Kelrunran

My son lived with us after he got out of rehab. We thought it would be fine, especially since he is such a mellow guy. Well, we learned he wasn't all that motivated since we pretty much helped him out. Then he stopped going to meetings, did drugs in our home then stole money. I didn't think twice, he needed to leave. My co-dependent self printed out an application for him to live in the homeless shelter as well as list of phone numbers of other shelters. I packed his stuff and when he came home from work he needed to go. It was very sad but we had had enough. That was almost three months ago. We haven't heard from him but I continue to work a recovery program (al-anon).

I do believe that they need to be out on their own and it needs to be perfectly clear that it is not up for debate. Our addict kids know they can play on our emotions but we need to hit our bottoms and hold firm. It is time for me to live and let my son decide which path he will take. My higher power is now in charge. I have always told my son I loved him and I said it when he walked out the door.

I do pray for you and yours......you see you are in good company here. An al-anon friend reminded me last night that my son's life is none of my business. So true....so true.....

tjp613

sweet!!!

Hope44

She went to Hawaii to be near the ocean and study marine biology, a long-held dream of hers. She worked very hard to get there and it WAS sweet, except Hawaii is also where she became curious about drugs and began experimenting. She was so far from home and it never dawned on us, what trouble she was falling into, not even when she'd call, sometimes frantic, and tell us about the panic attacks she'd been having. We chalked it up to too many energy drinks and not enough sleep and encouraged her to see a doctor, just in case. Like I said, it never crossed our minds about the drugs... until she was home again. THEN we started putting two and two together.

357girl

If my AD is given any money, it will go directly for drugs. The only thing she will use money for, besides drugs, is her cell phone, which gives her access to drug dealers. She will manipulate the hell out of anyone she can, in order to get money for drugs. God, she is so good at lying to people about why she needs money. It's always "something" that is totally believable. We are so gullable, she is that good. We thought we were paying off counselors and courts, nope. We would send her money, and she wasn't putting a dime towards her legal problems.

May I please ask what your daughter is addicted to that allows her to sustain employment and pay her bills? My daughter will be 20 in July. Her addiction started with Oxycontin then moved to Heroin. I tried everything to get her help.... methadone, inpatient, outpatient, suboxone, psychiatric counseling. After stealing so much $$ from us ($2,000 in savings bonds in her name, $1,000 from our bank accounts), pawning my husband's tools, pawning everything of value she owned (IPOD, camera, laptop), I (um) finally had enough (took way too long!) and kicked her out (for the second time). She was living from couch to couch for two weeks, and I refused to let her come home and I cried every night. I could barely work either. She would call me, saying she had no where to sleep and could she sleep on our porch, and I would leave blankets and a pillow outside, because my husband insisted I do that, but she never showed up. It was gut wrenching. Finally, she called her bio dad, that she was never close to, and he sent her a plane ticket to live with him in another state. I took her to the airport, got a companion pass to go to the gate with her, she was high as a kite.

She was living in pretty remote area with her dad. Via the internet, she found drug dealers on myspace. They would come to her dad's house when everyone was at work. She got a DUI. That set her straight for a few months... sober, but not in recovery. She got a good retail job, sounded very happy, got her provisional license, a "second car" after crashing her dad's in the DUI, that was her 4th car since she turned 16 BTW. It was all going too good and the triggers came... too much money, break up with a guy, and she relapsed. All the lies, stealing, manipulation began at her dad's house. He put up with it for about a month, he gave her the option of going into treatment through the state, it was free, beds available. She refused, so he had her pack up all of her stuff, gave her some money for food, and set her up in a in a hotel for one week. He told her, after your stay is up, you're own your own. If you want treatment, call me and I'll bring you there. No phone calls to dad, however. He continued to pay her cell phone so he could keep tabs on her (bad idea). Oh, and the same day he dropped her off at the hotel, his girlfriend saw her driving away in a car with known drug dealers. A week passed by, she had moved into a "friend's" house who she met in court ordered counseling. She seemed okay to me, on the phone, I think she had some sober time. Her friend then relapsed, my daughter had to find some where else to go. She managed to find another person to stay with, that lasted a couple of weeks, then they wanted her out. Hmm, can't imagine why... drug user, no money, no job, no car, needed a ride to mandatory three day a week court ordered counseling. I don't even want to imagine how she got people to drive her 30 miles one way to counseling. It was a very bad situation for her and Reno was not a good place for a homeless teen.

Well, oblivious to her continued drug use, I talked it over with family members and we decided it would be best to bring her back to this state, it had been a year, maybe she hit bottom being away from home, she was ready to be clean. My dad agreed he would let her live with him and his wife, on a lake, not to many houses around. His wife would take her to counseling, she was still on probation and was required to go to intensive outpatient.

Well, the day before we were to drive to the other state to sign papers for the court to release her, she called me and said her UA came up dirty. For Christ's sake. How could I have been so naive! She sounded so "normal" so "happy", everytime we talked. Duh, she was still an addict, and I was still in denial.

However, I could not let my daughter stay there any longer. Her dad wanted absolutely nothing to do with her. His girlfriend wanted her out of the picture too. So my dad and I went to Nevada and picked her up and all along the way, we wondered out loud, what the Hell were we going to do after we picked her up. It felt like the right thing to do, one more chance. She had health insurance for 2 more months. Let's give it a try, she said she would....

We got her case transfered back to her homestate. We drove two full days back home. On the 2nd day at my dad's lakehouse, he gave her $50. =( Ugh, who knows why. She disappeared for two hours, in an area where she knew absolutely no one. When they finally found her, she could not produce the $50 bill. Said she lost it. For days, we shuffled her back and forth across the ferry boat while we took her to appointments. We hid our phones, wallets, watched her like a hawk, I walked around in my PJ's at night with my purse around my shoulder. Password protected our cell phones. And yet she STILL managed to get a hold of a dealer and we saw her put some money in an envelope near our back gate.

We waited for treatment centers to call us back, everywhere we called or went to, we were turned away.

We were getting angry, had not slept but a few hours in nearly a week. I had missed 5 days of work. My husband and I told her that another treatment facility under our insurance was still going to cost us a ton of money and we still weren't done paying for her first round. My husband was really laying it on thick. It pissed me off, his behavior at times, but in the end, it was the right way to talk to her, being nice to her did nothing but make her realize her manipulation was working. But I just wanted her to be with me. Every night that I got to sleep in the same bed with her since she returned was a blessing to me. To smell her hair and hold her soft little hands, to just lay in bed and talk to her, to know she wasn't dead, she was safe with me. I missed her so much after a year of not seeing her. I wanted my daughter back and for the addict to just go away. I thought I was enough, being back home was enough for her to want to stop using.

Well, I know this is a VERY long story but I wanted to tell you what happened to me, and that the chances of your daughter getting into recovery are pretty hopeless if anyone is supporting her while she is using. You love her, like I love my daughter, you don't want her to be homeless, to die, it's unthinkable. But, think about it, why would she want to work on recovery when she can use and have everyone support her? Give her $$, a place to live, food to eat, etc., while she uses her own money to buy her DOC? This guy who is giving her money for her down payment? That sounds crazy, almost unbelievable.

So, where is my daughter now? Well, we went to the Salvation Army last Wednesday morning, it wasn't a very nice place, but it was "free". Why they made us drive 45 minutes away, only to tell us the women's shelter was full, was just another huge disappointment. We then went to the very nice, expensive all women's treatment center I forced her into the first time, where she failed IOP, relapsed less then a week after being home. But I didn't care, I wanted her in there to get sober. They were willing to take her, but not for a few days, maybe 5 more days. Ugh, my entire family was burned out from playing "warden." The worst thought, what would happen after 4 weeks of treatment? A sober living house, $500 a month, paid for by mom and dad? No way, still a is huge chance she would relapse, because whatever underlying issues were causing her to use are still going to be there after just a few weeks of treatment. Her family was STILL trying to make choices for her and control the outcome.

Through some church friends of my MIL, we went to one more place, our 3rd place that day, and it wasn't even 2pm. We were exhausted. This was a residential center for homeless women and their children, women trying to recover from addiction, women suffering from domestic violence. The facility was beautiful, only a year old, she would have her own room, and she could stay for a year, even two. It was Christian based. She was enamoured. She went back to my dad's that night, we would wait for calls from the "nice" treatment center, but the next morning, just as they advised, she called the christian based center at 8:30am for an assessment over the phone. They accepted her and asked her to be there at 5pm, not one minute later.

She has been there since Thursday, I have not heard from her, but I know she is still there. What gives me some small hope this time, she chose this place on her own, she wanted to go. And she can leave if she wants too and she knows that, but I don't think she will. Because she is a very smart girl and a very hard worker, when she is sober. And, she is afraid to death of going to jail if she doesn't get into treatment. Her probation is not up until November, thank God.

With all that said, I just want to let you know I have been, like many of us here, exactly where you are now, thinking those same thoughts you are. I know how you feel and how much you love your daughter. You can search all of my prior posts, they started nearly two years ago. I don't want to be here in another 20 years, discussing my "40" year old addict. =(

Let your daughter do it on her own and do not support her. No matter how hard it is. You can give her all the names and numbers of shelters and organizations that can help her, and if she wants to get sober, she will call them. You can take her there if she needs a ride. But until she realizes the destruction her addiction is causing herself (because she doesn't care what it's doing to you), and when all of you stop giving her a handout, no matter how small you think it is, she is never going to get it. I promise you, she won't. Of course, miracles do happen, but I don't think many of us on this board have experienced miracles.

I hope you can let her go. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your daughter.

xoC

Hope44

357girl - thank you for sharing your story. Wow, that is one wild ride you've been on. I sincerely hope your daughter is on a new path now, one that will lead her out of addiction to true happiness and good health - of body, soul, and spirit. Being a mother myself I can well imagine what it's been like for you, mostly your mother's heart, though my own situation does not seem to have progressed to what you've shared....

You asked what drug my daughter is addicted to. Based on a bruised left arm, syringe wrappers in her trash, stamp-sized bags with white powder residue that I have found on her nightstand, tiny pupils... we believe it is still heroin. She's tried other drugs, too. In Hawaii it was ecstasy....

A few months ago we realized she had begun stealing from us - over a period of several weeks $300 went missing from purse and dresser drawer. My husband set up a camera in our room and we caught her, came down hard on her, and nothing else has gone missing since. We've been watching and monitoring like hawks and when I heard you mention how you walked around at night with your purse? That breaks my heart....

In the past two years, since she came home from Hawaii, she has been to the emergency room three times, detox, rehab, counseling, suboxone... she even went into a serious withdrawal (cramps, leg shakes, diarrhea) right here at home once, which I "went through" with her, for 37 hours straight. (This was right after we confirmed she was stealing from us and we told her she had to get out by the end of the weekend but it didn't happen...) She clung to me during that time, weeping for how she messed up her life while I stroked her hair and said, "It's going to be okay... it's going to be okay..." The words were for me as much as for her. When "we" finally came through the worst of it, she came to cuddle in bed with me that bright sunny morning and the face that looked into mine was the face of my little girl again, a beautiful portrait of love and serenity. It was a precious gift to me, to see she is in there still.

Another reason we believe she's still using is she is not saving money like she should be. Living at home here, her big expenses have been cell phone, gas, and books for school. She has yet to pay for her spring semester tuition and also a $450 ticket she received for retail theft (pretty expensive tampons, right?) Bottom line, she made over $14,000 last year waitressing and has not much to show for it. When she last went into the emergency room she told my husband that her heroin habit cost $50 a day. I don't know what it is costing her now, money-wise that is.

She is functional, at present. But it seems she is functioning solely for her drug. She, too, can make it appear QUITE otherwise. I am sure we have fallen for it more times than not.

The reason we want her out of the house is she is obviously breaking house rules, and she has used up all her chances and grace. We've become aware of how we're enabling her here and, sometimes, love must be tough. It has been my constant and pleading prayer thru all this - how to best love her.

For the most part, she has a good attitude about moving out. She's moving in with two other girls, both college students. It's what she wants, living with other students or people her age, like it was her first years in college. I'm just very afraid she is living in huge denial right now, about her own state. I can only hope that the dignity that can come with having to be responsible for herself will outweigh her pull toward drugs. That probably sounds really naive....

Sometimes *I* worry that we are reading things wrong... I mean how horrible it would be for me/us to not be trusting her, when in fact it is deserved. When in fact she IS making positive strides. But - trust has been shattered and will take time to rebuild, along with right actions, not right words. In my heart, as much as I don't want it to be true, I think she is still walking a destructive path.

Thanks again for sharing your story.

coffeedrinker

I have found that usually when we sense something is not "right", it isn't. When you're new to being in a relationship with an active addict, there is a learning curve. Learning to trust your instincts (they're there for a reason) will serve you well.

As for the "what if's" -- in my experience, my addict - after getting clean - would often get his dander up a little when I questioned him, or accused him on something. Then, he always came around to "I am the one to blame. I can't be angry with you for not trusting me; I put us in this situation". Only those statements when clean; when he was using, he ALWAYS lied and denied what I thought was clearly using behavior.

mistermister

You've received some pretty good replies. I hope things get better for you.

mistermister

It sounds like you have received some pretty good replies. I hope things get better for you soon.

357girl

Hope, your daughter could very well be a functional heroin addict. In my very long story, I mentioned how happy my daughter seemed over the past few months, each time I talked to her on the phone. In fact, many of my family members who talked to her got the same impression. The day my dad and I picked her up, she did not look like a drug user, she looked quite normal. But, her lifestyle proved otherwise, yet we were too far away to know what was really going on, we just went by what we "heard."

I read somewhere, on this site I believe, "I can hear you better with my eyes." No matter what my daughter tells me, it's what I "see" that is the truth. It's so sad when we don't listen with our eyes.

thequest

We too are waiting for a bottom on a much older individual. Have a relative/alcoholic/PEDs & drug user who has basically stuck an elder family member for 5 figures. Finds enough money for his activities while unemployed and yet has stopped paying on that 5 figure loan.

I don't know wether living at home helps or not but I think an addict does need a wake up call or hit a bottom. We too are waiting for borrower to hit that bottom.

Good Luck, I hope all turns out well.

Hope44

I've read the same quote here and it has stuck with me. It's so true, isn't it. Seems my daughter has become a master word manipulator, knows just what to say. Only thing is, we are on to her now and until we actually SEE a life that is changed/changing... her words are empty.

Just want to say thanks again to everyone for the support and sharing your stories. It means alot.

tjp613

Hope -- Over the last couple of years I have been shocked to realize that probably 85% of what comes out of my son's mouth is a lie. I never even knew a person COULD lie that much, but they sure can! It's truly astonishing.

Hope44

It sure is. It's become her native tongue it seems. Occasionally she will lie (voluntarily!) about things that, had she told the truth, it would have born no bad reflection on her whatsoever.

tjp613

EXACTLY!! Things that they don't even need to lie about ....all the way up to bold, brazen lies that they will surely get caught telling! It boggles my mind. It's like the part of their brain that controls truth/lies has come totally unhinged. Bizarro-land.

Chino

It's the same part of the brain that is hijacked by the addiction. Old habits die hard and sobriety doesn't make that happen, but recovery does one day at a time.

keepinon

oh yes.. the lies. for me it is absolutely the worst part of addiction. If someone has a disease you can still have a real relationship with them,perhaps even go deeper. this illness/disease wtevr u want to call it prevents that from happening becuz of all the LIES. U can't really get in there w/ someone so dishonest.breaks my heart every time my AD lies to me.