Rosey57

Hi! I'm a newcomer trying to get help for our son. I suspect he is using drugs. Maybe heroin. maybe crack. he goes into the bathroom and lets the water and fan run for extraordinary amounts of time. i can hear him pinging or slapping something. sometimes he throws up. please help me.

Living

How old is your son? I am not expierienced with the drugs you mentioned, but they both are highly addictive. You should talk with your son and try to get the truth on what he is doing and try to map out a plan from there.

Hopefully, others on SR who are more familiar with this can give you better information.

Rosey57

He is 23. He had a brain injury at 8 or 9 years old and has experimented with drugs and alcohol since he was 12 or 13. I think he uses in order to get relief.

He has used MJ in the past, but I don't think that's what he's using now because there is no smell. unless he's injecting it. I'm pretty sure whatever he is using, he is injecting. I think that's what the slapping sound is I hear from in the bathroom in the middle of the night when he thinks we're all asleep. scary stuff.

Rosey57

He flat out denies using anything, because he's on probation for the next 4 years. but he has requested money from my younger son to buy detox before his UAs. My younger son talked to a girl at a party, who knew my 23 yr old son, and she told him that my 23 yr old was smoking heroin.

MWL1983

My advice would be to request that he submits to a drug test that you or a contracted testing facility is contracted to administer on VERY short notice. In the US, drug testing kits are available at pharmacy's without a prescription.

Explain to him that the reason you're asking is that you're concerned about the time he spends in the bathroom and that his behavior seems off. Explain to him that you won't tolerate drug use in your house because of the risk it puts you at. Tell him that if he tests clean (with less than 12 hour notice) then he has nothing to worry about and can remain in the house. If he tests positive, explain that he can either go to treatment, leave the house, or stay in the house and be subject to future random tests. Explain that he will lose the privilege of living in your house if he tests positive again and at that time, he can go to treatment or find a new living situation.

Drug addicts and alcoholics are EXPERT liars and manipulators. I know, because I was one. We'll lie to our wives, parents, children, and anyone that stands in the way of our drinking/drugging. It isn't out of disregard for those people or a lack of love, it's just the POWER of the addiction.

He's either using or he is not and he will either stop using or he will not. Only he can determine those things.

Your role, if you choose to have one, is to be supportive of his efforts to live a drug-free life. Supporting him in any way while he is in active drug addiction will simply enable it. You would be inadvertantly financing/supporting the progression and term of his addiction, if he has one.

Drug addicts and alcoholics with enablers don't last long. They either seek recovery or die. The latter is sad, but many of us get desperate enough to seek a solution in sobriety before it gets to that point.

Lastly, I'm sure he has plenty of reasons to use drugs and alcohol, be it pain, a traumatic event, stress, life circumstances, etc. We ALL had GOOD reasons to keep using and believed they were justified. Don't you fall for the same crap.

MWL1983

Oh, tell your younger son to stop giving your older son money.

least

We have a particular forum for you. Give it a look.


Friends and Family of Substance Abusers - SoberRecovery : Alcoholism Drug Addiction Help and Information

Living

Heroin is a horrible drug. He is 23, so you don't have many legal options but you did mention probation. First thing to do is not enable him. Best wishes to you and use the SR board for support.

Rosey57

things have been disappearing around the house for months. Then he got arrested for pulling his air soft gun, with the orange tab removed, when he tried to steal MJ from a dealer, on behalf of a friend who got a bad rap from the dealer in the past. When they came after him (he tried to walk away without paying), he pulled the gun and threatened them. 90 days jail. done. 4 yrs probation. This boy has been in and out of the legal system since he was 12. The time before this, he was in the system programs for 3 years full time, from 18-21 years old, for stealing out of people's cars and garages, to support his habit. It's been a long road. Thanks so much for your comments. It helps to know I'm not crazy or imagining all this.
And it helps to know that I'm headed in the right direction with him, by telling his PO our concerns. They don't have to tell him that we contacted them. Hopefully they won't.
His last lie, as of last night, was that he was probably going to move out for a few weeks to go job hunting. riiiight. I think we got too close to finding out the truth.

Rosey57

If he didn't have the added complication of brain injury (well known fact that brain injured people indulge in substance abuse. very high percentage), he would have been booted to the curb by now. I'm not harsh. I'm mom to five kids. but his drug abuse has caused so much chaos that I think we're all tired and ready for some sort of normalcy. Especially for my 17 year old still living at home. First the brain injury stuff, which has settled down to some degree, and now this. ugh!

Living

Wishing you the best. If contacting the PO officer is a start, go for it. It sounds like the brain injury might be hard for him to deal with, but stealing and especially holding a gun (fake) on a drug dealer is extremely dangerous. If he did that to the wrong drug dealer, he might wind up on the other end of a real gun.

Does he still see a Neurologist? Updated MRI or CT scans might be helpful along with an Addiction Therapist. Since he is under 25, he can legally be on your insurance to get him some help pronto. He doesn't seem to grasp the idea of the dangers of his actions and the consequences that can occur.

One other thing, a friend of mine went to Alcohol detox and then to a Sober Living facility afterwards for a month. She told me she was shocked at the number of young people in the hospital for heroin detox. YOU ARE NOT ALONE. She said many started off with narcotic pain killers from family and friends and when that source went dry, they turned to heroin because it is cheaper.

Stay strong and don't give him any slack. You have put the heat on him and he is feeling it.

Rosey57

I personally think he needs addiction therapy and cognitive rehab. He just doesn't process information properly. And his association piece seems to be broken. He does the same thing over and over and doesn't remember what he learned in the past. He doesn't even associate himself with the former act! I remember empathizing with someone in one of the programs he was in, through the justice system, when they said they saw him do something with their own eyes and he denied it, and they believed he believed it. there was no doubt that he wasn't knowingly lying. He honestly didn't recall doing it. There are strange things like that happening since he fell. Sometimes he gets to the same conclusion as everyone else about stuff, but the way he gets there is off the wall. For instance, there were 4 guys total involved in the gun incident. And I asked him why they weren't in jail along with him, for selling illegal drugs (mj was still illegal at the time) and providing/driving the get-away car. His response? What would be the point? I'm already in jail getting punished. No point everyone else being here when I'm already paying for it.

Rosey57

the medical field has come a long way, the past ten years, in regard to knowledge about brain injuries, mostly due to the military coming back with them, from Iraq and Afghanistan, but we have a long way to go in knowing how to effectively treat them. I hope I can keep my son alive long enough to benefit from that know-how! The problem is that, with cognitive issues there are no outward, physical signs of the problem, and because he is articulate and smart, people don't recognize he has a problem until they get to know him. But it seems the bad guys can tell right away, and then use and abuse him! I think he is using the drugs to cope with all the voices in his head, and the feelings of guilt. He needs more help than I as his mother can provide for him, I'm afraid.

Living

Stay strong and continue looking at the options that are available.

Rosey57

okay. another question. I found a juice bottle, 16 oz, filled with dirty-looking, cloudy, kind of thick liquid in it. He had it hidden in one of his shoes, covered by a knit hat. It has no odor.
What might that be? Maybe a homemade detox to cover the drugs for his mandatory UA's?
Help!

Rosey57

He is continuing to obviously lose weight. Still coming home all hours of the night. still using the bathroom with the water and fan running. Hanging out with people my other son knows are heroin users. He had a scrape, with a bruise around it, near one of his toes. It looked distinctly like he had tried to poke a needle in his skin and missed. I have had plenty of needles from surgeries and that's exactly the kind of bruise this was. He was very evasive when I asked what happened. Stuff continuing to disappear from the house, going in the direction of pawn shops. Money too. I'm so worried but feel helpless.