wonder where she got 100 dollars). I told her no, she asked why and I said because I don't like where your at and what you are doing. So, then she called yesterday and asked if she could come get the rest of her stuff, I said yes. So, I was busy and didn't talk to her when she was here but, just hugged her, told her I loved her and that we were here for her, and she left. Do I cut all ties or do I keep the lines of communication open?
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Old 07-18-2012, 06:44 AM
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I think you have done well so far. Your daughter must do this on her own--that includes reaching her bottom. She will reach it faster with your cutting strings to her by letting her fend for herself. I know it is hard on your part, but what other choice do you have unless you choose to enable her behavior at home?

Fortunately for my husband and me, our son made his way to his bottom while living thousands of miles away. We were totally oblivious to what he was doing. I appreciate the fact we were thousands of miles away, as if we had known we probably would have prevented him from reaching his bottom when he did. We would have tried to drag him back home with us and started enabling him. As it is it took him four years to progress to heroin addiction which is when he got court ordered to rehab. Who knows how long it would have taken him to reach his bottom had my husband and I interfered with the process.

Regarding your current relationship with your daughter, I remember when my son was a teenager and abusing drugs. I had him in a drug abuse program and the counselor encouraged my husband and me to keep up our relationship with him apart from his drug abuse. Others will make suggestions to you, but I remember the counselor telling my husband and me to not totally divorce ourselves from our son--to have some activity we do with him apart from the drugs. My son likes to play golf as did my husband so they would golf together. My son likes to bowl, so he and I would go bowling.

I think the problem will be if while visiting with your daughter you will stand firm to not enable her if you see her destroying her life. With our son, he was so far away and he didn't share his drug abusing life with us (apart from asking for money). Though we were oblivious at the time, I do see we still enabled him--but not near as much as we could have.
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Old 07-18-2012, 07:17 AM
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Originally Posted by Softball27 View Post
Do I cut all ties or do I keep the lines of communication open?
I tried the detachment method with my son and it resulted in some pretty traumatic episodes for me. It's so hard to ignore the elephant in the room and just act like everything is fine.

It is nice to see them alive and tell them you love them, but it's still very stressful.

He's got a good recovery going right now (knock on wood), but if we ever have to go back there again, I will not be around him when he appears high.

I will not ignore or minimize it, I will ask him to leave.

If that doesn't cut it, I will go no contact.
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Old 07-18-2012, 08:52 AM
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Originally Posted by Softball27 View Post

We set boundaries in place to try to help her to stay clean but, by December she was back with the heroin addict boyfriend, so we took the phone and car back and kicked her out, of course felt terrible not knowing where she was and what she was doing.

So many of us have confused boundaries with attempts to control people. The difference can be found in the intent, protecting yourself from the chaos or attempting to help someone do what they do not want to do.

"We will not have someone in active addiction or early recovery living under our roof" is a boundary. " You will stop seeing the bf/using drugs/go to meetings or else" is an attempt to control. Such attempts don't work.


Do I cut all ties or do I keep the lines of communication open?
Your situation is very similar to my own, a few years ago. After 3 back to back rehab experiences, she relap[sed again. I never went no contact. I would occasionally buy her a sandwich and talk. Looking back, talk meant I tried to counsel/control her and she tried to manipulate me for money. We were quite a pair. Nothing I said or did made a difference.

She eventually cleaned up on her own. That her group of addicts and BF were either in prison or dead may have helped her to realize she had other alternatives.
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Old 07-18-2012, 09:21 AM
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Hello Softball, I am another Mom with a 22 year old AS. I think you are doing all the right things. I am no contact because our son is not willing to contact us. He has tons of bills and they keep coming, and we just got a warrant for an unpaid violation. I won't even bother responding to the bill collectors. If/when I resume a relationship with a sober JJ, then i can give him the information. We did "Return to sender" on the last batch of letters/bills.
On the note of going no contact, I agree with out to lunch. Don't go all the way unless she gives you a reason. As I have been reflecting the lat 62 days since my son went off the grid, one thing I am realizing is they actually do us a favor by leaving our home. When they leave, we no longer are exposed to their daily bad decisions and state of mind. They are adults, and they MUST learn that they are ultimately responsible for all choices they make (yes these bad choices).
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Old 07-19-2012, 07:18 AM
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Currently, my contact with 26 YO AS is an occasional lunch (I go to his town and meet him as I do not want him to know where I live). I always start the lunch with, "My offer still holds that I will help in any way I can if you decide to get help for your drug and alcohol problem." He always declines, but I have a piece of paper with a phone number in the car in case he shows interest. Then we go on with a chit-chat lunch. But it is stressful for me. I will say that sometimes I will go for a couple of months before calling him to make the invitation for lunch (because it is stressful for me), and then it sometimes takes several weeks of my weekly phone calls before he contacts me. So we can go months with not talking to each other. And now that he has the latest crisis of having fathered a child, I find myself not wanting to talk to him just now - for my own sanity.

Bottom line is that you will develop what is comfortable for you. That takes time, and it is a trial-and-error kind of thing. There is no one right answer. Think of this as distancing (rather than detaching) if that feels less harsh.
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Old 07-19-2012, 08:13 AM
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Hi Softball,

I'm sorry for the pain you and your daughter and family are going through, but you are not alone, as you can see. All good answers here, I don't have much to add, but wanted to just offer support and hugs from one mom to another.

I am in phone contact with my 21 RAS because--for today--he is working a program. He lives several states away, so seeing him isn't an issue right now. I have experienced the times when in active addiction he asked for money and my only response (thanks to FA, NA, Alanon meetings) was that I would support recovery and only recovery (and this was when he was telling me he was starving, hadn't eaten in days, had nowhere to sleep, needed decent parenting, etc. etc.). It wasn't until his father, my XH, said rehab or the streets--and my son chose to leave--that he eventually returned asking for help.

Support meetings are lifesavers for so many parents in your position--I hope you will seek some out if you haven't already. We aren't meant to walk through life alone and we don't have to, thank God.

Praying for you and and your daughter in this difficult time.
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Old 07-19-2012, 10:56 AM
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thanks

I've been on this site for a week-since my son told me he was a herion addict. I'm sure everyone knows all the emotions/thoughts I've been having this week. Anyway, he did start a meth outpatient program but has still been seeing the same "friends". Today, he took himself to the clinic (about 1 1/2 hrs. away) and said he would be back on Sunday and that he was staying with a friend. I worry about what he's doing and who is with but it was such a relief for him to leave our home. I could finally relax but then I feel guilty for being happy he's not here for a few days. Reading your posts and the responses is more helpful than you'll ever know. Thanks.
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Old 07-19-2012, 11:05 AM
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Welcome Library Lady, we are here to support you. I understand that shock you must have in learning your child has a drug problem. Please read the stickies at the top and get as educated as you can about addiction. It truly is a Godsend to have SR as a resource.
I hope your son chooses recovery.
Hugs
Teresa
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