Upsetnneedhelp

I posted my situation with my adult son. I often wonder, myself, if he has a disease or not. I believe if he is drunk and high on drugs he is a criminal and will rob me and anyone he crosses. I was always with him growing up and taught him whats right and wrong. I feel many of you posters are just plain sick. I believe in Jesus Christ and have a lot of compassion for you. Maybe it's true that addicts of loved ones are sicker then they are. I came here for support of having kids addicted. Maybe it's different because he is a long term prison offender? I hope y'all continue with ur Alanon groups.

Fathom

Dear Upset,

I just read through your posts about your son. I want to express my sympathy for you and your family. I am glad you are reaching out for help in this situation because I know it is scary, confusing, and heartbreaking. I hope that your church is able to provide a lot of support and guidance for you too. It's important for you to get support wherever you can.

I noticed that you have just recently joined SR, and I understand that you received some responses to your questions that are difficult to hear. You are correct that we are all sick, addicts and codies alike. Some are sicker than others, and the root of that sickness is denial. I hope you stick around because there are a lot of incredible people here who can offer new perspectives to consider. You don't have to accept them, or agree with them, but know that they speak from their own experiences. And, they do it with the best of intentions to help you. One AlAnon saying "Take what you want and leave the rest" is always helpful to keep in mind (whether your talking to someone on SR or even your neighbor). You are your own person and we respect your right to make your own mind up about what's right for you.

My suggestion is that you read all you can on addiction and its effects on loved ones. I think an excellent resource is the "sticky" posts that you see at the top of the main list of threads in the F&F section of this forum. You might also want to check out the F&F of Substance Abusers section as well and the "Best of Sober Recovery" Archive. Maybe others will have some suggestions for additional support groups and materials for families of violent offenders.

Please keep yourself safe.
Wishing you and your loved ones peace,
Fathom

Seren

Hello Upset,

I can only begin to imagine what it's been like for you, doing your best to raise your son with love and guidance about right from wrong only to realize he has made choices that are directly counter to what you have taught him.

I can only begin to imagine what it has been like living with the fear over what would happen to him on the streets, what he might do to some innocent person, or what might happen to him in prison for so long. And I do completely agree that our whole penal system needs an overhaul.

I don't know if addiction is a 'disease', but I do know it affects every member of the addicts family--addiction runs through my family like a river, and how I became a non-addict amazes me sometimes.

I do hope and pray that your son will finally decide to reach for a different and better life, and maybe his new girlfriend will motivate him to change. I hope and pray that you, too, will be able to find some peace and joy in the days to come. One thing I have learned is that it is possible to be happy in life regardless of the addict's decision to drink or use.

jacrazz

Addiction is a disease of choice.....your son, like mine, knows better. Thank God he hasn't been to prison but if he was to go it would be his own doing. We as Codie's are addicted to them as they are to their DOC. We have a lot of compassion for you too. You are just as sick as the rest of us, who love so much, we are willing to be dragged down by our loved one. Bless your heart, I know it's hard but God is in charge

jacrazz

I can't tell you how you spoke to me here. Denial is a powerful thing, I may be a newbie but if if wasn't for SR and all the personal heartache being shared on here, I would be still crying the "nobody understands" game. I suffer for my son but coming here and seeing stories just like mine gives me hope that I WILL NOT let HIS CHOICES bring me down!!

Flicka57

Dear Upset,
On April 1, 2000, my son, then 18 years old walked out of my life and I have not seen him since. The night before after he yet again broke a curfew, I set down a hard boundary and took all driving privileges, his job and everything from him and told him no more. Just 3 months prior he ran my truck off the road at 60 mph. He and the truck survived. Two days after the repairs to the truck he comes rolling in at 1 AM when he was done work at 9 PM and broke the curfew and I believe at a bar being served and technically he was under age for them to have even served him. When you read about letting go of the control and having to set those hard boundaries, it makes sense except when it is your child, even one like in your case that is 35. Our natural instinct from day one is to take care of our children and fix their problems. I know some of that heart break you are feeling but you must, must must set the rules. Get him into a halfway house and out of yours because--he broke your rules and that of the parole board. This will be the hardest thing but if you love your son you must be tough. I hear through the grapevine that my son, now age 31, is holding down a good job, bought a house and last year got married. He refuses all contact with me. It still breaks my heart--but maybe he is alive and doing well because of that horrific decision I had to make that night. Your job as a parent, you still are his parent even though he is grown, is to force him to face his consequences and no longer fix it for him. If you decide to enforce it, I guarantee you will have second thoughts--I do to this day. Although I may never have contact again with my son--he is alive, he is doing well & I pat myself on the back & say "good job Mom for being tough & saving him from a lot worse".

dandylion

Dear Flicka, I pray that you will see your son again. Somehow, I believe that you will.
Mu heart goes out to you. You did do the right thing, IMHO.

sincerely, dandylion

BlueSkies1

" I feel many of you posters are just plain sick. I believe in Jesus Christ and have a lot of compassion for you."

I didn't read all the last thread that has gotten you very upset to post the above.

Look, everybody has a viewpoint. Take what you like then, and leave the rest.
See even I embrace that line, and I am NOT an al anon person, I do NOT embrace everything they believe to do or say, but I do get some things out of it.

I wouldn't suggest you post that you have compassion and think other posters are sick, and that you have Jesus on your side.
I'm an atheist, but my mother is a minister.
I don't like the high and mighty.

I think most posters are making suggestions to help you not get sick. Some may have said you already are. I don't embrace the theory that as soon as you have an addict in your life it makes you sick too. I think that over time though, exactly that can happen. It all depends on how you react.

Upsetnneedhelp

Because of the positive drug screen my son now must wear a ankle bracelet. He will have a 9PM curfew but doesn't get off work till after midnight. So there goes the job. The penal system created this mess and I blame them for turning my son into a bigger criminal. They also didn't inform me what I was getting myself into with him living with me. They say alcoholics n addicts need to feel the consequences of their behvior. He did 8 yrs in prison yet he still want to snort drugs??

BlueSkies1

Did he discuss the job with them? Is it a hard and fast no breaking rule? Do they know his hours were going to be until midnight?
If they knew and still hold the curfew, then that is the way it must be, and he must find a day job.
How could they inform you of what you would be getting into with him living with you? They didn't have a crystal ball to know how he would react once out free.

Prison may very well contribute to him being a bigger criminal, but only if he embraced the viewpoints of other criminals in there that had no intention of changing their ways.

He's making the choice to want to still snort drugs. Not the penal system.

AnvilheadII

you blame THEM? this never would have happened had he not performed armed robbery! you say he's so smart, well genius hasn't figured out how to stay out of prison! they told him EXACTLY what NOT to do in order to remain free.....and yet he has violated every article of the terms of his parole. and now because HE dropped a dirty UA he has to wear an ankle bracelet, because HE cannot be trusted!

YOU could have asked questions, before he came home. you could have informed yourself of what you were getting into.

it sounds like it's everybody else's fault. but certainly never your son, who you have stated is a VIOLENT criminal offender. i wonder how the people at the other end of that gun he held have fared these past 8 years? have they gotten over it? how do they feel knowing he's back on the streets again.

Upsetnneedhelp

bluskies, of course, he socialized with other criminals while in prison. The assistant Warden told me I should stop sending him money for canteen because he was running up drug debts and was in danger. Anvil, my son was a habitual criminal since he was 10yrs old. I'm not going to argue with you that he is a danger to society. However, other countries believe in rehabilitation model of prison while the US has the punishment model. Tax payers paid for him for over 8yrs. Why not try to help the person be a more productive member of society?

Carlotta

When it comes to social justice etc. I found out that I can either get very upset and angry and not do anything and keep stewing over the problem or I can get involved and work toward the solution which is a productive way to channel those energies instead of letting them eat me alive while I sit there doing nothing.
There are groups out there which organize to change the US penal system you might look it up and maybe join one of them, get involved become an agent of change instead of a victim of circumstances.
Now to go back to what brings you here, I can really feel your deep hurt
Some people come into recovery very angry and lashing out because this is how they process being so hurt, they just learned long ago that it is "better" to be angry than to be exposed and vulnerable.
Anyway bringing it back to you, what are you looking for in this forum?
Are you looking for true support and healing? For internal change? Then it is a good start. A lot of us know how it is to be hurting horribly inside and be so angry because we don't know how to process the pain.
Are you looking for change in the criminal justice system? For external change? Then this is not the right forum but there are places out there that you can join.
The one thing we do here is encourage inner change. The one thing we (mostly) don't do is pat people's on the back and encourage them to keep the patterns which have landed them in that horrible hurtful inner spot.
I know that personally, I will try not to enable codependent behavior anymore than I would enable alcoholism.

So in an ideal world, what positive things would Sober Recovery help you accomplish?
You don't have to answer now, just food for thoughts.

Hugs

BlueSkies1

Upset, it's natural to want to get inside their heads and help them make the right choices, to get through to them somehow...but sometimes they won't listen.

All there is, is the here and now, and going forward, no matter what happened in prison, his chance is here and now...whether you can sit him down and talk some sense into him or not you know better than anybody...and it sounds like he won't listen to you either...
When people won't listen to good sense or reason what else can we do? What can you do? Not much unfortunately right?
I know this is painful for you because you would like to see him turn his life around. I would tell him that, hug him and tell him that...but at the end of the day he's still going to do what he's going to do...all you can do is say you tried your best, and beyond that, is when you have to try to make sure that you don't suffer because of his choices...that is what is done here, on SR, help for you so that you don't suffer too.
That's why the focus is on YOU instead of him.

Upsetnneedhelp

carlotta, thank you. I'm not sure what I expect out of the forum. I get the sense that many of you not have had a loved one incarcerated. I read for weeks before posting here. Everyone here thinks that an addicts bottom will be prison but I can tell you my son was still high in prison. Another bottom I hear is homeless shelters yet my son did those also and was high there as well. If tough love was the answer than many alcoholics n addicts would get better. However, sadly, that usually isn't the case.

SparkleKitty

I don't think this forum is about How We Can Help the Addict, but How We Can Help Ourselves, because we too are seriously affected and hurt by living with an addicted loved one. Here we aren't really trying to figure out how to help our loved ones find their bottoms, but how to help US find OURS.

A lot of us came here looking for a way to help our loved one with an addiction and then discovered that we, too, needed just as much help and recovery as they did. This was a big surprise to a lot of us!

BoxinRotz

We all felt like our lives and loved ones were special. LOOK AT US!!! WE'RE DIFFERENT!

We're not different. We share different names, religion, race, all that fun stuff but if you take the names, race and religion away, and throw 10 of our stories in a jar and pull out a ticket and it reads:

Who's Addict did or said this "________________________"

We'd all probably raise our hands.

And as far as bottoms for our addicts go.... Sometimes their bottoms have a basement and it's not pretty. If you look around a little more, you will find yourself in HELL! We can not save them from this. It is on them. Yes we love them so much but our love alone can not stop their addictions to their DOC. What we can do is love ourselves and know we can and will get through it, either alone or with them, that is intirely up to them. We can not force them.

I am sorry you are struggling so much with your son's incarceration but you must know that he is the only reason why he was incarcerated. While there, he chose to do drugs. He didn't have too but he made that choice. If that prison is as bad as you and he portray it to be then he needs to do any and everything in his power to stay the hell out of it.

The only fight you have in this is to take care of you, set YOUR boundaries and stick to them. It's not fun and it's not easy but as you read here at SR and keep reading, you will see that we want you to be well. If we don't keep ourselves number 1, we can and will become as sick, if not sicker than the addict.

Can you set some boundaries for yourself?

GracieLou

The tough love is for you. You have to develop your own boundaries and then stick to them.

Nothing you do is going to make him better. You can only get help for yourself at this point.

Carlotta

That!

Carlotta

I will even go one step further than GracieLou. You deserve to get better and feel better. You deserve to be loved and respected.