Should I confront my dad about his heroin usage?
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Join Date: Sep 2012
Posts: 23
Should I confront my dad about his heroin usage?
A back story: Last summer I noticed my dads behaviors were getting more and more suspicious, to the point where I thought he was using drugs, but never ever dared to tell even my mom. I had been suspicious for many years prior, but just in the summer is when he got "sloppy".
Anyway, one day my sister told me she thought dad had a drug problem, and we both figured it out, after he had borrowed SO much money, been caught in many lies, etc. So my family held an intervention for him, where he eventually admitted to having a heroin addiction (of 4 years. I guess he was spending 300$ a day)...
He's been clean for 7 months now, but when I was home from school over Christmas break, I noticed he did something suspicious. That gut feeling that I had years ago, suddenly came back. I thought I was going to be sick. (He had gone into a variety store claiming he bought the wrong kind of cigarettes- even though he's been a smoker for like his whole life- and when he went in, I saw him stand and look at the magazine rack until a van pulled up and another man went in the store and the two went out of sight. Then when he came back in the car, he immediately made up an excuse about that guy, saying he took forever at the register).. It just all seemed fishy.
Anyway. I call him on his "clean" day every month to tell him I'm proud of him. He's been going to at least 4 or 5 NA meetings a week, speaks to a counselor and so on...and I feel like accusing him will make him angry and defensive, because he wants to get back to a normal life. (Which is kind of hard, considering we lost our home, his job, and is getting a divorce). This is the last thing he needs..and I know it's not MY addiction, but the last time I ignored my gut feeling, his addiction went on for 4 years.
Please please please help me someone, I'm only 20, I don't know how to deal with this, or the first thing about heroin. Thanks.
Anyway, one day my sister told me she thought dad had a drug problem, and we both figured it out, after he had borrowed SO much money, been caught in many lies, etc. So my family held an intervention for him, where he eventually admitted to having a heroin addiction (of 4 years. I guess he was spending 300$ a day)...
He's been clean for 7 months now, but when I was home from school over Christmas break, I noticed he did something suspicious. That gut feeling that I had years ago, suddenly came back. I thought I was going to be sick. (He had gone into a variety store claiming he bought the wrong kind of cigarettes- even though he's been a smoker for like his whole life- and when he went in, I saw him stand and look at the magazine rack until a van pulled up and another man went in the store and the two went out of sight. Then when he came back in the car, he immediately made up an excuse about that guy, saying he took forever at the register).. It just all seemed fishy.
Anyway. I call him on his "clean" day every month to tell him I'm proud of him. He's been going to at least 4 or 5 NA meetings a week, speaks to a counselor and so on...and I feel like accusing him will make him angry and defensive, because he wants to get back to a normal life. (Which is kind of hard, considering we lost our home, his job, and is getting a divorce). This is the last thing he needs..and I know it's not MY addiction, but the last time I ignored my gut feeling, his addiction went on for 4 years.
Please please please help me someone, I'm only 20, I don't know how to deal with this, or the first thing about heroin. Thanks.
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: new moon road
Posts: 1,545
I'm so sorry for that "sick" feeling you describe having, illiga. So many of us here understand just what you mean. It is the nausea created by anxiety and dread.
In recovery we are reminded to always repeat to ourselves the 3 C's: we did not Cause it, we cannot Control it, and we cannot Cure it.
It seems from your words that maybe you feel that if you had caught the using signs in your father 4 years earlier, you might have been able in some way to intervene, to come between him and his addiction in some way, so everything bad that resulted from his addiction--losing his job, the family losing their home, the divorce of your parents--might have been prevented.
If this is what is maybe in the back of your mind, you will do well to repeat the 3 C's to yourself daily. They were true 4 years ago. And they are true today.
If you confront him, he will almost certainly deny a relapse, if he is using. He will not stop using just to relieve your anxiety or to avoid your disappointment or your anger. Addictive disease is much more complex than that. It is a psychological compulsion beyond the addict's conscious control, and until the addict realizes he is powerless to control his using--and that realization is almost always a result of a very painful series of events which bring him to his knees--he will not surrender and get the help he needs.
If he has been attending NA meetings, then he knows people in recovery he can call if he's in trouble. Family members are not responsible for nor capable of offering any kind of advice or direction to a drug addict. They are not qualified. You are not qualified.
Children of addicts suffer terribly as a result of their addict-parent's behaviors--the unpredictability of what will happen from one day to the next, the confusion about the sudden mood swings of the addict, the intuition that the parent is not safe to be around, the hurt that the parent is distracted by drug-seeking or drug-withdrawal, the pain of watching the parent's marriage disintegrate, the fake smiles when things are not at all well, the feeling of overwhelming responsibility to save the addicted parent and to make the non-addicted parent not cry or scream so much.
Living this way robs a young person of a childhood and of the most essential necessity in childhood and adolescence: security.
But now you are 20 years old and you are old enough to join a support group for children of addicted parents or to find a counselor at the school you attend, if you attend college, or to check books out at the library about growing up in a family of addiction. You are old enough now to decide how you wish to sail your own ship. You can get well.
And your father--he has his own ship to sail, illiga. And he can get well, too. He knows this, even if he might be in relapse right now. In his 12 Step Meetings he will have heard all about personal responsibility and accountability for his disease. He will be offered the non-judgmental support and direction of other recovering addicts. He also has a counselor who can refer him to a physician who can offer medical assistance for opiate withdrawal.
Addiction recovery is a lifelong commitment. And relapse is not uncommon among addicts who are trying to stay clean. His story of his relationship with heroin will be a very long one and it will have many chapters. It is his story. Not yours.
We here have come to rely on two things to survive the heartbreak of loving an addict: prayer and personal growth. Believe it or not, addiction feeds on everyone in the addict's life. And the brighter your life is, the less chance it has to use you as a means of supporting its existence. In recovery, for years, people have said again and again that the best thing the loved one of an addict can do to support the addict is to live a vibrant and meaningful life.
So I very much hope you will make that your goal. Wishing you the healing and the hope you so much need and deserve.
In recovery we are reminded to always repeat to ourselves the 3 C's: we did not Cause it, we cannot Control it, and we cannot Cure it.
It seems from your words that maybe you feel that if you had caught the using signs in your father 4 years earlier, you might have been able in some way to intervene, to come between him and his addiction in some way, so everything bad that resulted from his addiction--losing his job, the family losing their home, the divorce of your parents--might have been prevented.
If this is what is maybe in the back of your mind, you will do well to repeat the 3 C's to yourself daily. They were true 4 years ago. And they are true today.
If you confront him, he will almost certainly deny a relapse, if he is using. He will not stop using just to relieve your anxiety or to avoid your disappointment or your anger. Addictive disease is much more complex than that. It is a psychological compulsion beyond the addict's conscious control, and until the addict realizes he is powerless to control his using--and that realization is almost always a result of a very painful series of events which bring him to his knees--he will not surrender and get the help he needs.
If he has been attending NA meetings, then he knows people in recovery he can call if he's in trouble. Family members are not responsible for nor capable of offering any kind of advice or direction to a drug addict. They are not qualified. You are not qualified.
Children of addicts suffer terribly as a result of their addict-parent's behaviors--the unpredictability of what will happen from one day to the next, the confusion about the sudden mood swings of the addict, the intuition that the parent is not safe to be around, the hurt that the parent is distracted by drug-seeking or drug-withdrawal, the pain of watching the parent's marriage disintegrate, the fake smiles when things are not at all well, the feeling of overwhelming responsibility to save the addicted parent and to make the non-addicted parent not cry or scream so much.
Living this way robs a young person of a childhood and of the most essential necessity in childhood and adolescence: security.
But now you are 20 years old and you are old enough to join a support group for children of addicted parents or to find a counselor at the school you attend, if you attend college, or to check books out at the library about growing up in a family of addiction. You are old enough now to decide how you wish to sail your own ship. You can get well.
And your father--he has his own ship to sail, illiga. And he can get well, too. He knows this, even if he might be in relapse right now. In his 12 Step Meetings he will have heard all about personal responsibility and accountability for his disease. He will be offered the non-judgmental support and direction of other recovering addicts. He also has a counselor who can refer him to a physician who can offer medical assistance for opiate withdrawal.
Addiction recovery is a lifelong commitment. And relapse is not uncommon among addicts who are trying to stay clean. His story of his relationship with heroin will be a very long one and it will have many chapters. It is his story. Not yours.
We here have come to rely on two things to survive the heartbreak of loving an addict: prayer and personal growth. Believe it or not, addiction feeds on everyone in the addict's life. And the brighter your life is, the less chance it has to use you as a means of supporting its existence. In recovery, for years, people have said again and again that the best thing the loved one of an addict can do to support the addict is to live a vibrant and meaningful life.
So I very much hope you will make that your goal. Wishing you the healing and the hope you so much need and deserve.
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Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Sherman Oaks California
Posts: 8
Go with your gut
Your intuition is good. Go with it. Confront him with your concern about the outing. If he fumbles over his words or gets defensive its a problem. I am a recovering Oxycodone addict which is just about the same thing and I can tell you if you intervene sooner rather than later you are better off. Shady behavior=using. Always has and always will. Relapse is something that happens to most addicts in their life and can serve as a wake-up call that the program to stay sober they are following needs some adjustment. Just tell him you are there for him in his recovery and you understand but it always ends up iin the same place--Pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. (losing everything dear to them) I should know i tried to make using work more than 10 times. After much suffering I thank God every day that I am sober. When you confront him have a urine drug test with you and ask him for your reassurance to take it. You are his son so don't let him go to the bathroom alone tell him you want him to take it with the door open so he does not put water in it. There is also a temperature gauge on the side. It must be in a certain temperature range to know it was not tampered with. If he refuses the test that is a considered in the treatment world a fail. No one especially for their son would refuse a test if they were sober.
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 951
Are you living with him? I think the first thing to do is take care of your own basic needs.
If you are living with him, make it your number one priority to get out. Within days, not months.
Only then would I tell him I see the signs I saw last time and I don't think you are clean." Then step away and let him handle his recovery however he does.
You can't do any more than be honest with him. It might not help but you will know you we're honest.
If you are living with him, make it your number one priority to get out. Within days, not months.
Only then would I tell him I see the signs I saw last time and I don't think you are clean." Then step away and let him handle his recovery however he does.
You can't do any more than be honest with him. It might not help but you will know you we're honest.
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