Tired and Unsure Still Consumes Me
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Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Oldfort
Posts: 4
Tired and Unsure Still Consumes Me
I been still reading everyone's stories..For some reason tonight I feel very depressed. It's almost like I just don't wan't to go on anymore that I cannot do this. I am tired.
I will try to tell my story as best I can and not make it too lengthy. My son of 28 yrs has been addict for what I know of for like 13 yrs of meth. He has been in and out of jail. He has destroyed our home. At the age of 24 I gave him a choice of either rehab or to go live with his father in Arizona, we live in Tenn. He chose his father and that was a huge mistake. He ended up worse than ever as his father only fed his addiction. I brought him back here after 2 years and it didn't even take him 2 weeks of being here and it started all over again.
He gets on this drug and you cannot understand when he talks, he walks different, he is abusive, mean..About a month ago, he brought some girl into our home, I said no they cannot stay here. Well I could not make them leave.
My husband called the law and they both took off, but before taking off he called me every name in the book, and looked at my 6ft 3 in husband 230 lbs. and my son only being maybe 120 soaking wet and told him he would drop him to the floor like that and that he was a worthless piece of sxxx..It went on..
Well they left and he stayed gone for several days til the money ran out and showed up here at 7 am one morning while my husband at work. I let him beat on doors for bout an hour, then he got half way in sliding door.. I tried to push him back out then the tears started, mama I am dying, I am hungry, freezing, just let me get warm and a few hours sleep and I will leave..I did, but then he would not leave. This was like a month ago. Him and my husband do not speak and I cannot stand to look at him and tell him not to call me mom, not after the nasty obscene names he called me..Well he gets his income tax check yesterday and away he goes..He will return when money is gone..Eating us out of house and home, begging I get him cigarettes, swearing we do nothing for him. I cannot take this no more. He probably is facing prison when he goes to trial Mar 5th and yet that alone is gonna kill me and terrify me. I am so lost and alone. My husband at one point told me him or my son.
I cannot get thru to my son that I am not responsible for him. He says I am his mother and I am to take care of him. He tells me that I am a horrible mother always wanting to kick her kid out. I have found baggies, tin foil, drugs all in his room. Which have now closed that room off to him, so he uses my office room to sleep. My husband has serious illness, stage 4 cirrhosis. I am on disability for my own problems. My AS has destroyed our family, the holes in walls, busted things. The screaming..I keep hoping and praying just one more day Lord and I can turn this around. It never happens. He does not take no for an answer. My car being broke down for instance, he sitting here asking me to run him to store, I tell him like how, my car broke down, for over and hour he continued come on run me to store. I was like what don't you get. I had to remove myself and lock myself in my room, then he is beating on my door, come on run me to the store.. There is so much more to this story of the devastation and horrifying events through the years. I sit and I cry and cry. I just want to escape. As long as I am around he will never ever go anywhere else. So if I remove myself, my husband and rest of my family can go on happily. I don't have the heart or strength to kick him to the streets, even though I try to.
Thank you for hearing me out..
I will try to tell my story as best I can and not make it too lengthy. My son of 28 yrs has been addict for what I know of for like 13 yrs of meth. He has been in and out of jail. He has destroyed our home. At the age of 24 I gave him a choice of either rehab or to go live with his father in Arizona, we live in Tenn. He chose his father and that was a huge mistake. He ended up worse than ever as his father only fed his addiction. I brought him back here after 2 years and it didn't even take him 2 weeks of being here and it started all over again.
He gets on this drug and you cannot understand when he talks, he walks different, he is abusive, mean..About a month ago, he brought some girl into our home, I said no they cannot stay here. Well I could not make them leave.
My husband called the law and they both took off, but before taking off he called me every name in the book, and looked at my 6ft 3 in husband 230 lbs. and my son only being maybe 120 soaking wet and told him he would drop him to the floor like that and that he was a worthless piece of sxxx..It went on..
Well they left and he stayed gone for several days til the money ran out and showed up here at 7 am one morning while my husband at work. I let him beat on doors for bout an hour, then he got half way in sliding door.. I tried to push him back out then the tears started, mama I am dying, I am hungry, freezing, just let me get warm and a few hours sleep and I will leave..I did, but then he would not leave. This was like a month ago. Him and my husband do not speak and I cannot stand to look at him and tell him not to call me mom, not after the nasty obscene names he called me..Well he gets his income tax check yesterday and away he goes..He will return when money is gone..Eating us out of house and home, begging I get him cigarettes, swearing we do nothing for him. I cannot take this no more. He probably is facing prison when he goes to trial Mar 5th and yet that alone is gonna kill me and terrify me. I am so lost and alone. My husband at one point told me him or my son.
I cannot get thru to my son that I am not responsible for him. He says I am his mother and I am to take care of him. He tells me that I am a horrible mother always wanting to kick her kid out. I have found baggies, tin foil, drugs all in his room. Which have now closed that room off to him, so he uses my office room to sleep. My husband has serious illness, stage 4 cirrhosis. I am on disability for my own problems. My AS has destroyed our family, the holes in walls, busted things. The screaming..I keep hoping and praying just one more day Lord and I can turn this around. It never happens. He does not take no for an answer. My car being broke down for instance, he sitting here asking me to run him to store, I tell him like how, my car broke down, for over and hour he continued come on run me to store. I was like what don't you get. I had to remove myself and lock myself in my room, then he is beating on my door, come on run me to the store.. There is so much more to this story of the devastation and horrifying events through the years. I sit and I cry and cry. I just want to escape. As long as I am around he will never ever go anywhere else. So if I remove myself, my husband and rest of my family can go on happily. I don't have the heart or strength to kick him to the streets, even though I try to.
Thank you for hearing me out..
I'm no angel!
Join Date: May 2005
Location: tampa, fl
Posts: 6,728
We enablers become as sick as the addicts themselves, he is controlling you and the rest of the family, this is a very unhealthy situation. Here is a blog posted by cynical one, it may be of some help to you:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Freeing the Parents of Adult Alcoholics and Addicts
By Mary Ellen Barnes
The conversation began easily enough, "My brother is bleeding our parents into the poor house with his unending demands for money - money to support his addictions - and they don't seem able to stop giving it to him, even though he isn't getting any better. What can we do?"
Or we hear from the parents themselves, "How can I get my spouse to stop giving our adult daughter money she just spends on booze or drugs? Her promises are worthless and the demands endless."
It's not an uncommon condition. Parents are living longer, some adult children make childishness a career, and it isn't easy to say no to a son or daughter, regardless of their age. Then add in the grandchildren, hostages held for ransom as your child essentially blackmails you into supporting their drug and/or alcohol abuse: "Give me the money or I will kill myself," or "they will starve," or "we'll be on the streets," is the implied or actual threat, yet the money does no good.
As parents you capitulate even as you destroy your own fragile financial security. You hand over cash, even though you know it's useless, often wondering if your child's problem is something you caused. You post bail, buy cars, pay rent, doctors' and attorneys' fees, and pay for treatment that they rarely see through and that usually doesn't work even when they do. Funds intended to benefit the grandchildren disappear without benefiting anyone. The cycle continues until someone dies or there isn't anything left to extort. It seems like the only choice.
But is it?
Though it takes toughness that's hard to muster and support that even harder to find, there are alternatives. It means finding the courage to face the reality without being swept away by understandable emotions. Managing this means overcoming a lot of mythology.
How can any parent deny support to a sick child? This is the lever that every active drunk and junkie - and many "recovering" ones as well - use to control everyone around them: "It isn't my fault and if you don't give me the money I'll die." But as long as you're supporting them financially, protecting them from the consequences of their choices and behaviors, why would they change?
The answer to that is that they aren't going to.
Most of us go though our lives wishing someone else would change. The reality is, however, that we can't change anyone but ourselves. It may not seem like much, but sometimes it's enough. When you change how you deal with your adult children they too are forced to change. How they change isn't predictable, but they will change.
These reactive changes are the hard part. Initially they will probably escalate their aggressive behaviors to get you to return to the old status quo, no matter how awful that really was for everyone. That will include using their children to get to you.
And what about those grandchildren?
This is when the need for support comes in. It's hard to stand up to the drunk or the druggie when they have no restraints on what they will say or do. Endless promises, threats, and blame will follow any interruption in the cash flow. You want to believe the promises, you succumb to the threats, or you cave in to the guilt that the blaming dredges up, no matter how real or ridiculous. But you need to stand firm.
So how do you go about doing what you know is right when everything seems stacked against you?
First it's necessary to keep in mind what you already know: your child will bleed you dry and out onto the street before they will stop exploiting you. You also know that continuing will never benefit your grandchildren. That's a fact. Hold onto it. Cut them off and they may in fact decide to die rather than clean up. Instead, begin to plan ways to taper off the support in return for demonstrated progress in cleaning up - and be prepared to either take on the grandchildren yourself or allow someone else to. Make arrangements or contact Child Protection or both. Explore the options.
Second, they can clean up if they are sufficiently motivated and the treatment mode is carefully chosen. That's a bit of a problem, of course. Virtually all forms of treatment in the U.S. have success rates of less than 10% over two years. AA itself reports a 95% drop out rate in the first year, and most treatment is based on AA.
Third, it really is okay to save yourself and the rest of your family. An almost universally overlooked aspect of the relationship of older parents to adult addicted children is that the financial support actually rewards the child for their self-destructive choices and behaviors while penalizing the parents, other children, and grandchildren. What kind of nonsense is that?
So what's a parent to do?
Remember that you don't have to stay stuck in the insanity of the addicted child's world.
Start rewarding yourself and your family for achievements and accomplishments, not for destructive choices and habits and behaviors. You may not be able to keep a son or daughter from destroying themselves, but you and the rest of your family don't have to go with them. Finally, it's good to get competent help in this process. You need to know, regardless of the outcome, that you have done everything possible, given every opportunity, and explored every option. The process of genuinely helping an adult child is difficult at best and outcomes, regardless of advertising copy, are very uncertain. Give yourself, your troubled child, and the rest of your family, the benefit of the best opportunities and support available.
Your addicted adult child is still an adult and will still make their own choices, one of which may be their own destruction. You can encourage and support other outcomes, but not by financing the addictive behaviors. Don't let yourself be guilt driven, blackmailed, or intimidated into perpetuating the problem.
Dr. Mary Ellen Barnes is President and co-founder of Your Empowering Solutions, Inc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Freeing the Parents of Adult Alcoholics and Addicts
By Mary Ellen Barnes
The conversation began easily enough, "My brother is bleeding our parents into the poor house with his unending demands for money - money to support his addictions - and they don't seem able to stop giving it to him, even though he isn't getting any better. What can we do?"
Or we hear from the parents themselves, "How can I get my spouse to stop giving our adult daughter money she just spends on booze or drugs? Her promises are worthless and the demands endless."
It's not an uncommon condition. Parents are living longer, some adult children make childishness a career, and it isn't easy to say no to a son or daughter, regardless of their age. Then add in the grandchildren, hostages held for ransom as your child essentially blackmails you into supporting their drug and/or alcohol abuse: "Give me the money or I will kill myself," or "they will starve," or "we'll be on the streets," is the implied or actual threat, yet the money does no good.
As parents you capitulate even as you destroy your own fragile financial security. You hand over cash, even though you know it's useless, often wondering if your child's problem is something you caused. You post bail, buy cars, pay rent, doctors' and attorneys' fees, and pay for treatment that they rarely see through and that usually doesn't work even when they do. Funds intended to benefit the grandchildren disappear without benefiting anyone. The cycle continues until someone dies or there isn't anything left to extort. It seems like the only choice.
But is it?
Though it takes toughness that's hard to muster and support that even harder to find, there are alternatives. It means finding the courage to face the reality without being swept away by understandable emotions. Managing this means overcoming a lot of mythology.
How can any parent deny support to a sick child? This is the lever that every active drunk and junkie - and many "recovering" ones as well - use to control everyone around them: "It isn't my fault and if you don't give me the money I'll die." But as long as you're supporting them financially, protecting them from the consequences of their choices and behaviors, why would they change?
The answer to that is that they aren't going to.
Most of us go though our lives wishing someone else would change. The reality is, however, that we can't change anyone but ourselves. It may not seem like much, but sometimes it's enough. When you change how you deal with your adult children they too are forced to change. How they change isn't predictable, but they will change.
These reactive changes are the hard part. Initially they will probably escalate their aggressive behaviors to get you to return to the old status quo, no matter how awful that really was for everyone. That will include using their children to get to you.
And what about those grandchildren?
This is when the need for support comes in. It's hard to stand up to the drunk or the druggie when they have no restraints on what they will say or do. Endless promises, threats, and blame will follow any interruption in the cash flow. You want to believe the promises, you succumb to the threats, or you cave in to the guilt that the blaming dredges up, no matter how real or ridiculous. But you need to stand firm.
So how do you go about doing what you know is right when everything seems stacked against you?
First it's necessary to keep in mind what you already know: your child will bleed you dry and out onto the street before they will stop exploiting you. You also know that continuing will never benefit your grandchildren. That's a fact. Hold onto it. Cut them off and they may in fact decide to die rather than clean up. Instead, begin to plan ways to taper off the support in return for demonstrated progress in cleaning up - and be prepared to either take on the grandchildren yourself or allow someone else to. Make arrangements or contact Child Protection or both. Explore the options.
Second, they can clean up if they are sufficiently motivated and the treatment mode is carefully chosen. That's a bit of a problem, of course. Virtually all forms of treatment in the U.S. have success rates of less than 10% over two years. AA itself reports a 95% drop out rate in the first year, and most treatment is based on AA.
Third, it really is okay to save yourself and the rest of your family. An almost universally overlooked aspect of the relationship of older parents to adult addicted children is that the financial support actually rewards the child for their self-destructive choices and behaviors while penalizing the parents, other children, and grandchildren. What kind of nonsense is that?
So what's a parent to do?
Remember that you don't have to stay stuck in the insanity of the addicted child's world.
Start rewarding yourself and your family for achievements and accomplishments, not for destructive choices and habits and behaviors. You may not be able to keep a son or daughter from destroying themselves, but you and the rest of your family don't have to go with them. Finally, it's good to get competent help in this process. You need to know, regardless of the outcome, that you have done everything possible, given every opportunity, and explored every option. The process of genuinely helping an adult child is difficult at best and outcomes, regardless of advertising copy, are very uncertain. Give yourself, your troubled child, and the rest of your family, the benefit of the best opportunities and support available.
Your addicted adult child is still an adult and will still make their own choices, one of which may be their own destruction. You can encourage and support other outcomes, but not by financing the addictive behaviors. Don't let yourself be guilt driven, blackmailed, or intimidated into perpetuating the problem.
Dr. Mary Ellen Barnes is President and co-founder of Your Empowering Solutions, Inc.
Curmudgeon, Electrical Engineer, Guitar God Wannabe
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Where the mighty arms of Atlas hold the heavens from the Earth
Posts: 3,403
Originally Posted by debysu53 
I been still reading everyone's stories..For some reason tonight I feel very depressed. It's almost like I just don't wan't to go on anymore that I cannot do this. I am tired.
I will try to tell my story as best I can and not make it too lengthy. My son of 28 yrs has been addict for what I know of for like 13 yrs of meth. He has been in and out of jail. He has destroyed our home. At the age of 24 I gave him a choice of either rehab or to go live with his father in Arizona, we live in Tenn. He chose his father and that was a huge mistake. He ended up worse than ever as his father only fed his addiction. I brought him back here after 2 years and it didn't even take him 2 weeks of being here and it started all over again.
He gets on this drug and you cannot understand when he talks, he walks different, he is abusive, mean..About a month ago, he brought some girl into our home, I said no they cannot stay here. Well I could not make them leave.
My husband called the law and they both took off, but before taking off he called me every name in the book, and looked at my 6ft 3 in husband 230 lbs. and my son only being maybe 120 soaking wet and told him he would drop him to the floor like that and that he was a worthless piece of sxxx..It went on..
Well they left and he stayed gone for several days til the money ran out and showed up here at 7 am one morning while my husband at work. I let him beat on doors for bout an hour, then he got half way in sliding door.. I tried to push him back out then the tears started, mama I am dying, I am hungry, freezing, just let me get warm and a few hours sleep and I will leave..I did, but then he would not leave. This was like a month ago. Him and my husband do not speak and I cannot stand to look at him and tell him not to call me mom, not after the nasty obscene names he called me..Well he gets his income tax check yesterday and away he goes..He will return when money is gone..Eating us out of house and home, begging I get him cigarettes, swearing we do nothing for him. I cannot take this no more. He probably is facing prison when he goes to trial Mar 5th and yet that alone is gonna kill me and terrify me. I am so lost and alone. My husband at one point told me him or my son.
I cannot get thru to my son that I am not responsible for him. He says I am his mother and I am to take care of him. He tells me that I am a horrible mother always wanting to kick her kid out. I have found baggies, tin foil, drugs all in his room. Which have now closed that room off to him, so he uses my office room to sleep. My husband has serious illness, stage 4 cirrhosis. I am on disability for my own problems. My AS has destroyed our family, the holes in walls, busted things. The screaming..I keep hoping and praying just one more day Lord and I can turn this around. It never happens. He does not take no for an answer. My car being broke down for instance, he sitting here asking me to run him to store, I tell him like how, my car broke down, for over and hour he continued come on run me to store. I was like what don't you get. I had to remove myself and lock myself in my room, then he is beating on my door, come on run me to the store.. There is so much more to this story of the devastation and horrifying events through the years. I sit and I cry and cry. I just want to escape. As long as I am around he will never ever go anywhere else. So if I remove myself, my husband and rest of my family can go on happily. I don't have the heart or strength to kick him to the streets, even though I try to.
Thank you for hearing me out..
I will try to tell my story as best I can and not make it too lengthy. My son of 28 yrs has been addict for what I know of for like 13 yrs of meth. He has been in and out of jail. He has destroyed our home. At the age of 24 I gave him a choice of either rehab or to go live with his father in Arizona, we live in Tenn. He chose his father and that was a huge mistake. He ended up worse than ever as his father only fed his addiction. I brought him back here after 2 years and it didn't even take him 2 weeks of being here and it started all over again.
He gets on this drug and you cannot understand when he talks, he walks different, he is abusive, mean..About a month ago, he brought some girl into our home, I said no they cannot stay here. Well I could not make them leave.
My husband called the law and they both took off, but before taking off he called me every name in the book, and looked at my 6ft 3 in husband 230 lbs. and my son only being maybe 120 soaking wet and told him he would drop him to the floor like that and that he was a worthless piece of sxxx..It went on..
Well they left and he stayed gone for several days til the money ran out and showed up here at 7 am one morning while my husband at work. I let him beat on doors for bout an hour, then he got half way in sliding door.. I tried to push him back out then the tears started, mama I am dying, I am hungry, freezing, just let me get warm and a few hours sleep and I will leave..I did, but then he would not leave. This was like a month ago. Him and my husband do not speak and I cannot stand to look at him and tell him not to call me mom, not after the nasty obscene names he called me..Well he gets his income tax check yesterday and away he goes..He will return when money is gone..Eating us out of house and home, begging I get him cigarettes, swearing we do nothing for him. I cannot take this no more. He probably is facing prison when he goes to trial Mar 5th and yet that alone is gonna kill me and terrify me. I am so lost and alone. My husband at one point told me him or my son.
I cannot get thru to my son that I am not responsible for him. He says I am his mother and I am to take care of him. He tells me that I am a horrible mother always wanting to kick her kid out. I have found baggies, tin foil, drugs all in his room. Which have now closed that room off to him, so he uses my office room to sleep. My husband has serious illness, stage 4 cirrhosis. I am on disability for my own problems. My AS has destroyed our family, the holes in walls, busted things. The screaming..I keep hoping and praying just one more day Lord and I can turn this around. It never happens. He does not take no for an answer. My car being broke down for instance, he sitting here asking me to run him to store, I tell him like how, my car broke down, for over and hour he continued come on run me to store. I was like what don't you get. I had to remove myself and lock myself in my room, then he is beating on my door, come on run me to the store.. There is so much more to this story of the devastation and horrifying events through the years. I sit and I cry and cry. I just want to escape. As long as I am around he will never ever go anywhere else. So if I remove myself, my husband and rest of my family can go on happily. I don't have the heart or strength to kick him to the streets, even though I try to.
Thank you for hearing me out..
Right now, you sound incredibly isolated, which is a very, very dangerous place for you to be. Please be aware that it doesn't have to be like this. You have a choice. Thus far, you have chosen to allow a very, very sick young man to hold you and everyone around him hostage. And how has that worked out so far?
I would strongly (and I can't emphasize strongly enough) encourage you to find and attend a local Nar Anon and/or Al Anon meeting. The most important thing you need right now is the unconditional support of others who have been where you currently are. And prepare to ask yourself the question, do you want to be part of the problem, or part of the solution.
And by that I mean learning to manage yourself. You can't help your son, and from reading your account of his behavior, he is not yet willing to help himself. The only thing you can do is learn ways to restore yourself to sanity, and that's what Nar/Al Anon can help you with, provided your open to that.
It's not too late to take command of your situation. It's not too late to do what you need to do.
Best,
ZoSo
Member
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 3,335
Welcome. I am sorry for your pain. I hope you will keep coming back to this site. I think you can get through this. I think your life can be better no matter what your son's choices are. (((hugs)))
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