Hi. I hope to find some insight here. This may be long, but here's my story. My daughter is 28. She has an 8 yo daughter being raised by the dad because KP (my daughter) pretty much walked away. She was too into her friends. She remarried, had two other children who are now 3 and 1. She's done the same things with these kids, cheated on husband, he's in another state, she's now hooked up with an older man who is a recovering narcotics addict, and an active alcoholic, though doesn't own that one but drinks liquor every day. Long story short, my daughter confessed to using pills and heroin IV, states she has for 6 years. I simply thought she was bipolar! She even lives here with her children two of those years. Both children were born with a substance in their systems, but one was marijuana, the other was Percocet given to her by an ER doc for back pain (her story). She is now in rehab because she took a boatload of heroin hoping to die. I have her kids. She blames me for all this, stating I am kicking her while she's down, she's clean and is going to stay clean FOR her kids. She says I caused all this, I have no idea how I make her feel, I constantly down her, call her a bad mom, etc..., which I do! However, I am the one who has provided for these kids, and for her! I bought her a home she trashed and didn't make payments on. I paid her phone, pretty much anything she asked me to do. That all needed with this latest because I found all this out. The drug use and also selling it, all in the presence of my grandchildren! I'm heartbroken, mad, bewildered, every emotion you can imagine swirling and rioting to be in the forefront of my brain. I feel totally devastated and stupid. I'm an RN for goodness sake! I filed for custody with an attorney who assures me none of this is my fault but how am I supposed to get through this?! I am so afraid that filing will set her over the edge, but I've done this before and backed down because she promised she would do better. I believed her because, as I said, I was clueless about the drug use. I feel so incredibly naive and foolish.
This is a good place to learn but so is theaddictsmom.com. We moms suffer for sure for our kids addictions. There are no easy roads to travel with respect to addiction. The behaviour of an addict certainly does look like several mental health disorders and over the years I have come to realize that there are several quacks parading as experts in the mental health field who work for the pharma industry......your daughter needs help and only she can come to that conclusion for herself. In the mean time you are there for her kids and that is wonderful. Look out for them and she most certainly will appreciate your effort if she ever gets herself clean and sober. You have to learn to balance helping and not enabling her self destructive addiction. Keep reaching out to others like myself who share the burden of addictive children. It helps knowing that we are not alone in our struggle. Take care because we care ok.
I know how you feel. I was so confused when I found out my daughter was using heroin. That is a drug you just can't try once in a while. Once you use it you are hooked. When you try to stop you get sick. The best advice I can give you is don't blame yourself. Everyone has choices. The second piece of advice I can give you is, read up on addiction. Knowledge is power & it helps.Also, go to Naranon meetings. My daughter tried to stop using heroin so many times & I thought she had the flu. I never thought that drugs were the reason. Addicts will blame you, lie to you, steal from you. Not things we would expect our children to do, but when they are using they are not the people we know & love. The addiction takes over & they will do anything to get a fix. Best of luck to you. Prayers
