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I’m so sorry for the pain you are in with your daughter. Its really hard when they have had good jobs and a career, we can make no sense of them throwing it all away.
You’ve done so much for your daughter but you have to prioritise yourself, because the addiction is much stronger than you are. We don’t see it in our own lives, it’s only when we read the stories of others that we see the reality of how big the battle is and how small we are when it comes to standing between our children and their addiction. I had the rule of no heroin in the house until late winter, and then when my son admitted he had relapsed but ‘just needed time’ – and it was lockdown … I gave him time and here we are about 9 months on, with no sign of being able to stop again although he is doing better than he was.
Do you and your daughter live under the same roof? Its very hard when there is no relief or other people coming in.
If you feel able, please phone Addaction, they will listen and help you. If you have the strength. I would try and get out of the house even if its just to go for a walk or to sit in a local library and collect your thoughts.
I know it feels very dark at the moment, but you are still the same person that had a career and responsibilities. There is a life out there for you, please put yourself first.
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.
Ivy – I’m thinking about you and your son xxx
Bump and Lou, its wonderful that your boys have got so far with this, but I know from my own experiences that dealing with the mood swings and anger afterwards is very hard. I used to expect my son to be really remorseful but he was just caught up in his head and coping one day to the next without drugs to numb his feelings. In some ways its harder because you no longer feel that you have the right to complain. I hope things do calm down and they both keep going forward.
My son is using but coming out of his room more and cooking a little bit again, which is a good sign. He talks about strategies for getting clean, but still has to go through the hell of heroin withdrawal which hopefully he will face again soon. I’ve started looking at rehab as an option but he, as always, believes he can do it by himself.
I hope everyone has a drama free and peaceful weekend.
Ivy I’m so sorry this is awful. You’ve been through so much. Heroin is evil, it’s all evil but this is the one I know about. From what you’ve shared here, you’ve been living on this knife edge for a long time. I hope you have people who can support you and be there. I’m praying for your son and you. I know that writing on a forum is not a big help but we are all thinking about you xxx
Hi Februarymarie I’m really sorry that you’ve had all of this to deal with and your trip to your daughter ruined. I honestly don’t know what to say but it’s not your son talking, but his addiction. As a mum it’s so hard for us to ignore their messages and pleas and so many days that should be a bit of relief for us are spoiled. It’s terrifying when your child threatens suicide. I wish there was something I could say. I’ve been reading some of the literature on the Fam-anon about being there to support but letting them fight their own battle. I don’t have the solution but am trying to not let myself be continually tipped over by my son’s addiction. I hope that things are calmer for you now xxx
Hi everyone,
Kate – I think of you every day and know that nothing is going to take that pain away, but hopefully in time it will be more bearable – I’m sorry I know how saying that doesn’t help now. I think you have a really good and honest perspective on your son’s situation. He was in a bad place but I don’t see that there was anything that you could have done to solve
this.
Februarymarie – I can’t imagine 10 years of this – I’m 5 years in, I’m so sorry. Your son was doing a PhD and had so much promise, its very hard to make sense of it all but you’ve been amazing in what you’ve done to try and help him.
Bump – I can remember getting so excited when my son came off H previously and expecting things to be easier, and the problems just changed. There was a lot of pain and bitterness that was directed at me – I guess you vent at the person you know loves you enough to take it. Your son has done brilliantly to get to 7 months down the road. Its full on when they live with us, there is no escape for us and we never get to fully relax. This with your long covid must be so hard for you. Like you, if I suggest getting a job or contributing I am made to feel that I am making his problems so much worse.
I’ve thought about you all so much over the last few weeks and have wondered how everyone is doing. I’ve not been on here because sometimes its just all too depressing to write about.
My son is still with me, still addicted to heroin, but really wanting to get off. The local addiction services are not fit for purpose. My son’s key worker is about 12 and has probably not taken anything stronger than a wine gum, which means that the advice and things he says to my son, are often ridiculous. To get on a methadone program (which has its own drawbacks, in that methadone is even harder to kick than heroin) you have to go to the addiction services 3 consecutive weeks in a row for a urine test to prove that you are using heroin. I know that probably sounds easy, but we continually get the first of 3 urine tests and then he doesn’t turn up to the next one, because he’s changed his mind.
During lockdown and beyond, because I live so far from where my son was living and working, he has become very isolated. He doesn’t come out of his room much, and doesn’t really get involved any more with cooking or any kind of chores. He wrecked a bedroom in the house which became full of flies and then moved to a nicer guest room. This is my partner’s house, so you can imagine how that went down. My son couldn’t make any connection between the stink in his room, his lack of personal hygiene and the flies. Then there were flies in the next bedroom after a while. I felt unable to order him back to the other room, and have now started redecorating it, with no offer of help from him. My son is 31 years old!
He is still buying H online and that uses all of his benefit. Last week he begged for £700 because he needed to order before his cash came in. The week before that he needed £180 for something (can’t remember) and 2 weeks before that £150.
This weekend he is at a festival which I have had to drive him to. He isn’t really well enough to cope with camping so I’ve booked accommodation for both of us, so that he can experience the festival, see his old friends and then come away when he’s ready. Last night I picked him up at 1 am. Tonight he wants to stay until 2 am and kicked off when I said it needs to be around midnight, because the accommodation is over 20 miles from site – turned out there was a really big event this weekend so there is nothing apart from in towns a good few miles away, unless you want to pay £300/night.
There are problems between my partner and my son, as you can imagine. There is fault on either side, and on my side, none of us have acted perfectly here. He now sees his only way of getting off as me renting him a flat in the city where he used to live and work (he didn’t hang out with other heroin users, but plenty of party people using other stuff). He’d like me to move there with him for 6 months to help him. I am so scared of him going back by himself, because his mental health is so fragile and he doesn’t have the capacity now to take care of himself. But where we are is very rural and deeply isolating for him. Am thinking about saying, I will rent a flat locally for you for 6 months in a small town near us, and then if you show you can make that work, we’ll help you to resettle in the city.
I had some counselling last week which helped but after having my son with us since June 2020 I just feel all out of strength and ideas. I am struggling now to hold it together at work. I go to meetings and find it so hard to string sentences together and come up with plans that make sense.
I’ve looked at rehabs and think he would really benefit because while getting off they wouldn’t let him just lie in bed all day. He’d have to start to function again.
I’m sorry for this being so long. I thought that maybe others were doing okay and that gave me hope, but it looks like we are all still struggling with the same things.
Lindyloo – I hope things are still good for you, it would be great to hear good news.
Thank you for listening x
Thinking about you, I know how worried and disappointed you and your husband must be. I really hope this is a wake up call that your son listens to.
He was in a very difficult place. No one should have to watch their child go through this and have to deal with all of the stuff that goes with addiction. You will come through this Kate, and your family will give you reason and hope, but I know that doesn’t really help you right now.
Kate – I really feel for you, it must be so hard just getting out of bed in the morning and trying to come to terms with what’s happened, every day.
It is an illness and I suppose we all have to face the fact that not everyone gets better. I read something by an addiction ‘expert’ and they said that our children won’t recover for their parents, but they may do it for a partner or child, if not for themselves. Neither you or us are going to be the thing that makes the difference, we can only try and make things a bit easier and point them towards people who can help. It’s going to take time to start to heal and move forward and you’ll miss him everyday, but please don’t feel guilty, and try and remember him as he was before addiction took over.
Bump – it’s so good to hear that things are improving for your son. As you say things looked so bad just a few months ago. He’s done brilliantly, what he was on, sounded really tough to come off.
I’m really sorry to hear you have skin cancer, That’s terrible. We’ve had it quite a bit in my family and so far they’ve all been treatable. I hope that you are getting good medical care. Please take care of yourself Bump. Hopefully you’re sleeping better now that you’re not worrying where your son is and what he’s doing.
I went to a pub with my son tonight, we had dinner outside. It was lovely and felt very normal. Today was a good day 🙂
Hi everyone,
I hope that things are going okay with your sons. My last few weeks have been up and down. My son reached out to the local addiction services, at the end of June, which was amazing. I went on holiday for a week and came back to him being on more heroin that he has for ages, having had one appointment where he just filled in forms. He had his second appointment yesterday and filled out more forms, had a urine test and was sent home with some sheets of paper with the days of the week printed on so that he can write down what is triggering his drug use. Sorry, but you have to laugh, the idea of someone on heroin not losing the piece of paper, managing to have a pen as well, and actually bothering to write something and keep it, is all a bit preposterous but there you go, its what you have to do to get an appointment with anyone who can actually help. The person he saw yesterday looked like the tea boy and my son had to explain to him how the various treatment options actually work, as he seemed to be working from the ladybird book of heroin recovery.
I don’t see an end to this but I hope I am wrong, my son actually said yesterday that he used to have the best life of anyone in his friendship group, lovely girlfriend, flat, well paid job. I think he is starting to accept that he has to take responsibility for this, even if there are other contributing factors. I remember speaking to an addiction counsellor a year or so ago and he said that until they take responsibility for the whole mess they won’t be able to get themselves out of it. But when you have nothing left, other than a horrible mess or a room in your mum’s house, I guess its hard to find enough of a future to pick yourself up and carry on for. On the plus side, my son’s room got so full of flies because of the heatwave and the mess that he has now started to clean it.
I’d love to hear how everyone else is doing, I think about you all so much.
Kate – I think of you every day.
Jackie
Kate – I thought about you today and said a prayer at 12.45. I hope things went as well as they could. I can only begin to imagine how hard it must have been. I’m so sorry you’re going through this. You are constantly in my thoughts xxx
Like all of the other mums on here I think about you every day. I will set my phone alarm for 12.45 tomorrow and will say a prayer. As you’ve said, your son is at peace and no one can hurt him now. You have nothing to feel guilty about, you did everything you could for your son. I hope you can feel this collective hug xxx
Jn3 I’m really sorry to hear that his, it brings back awful memories of my son going off the radar, not admitting he’s using heroin. Your son is very young and you must be out of your mind with worry. They usually do turn up at some point, generally when they need money. There is no easy way, but somehow you have to find a away to survive in this madness. I used to be able to find my son’s friends to see when they last heard from him but that got harder as his original friends stopped having so much to do with him.
Keep talking here it does help, even if we don’t have the answers.
Just remember, most people do get sick of being on heroin at some point and find a way out, maybe on a methadone or subutex program. I am thinking about you xxx