Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hi so sorry to read this, you shouldn’t live in fear, ever, this is a form of domestic violence. If he does it again call the police. Your son is no longer your son, he is owned by his addictions. He has to be held responsible for the crimes he commits whilst addicted. It’s really hard I know, but it’s the best advice I can give you at the moment. You need to look after you first and not enable him any more either through guilt or fear. X
So sorry to read this. I hope your results are positive. Self care must be your main priority. X
I had one of those last week. Tonight my son tried to con me out of money again saying he needed to put electric on the meter. I stood my ground and said no. This from the son who was supposed to watch his own son play in an important football tournament last Sunday but decided to get drunk instead paid for by us, the tax payer after he had lied to the job centre about needing emergency funding for food …. I get it. Hang in there your 10 year old will thank you one day and if your other son straightens out he may well thank you too xxx
Yes you did do right. Your very young child should never have to see any of this. We wouldn’t tolerate a stranger doing this to us, unconditional love is a really dangerous and disingenuous saying as all addicts need boundaries set by their families, so there are conditions, it isn’t and never should be unconditional love because that enables. Well done for taking the steps you have and please don’t see it as a failure, see it as responsible parenting for both the addicted child and the 10 year old x
You cannot predict what is going to happen and neither should you feel guilty for making your son leave. You have to self care. Nobody should live in fear of another human’s actions. Do not feel guilty you have done the right thing, right for everyone, even your addicted child. Thinking of you xx
Then don’t. The road to recovery has to come from the addict and their chosen professional support network. It really is OK to walk away and set boundaries for further contact. x
No they want you to be scared. Threatening suicide is part of the manipulative tactics addicts use to ensure you enable. Sometimes, sadly, addicts do die either accidentally through overdose or do take their own lives, however the only chance he has of changing his way of life is when he is forced into it. I spent a very long time with female prisoners who were addicts, it was very sad, but they pretty much all manipulated anyone they thought they could, they admitted it when they were clean. Being a parent means giving them wings to fly, it does not mean babysitting them for the rest of their lives if they make bad choices. Only he can change but he won’t whilst he is safe at home it’s too easy to keep taking the drugs.
Thinking of you it’s a horrible way to have to live your life and I point blank refuse to live in fear any more, it’s a form of coercive control and should be treated as such. My son always threatens to kill himself yet somehow he is still here still causing immense harm to his family and children. 10 years of significant addiction to alcohol and cocaine. He has choices, he can change with the support he has been offered. I have chosen to distance myself and whilst I still have the odd day of worry I don’t have the feelings of dread waking up every day that I used to have. I am far more philosophical and concentrate on his children now instead. X
Make him leave cut the phone off and make him leave. It’s OK to do that. It’s OK not to want to deal with his addiction anymore. You are not bad parents for doing this. Every single day he spends under your roof enables his addiction. Here is just one link that tells you what to do, they all say the same thing. It’s hard but you have to look after yourselves first and if he won’t stop then you are left with no choice and if it has gone on for years you shouldn’t have to live like this. X
Hi Dasey so very sorry to read this. Please be very careful about how you go about handling this, cocaine makes the addict very unpredictable so any action that results in him not being able to get his drugs could put you in danger. Are you on your own with him?
Hi desperatemum, so very sorry to read this, I absolutely identify with what you are going through. He is in the deep throws of addiction. That means he is unpredictable and given what you have already described as happening, take it from somebody who has walked in your shoes and as harsh as this sounds, do not pay for him to move out. Do not pay for anything. My strongest advice is to have him removed by the police. You are not safe when he is like this.
I know you are exhausted and my advice means digging deep emotionally, however in the long run you have to put yourself first at the moment you are, for many reasons which I do absolutely understand, you are allowing him to control the situation which in turn causes you further emotional stress.
I kicked my son out and when he started to do the whole ‘you don’t care about me’ emotional blackmail shit, I stood my ground and called the police who removed him. It was the best thing I did. As much as I felt awful doing it, I felt like a huge weight had been lifted. He was drinking and taking drugs whilst he lived in our house, it made no difference where he did it, out on the street or at home but I recognised I was enabling him by providing the fall back. It doesn’t stop the worry or the pain but it does allow you space to breath and live again.
Please please have a think about it. If necessary call the police and have a chat with them or get support from a domestic violence group.
This is his problem not yours. He has to deal with it and take responsibility.
Whilst he has a roof over his head, a place to order his drugs, a place to crash with you, he will never face into his addictions, it’s all too easy for him at the moment.
My thoughts are with you and take it from somebody who has walked this path more times than I can count there really is only one solution, let him fall. He will either get back up and change or carry on destroying his life. That is all that’s left. Don’t let him take you with him on that journey of self destruction. You can’t save him, only he can do that, but you can save yourself.
Xx
We had a wonderful weekend, saw the grandchildren and laughed, played bowls and had beach walks. It was so very sad that the two eldest had to be told what was going on as they were panicking about not being able to get hold of their father. He is in court tomorrow for sentencing having been given 48 hours to sort out his affairs.
So rather than sort his affairs out he rang the mother of his two youngest children and told her he had taken an overdose, I advised her to ring for an ambulance, knowing full well he probably hadn’t done that, but who wants the responsibility of doing nothing if it were genuine. Paramedics turn up can’t get in he won’t answer the door, so they call the police who start booting down his door, he appears then and tells them he is perfectly fine.
It’s just never ending, the drama, the addiction to crisis as well as the drugs and alcohol. He was detoxed whilst in custody too.
I am sure you have all had these moments. I am venting. I am also starting not to love my son. He creates so much endless harm. He gets all the attention whilst leaving a wake of damage that will be embedded in his victims forever. I don’t know what poor soul sacrificed an earlier ambulance because he chose to do this, probably an elderly person who had a fall. It’s not right. It’s not fair and it certainly is not normal to put up with this. People who smoke aren’t treated as if they are ill and nicotine addiction is one of the hardest habits to break.
Tough love from now on as has been advised by so many of my psychiatric community friends. They don’t believe in all this soothing nonsense that goes on. They think it just adds to the self absorption of the addicts. I think they are right.
Father’s Day. My grandchildren in crisis because they hadn’t heard from their dad so we travel to see them all. In the meantime I find out that yes, their dad is alive, he is in a police station being held until Monday where he will be put before the court and probably remanded for assaulting his girlfriend in a drunken coke fuelled rage. This is the second time he has been charged with this type of offence.
He has also been charged with driving without a licence, driving whilst uninsured and failing to provide a specimen.
I am exhausted, grief stricken, etc etc
Today I am painting that smile on my face and trying to be the best grandmother to my victimised grandchildren. I have lost my son. It is over. He is somebody I don’t want to know. He has hurt so many people over the last decade plus. His continued violence towards women appalls me. He doesn’t take any responsibility for what he has done or the lifelong scars he has left on his children.
My father died of liver cancer due to alcohol abuse. My own childhood was chaotic and unsafe. I walk in my grandchildren’s shoes ever day and the buried trauma of my own childhood has reared its head. The focus should not be on the addict it should be on the innocent victims of the addict. This constant prioritising of their addictions harms everyone else and feeds their need for attention and ‘poor me’ mantra. Time to break the cycle for everyone’s sake.
I am not going to read the other responses before I respond to this because I don’t want to be influenced. Every day he remains in your home is another day where his addictions are enabled. When I did all of the above, except his home was in North Wales and I live in England, it was catastrophic, not just for me but the entire family and by providing a roof over his head and food etc he was freed up to buy more drugs, more alcohol.
In the end I took the advice of drug and alcohol advisers and made him leave and have never taken him back in. That of course has led to me being called every name under the sun except when he wants money then he switches on all the manipulation, the sorrys, the promises of change, the proclamations of love etc etc and when the inevitable ask for money comes at the end and I say no, back come the awful things he calls me and threats of suicide which he says will be my fault.
My advice to you is to make him leave before he takes you with him. You are not safe whilst he is in your home. You are a victim of domestic violence.
This may sound harsh, but kick him out, you are entitled to live without fear and you are allowed to grieve. Don’t feel guilty, he is the problem not you. It’s his problem to solve. It will never be resolved whilst he doesn’t have to face into any of it because he has a roof over his head, food on the table and access to the internet to buy drugs.
You are not safe, you are not physically or emotionally safe. Please speak to your local domestic violence team too as they will support you as well.
It is OK to want him to leave. X
Sometimes they are better off in prison where they do have access to services, why can’t the see that it’s cheaper and more humane to get in quickly in the community rather wait for a tragic death or imprisonment. Crime of course creates further victims. Makes me so angry.
Addictions are a form of slow suicide in my view Kate and that leaves parents with overwhelming feelings of guilt. That needs to stop. I think this is the hardest thing to deal with and I believe that this is how it should be treated when it comes to counselling. Putting addiction aside for a minute, every drink, every hit of a class A drug is no different to playing Russian roulette and my experience is that they don’t care if it kills them, which is pretty much suicidal ideation. So instead of treating the addiction first, maybe it’s time that the addiction was parked and the addict is treated for the very clear MH aspect of dependency.
For instance only an overdose of heroin will kill you so it would be better to treat the cause of the addiction rather than the addiction first. Maintaining a level of withdrawal so that the addict isn’t having to concentrate on several things at once. Treat the cause first not the symptom.
In prison addicts are prescribed the synthetic version of the drugs they have been taking whilst they first deal with what caused them to take them, once there are ‘breakthroughs’ on the trauma led addiction they are slowly weaned off the drugs. The success rate is significantly higher than ‘do it all in one go’ that is the norm outside.
I am not advocating drug or alcohol abuse, I just think, having seen so much addiction, that the ask to go cold turkey and absorb all the emotions that are no longer numbed in one hit is too much in one go.
I am not a professional I have experience is all and something needs to change because so far nothing really works within the community. The success rate has remained stagnant for decades with the current support networks. ????♀️