My son is 23 and has been addicted to prescription drugs for 6 years now. Recently he started using heroin and cocaine and has landed himself massive debts which I have been paying to keep him alive. He suffers from ptsd fro the last 6 years and we’ve done everything we could possibly do to help him and he seems constantly in self destruct. Our lives are falling apart and we feel like we are too.
Due to his self harm he wouldn’t withstand a beating so I feel railroaded into paying these drug debts, my husband walked away recently, although he came back because I didn’t tell him just how much money I’d given our son.
He has destroyed most jobs I’ve had, I’m a nurse in A&E and he has been in my place of work usually more than me making it impossible to cope in the end. We’re on our knees and have no idea what to do. We don’t want to lose him but fear we’ll be burying him before long.
About 6 weeks ago he called me and told me his hands were very bad so I knew he’d been injecting, as soon as I saw them I rushed him to hospital as his hands were necrotic, almost black and very badly infected. He got treatment after lying to the doctors saying he burnt himself. He lies all the time these days. His hands are still not healed. He’s lucky to have not lost them.
While he was in hospital I went to his flat and I couldn’t speak for at least half the day with the shock and disgust of what I found and subsequently cleaned up. It took me 7 hours to clean his bedroom where it seemed he been actually living for weeks. There were more than 70 used needles, mould covered food, he’d burnt his mattress whilst cooking the drugstuff.. He could have killed himself by burning the flat down… Talk about sick it my stomach.. He had just left them a lying around everywhere so I had the indignity and shame of having to go to the pharmacy to get sharps boxes and pick everyone up and take them back in front of loads of people.
I have no life, I’m scared alll the time, I’m on my break right now as I’m on a night shift at the hospital and even now I’m scared, his body can’t take much more.. What a life I don’t seem to be able to get back any sort of normality for us or myself.. I feel trapped by his addiction..