Son in real trouble
 

My son has started making very strange accusations. He is 23 and has accused his father of sexually abusing him, his Mother coming on to him, etc.. It's as if he has built this make believe world or something. We are a very supportive Christian family who have never done anything but nuture our children. Our heart is breaking as we cannot bear much more of this abuse. Is this just drugs or could it be some kind of brain washing in addition to drugs?

My son made crazy accusations against me to anyone that would listen to him - I was told by professionals that it is typical and it is a way of deflecting the problems off of himself. As long as there is no truth then he is most likely trying to make himself look better in the docs eyes by saying these things - it gives him an excuse for using.

What i had to do was just detach emotionally from my son and never ever let him see that his accusations hurt. I opened my home and myself up completely to the professionals working with him and became an open book - even so far as admitting things i had done wrong (which we've all done some things wrong) - and never being defensive when working with them. It hurts - I know i hurts but look at it as a symptom of the disease.

Where did these accusations originate. Many times people look very deep for the root cause of their addiction and sometimes it is possible that they conjure up memories unknowingly. Sometimes however parts or all of these memories are true and the family has existed in denial over the years or things have happened that were never brought to light.

From what I have learned, this type of behavior (attacking and accusing people, especially those closets to them) is VERY common with addicts and alcoholics.

They need to find a way to rationalize / justify their behavior, and to manipluate people into feeling sorry for them... so they will not stop enabling / supporting them.

In the last few days that xAGF was at home, and I was telling her that she could no longer live with me, the accusations started to fly. I was accused have having snuck out in the middle of the night to go sleep with a prostitute. A business associate was accused of having first groped her, then of raping her. She was drinking because of these things... and other things.... it was everyone's fault of but her own.

I have had to accept that her thinking processes were fundamentally broken. In AA they call this stinkin' thinkin'.

A professional addiction therapist told me that the real challenge is that addict can create these complex fantasy worlds in order to sustain their ability to drink, and they may not even know that what they are saying is a lie.

Tought stuff to swallow, but true.

After my future step son (nearly 30) was kicked out of his father's house, he sent horrible, evil e-mails to his father accusing him of all sorts of things and denegrating the relationship between his father and later A mother. Truly horrible, hurtful things and none of it true. My fiance ultimately cut off all contact with his son.

I'm sorry for what you are going through and hope that things will improve soon. Remember that addiction fueled accusations are typically all used to deflect attention from the addicts use.

Hugs and prayers, HG

My step brother does this to my Dad when he is using. Brings up all kind of horrible physical abuse that never happened.
They don't answer the phone at night anymore, and take him with a grain of salt.
I'm sorry I know it is upsetting.
I always tell them don't give him any power or reasons to continue this by buying into it.
(((...)))