Hello Lezconnecting
I can relate to a lot of what you’ve written, and my heart goes out to you. You and your daughter have had an awful time and as you’ve said its all on you. The lack of support and qualified help in the UK is terrifying. My son who is 31 has an extremely young and inexperienced case worker, and at times my son is telling him about harm reduction and treatment options for opiates. I can also relate to the whole issue of relocating. My son is desperate to move from where I live and work, to get back to where he was and the friends he had before he started using heroin. I feel very conflicted about this, he is convinced that if we can just move there it will be easy to get clean, but whenever I play that one through my head I just can’t see it – but then I worry that I’m not being supportive and that we may be missing a chance.
You have to get help for yourself, because on your own you will go to a very dark place, if you are trying to support your daughter alone. I found Addaction very good to talk to and have just started reading resources from the famanon website and might try and join one of their online groups. I wasn’t sure from your message whether you are both living in Devon and if you have friends or family there.
The more I read and talk to people makes me realise that our children have to really really want to do this for themselves and have a complete change of heart. I’m not sure anything we do makes that much difference, we can just be there to help when they are ready. Addiction makes our children very self-absorbed and focused on their own lives. You have got to focus on your life and if you don’t have friends and family supporting you, find a group even if its just online. This forum is really good. There is a thread that starts with ‘Theresa’ that has a group of mum’s all going through something similar, coping with their grown-up children’s addictions. You will be very welcome on that thread and will find a group of very supportive people.
I really hope that things improve for you and your daughter.