Unable To Let Him Fall

That's where I am at right now. I am having the hardest time letting him fall. He calls and I come running. I take him to detox, he signs himself out in 3 days. Says he's good. Then he takes from us again. He takes cash, electronic items, tools, etc. He's done this many times. AND I STILL HELP HIM! Why? My family is so upset with me. I always think something really bad is going to happen to him. Find him dead somewhere. I know I need to let go. I need the strength. How does a mother let her child fall. A little background: He's 21 years old and has been shooting heroin for almost 5 years. He tries and tries to come clean and falls flat on his face again. He had a few jobs. They only lasted for 3 weeks. Once the money starts coming in his veins get itchy.................... :( ANY HELPFUL WORDS/ADVICE IS GREATLY APPRECIATED.
This is a tough one. There's never an easy approach when it's your child and you can't stand seeing them suffer.

I'm going to say something that may be a little hard to swallow, but it may be just what you need to hear.

Do you enjoy helping your son kill himself?

Now I know you're not intentionally doing that. You mentioned the fear of him ending up dead. Imagine the heartache you're going to feel if that happens and you start to question your actions. How will you feel when the "What if" hits you. My guess is way worse than you do now.

The truth is you are just as much a victim and slave to this addiction as your son is. Only you have the ability to do something about it. He doesn't necessarily have that. I know it seems like when he says "Hey mom, got any money I can have" he's asking money to get high. I'd be willing to wager that's actually the real him, buried deep down inside underneath all that addiction, crying to help end his misery. It's the only way an addict knows how to ask for help really.

You clearly care about your son. He has someone who he loves that hasn't given up on him which is an amazing asset to have. Not many addicts have that in their corner.

It's time to be mama bear and protect her cub, yeah? There is a very serious and deadly threat knocking on his door and it's come to take him away from you forever. Time to get mad at that and fight.

It won't be pretty, he's going to resist you. His addiction will go into hyperdrive and he will try to talk his way out of it. Tell you that he will stop, tell you he will start to taper so he can detox, etc...

Don't buy into it. I can promise you that if you accept his words as truth it will come back to haunt you. He needs to go to a medical detox facility and then rehab. No exceptions. If he says no, which he most likely will, then it's time for tough love. Let him see that you're for real in that this ends now. No more help at all, unless it's to get clean.

Once he see's that the one person still in his corner is ready to throw in the towel, he will hopefully realize he's about out of options. If you give him even the smallest out, his addiction will exploit it.

Basically you're doing an intervention. Either get help or else. This isn't easy with loved ones. It's easy to cave in. That's what the addiction is banking on. Show the addiction that this time is for real and you stand a very good chance at breaking through to the real him.

I feel for you and I'm sorry if I was harsh. I'm a recovering addict and the only way I finally got clean was I was given an intervention by the court system of either get clean now or go to jail for 18 months. Best thing that ever happened to me... literally saved my life because 2 weeks later the person I always got high with died from an OD of bad heroin that would of most likely been me as well.

This is the fight of your lives and it's winner take all. You believe that more than you believe anything else. Failure is not an option, you must win!! His live is literally on the line.

If you need to talk or have any questions, I'll be here. I'm not a doctor, just someone with a whole lot of experience with addiction.
BRYAN1128, THANK YOU!. Yes, your words did hit me hard. I felt them in my heart and soul. Thank you. and God Bless you. I need to stay strong. You have given me a little more strength to be the mama bear!
Hey Helplessinmass,

So glad you responded. I was worried about you after I made the post.

Just take deep breaths and really have your ducks in a row. An addicts behavior is pretty simple to predict, which makes their approach to situations like this pretty much a standard script we all somehow learn without actually learning it.

In other words, prepare yourself mentally by knowing what routes he will try and take to get you back in a vulnerable and "forgiving" state. Chances are you've heard the usual escape goats before from him when confronted about it. Formulate your responses before hand to the best ability you can.

Don't be afraid to get mad at him, show anger, call his bulls*** when need be. Remember, it's the addiction you're getting mad at and fighting, not him.

The most important piece of advice I can give you is once you start, you can not stop until he says yes. You can't be the first to blink. The only way to beat his addiction enough to break though to him is to fight.

Think of the rewards that will follow for they are limitless. That got me incredibly far in my recovery.

His addiction will hate you with a passion when the time comes for it to happen. Your son will not only love you even more than before, you will quite literally be his hero and he will treat you as such.
Also, I was thinking about your original post where you stated that he has gone to detox then leaves.

Withdrawals probably scare the living hell out of him. I can understand this feeling with being a recovering addict myself. It's not easy for people who haven't experienced it to understand what it's like but it really is a living hell. Your body literally becomes a torture device that doesn't stop for days.

Detoxing may not be a good idea for him. He most likely needs to get into a methadone/suboxone clinic. I don't know how they are where you live, but in my area they're everywhere and fairly quick to get into. Fair warning, they might tell your son to continue using until they are able to get him dosed. However, from what I saw, most people started their daily dose with in a few days of joining a program.

The medicine will basically delay the withdrawal symptoms for as long as he takes it. It's by no means a cure all. It doesn't just make it go away. The medicine it's self is just as addicting as heroin/opiates in my opinion. For me, the clinic was at my local health department and I was placed on suboxone.

I was slowly tapered off which does reduce the symptoms some, but they're still pretty rough. Suboxone didn't cure me of my addiction, what it did was give me freedom from the grips of my daily routine to get and use. It allowed me to establish healthier patterns and make necessary behavior changes to my life. Then one day I woke up and I knew it was time. I was mentally ready to face the withdrawals and finally be done with it. I wasn't scared one bit. I was at peace and for once in charge. That mind set changed everything for me.

Yeah, it really sucked detoxing from it. It lasts a lot longer than heroin withdrawals in my opinion. But during the course of my suboxone treatment I gained a piece of my soul back, that piece of humanity we addicts lose when we use. All it takes is something small to click in your sons head and the change will start to happen. The suboxone will allow his mind to be clear enough to have, feel, and recognize those things.

I'm really here for you if you need to talk. I feel so bad for your son knowing what he's going through. I wish both of you the best of luck and please keep me posted. I'd love to hear how he's doing!!
hi
I keep giving into my son, I am giving him money I have not got,I have just come home from meeting him for a McDonalds, he is crying saying he is going to kill himself,we end up rowing I give him money he says it's to pay a drug dealer off.I live on a knife edge all the time wondering what is happening with him.I am heartbroken I just cry all the time,my husband does not know of the money that I give him,it causes rows between us.\I don't know what to do I have tried saying no,but I hate to see him suffer.
Souki and everyone,

I used to tell my husband that if I didn't pay my dealer that he would come and hurt me, our pets, and damage our property. Now, I don't know where you live, so this may not be true for you. But the fact in my situation was that no drug dealer was going to come after me or my pets or my property over owing some money. These dealers usually don't do anything that might get the police involved. But as I said, I don't know where you live. I live in the suburbs pretty close to town. There is nothing like gang violence around here.

I do, however, know that saying you have to pay a dealer off is a common lie for an addict to tell so that someone will sympathize and hand over some cash. I used to even say to my husband things like, "How could you let me be sick like this?" He wasn't letting me be sick. I was sick because I alone became an addict and was in withdrawal. It was my responsibility, not my husband's. I would also ask for money for "cigarettes, food, gas, whatever" and then spend it on dope. My husband finally opened his own bank account, too, because I was withdrawing money out as soon as there was any available in the account. I almost cost him our home. I almost cost him everything.

He finally quit enabling me and didn't bail me out of jail the last time I went. And yes, I've been many times. Somebody always bailed me out, and I'd go straight to the dealer and get my fix. When I finally had to sit in jail for a while and detox and think and look at my life and where I had ended up, I started changing my way of thinking, praise God. If you've read my other posts today, you know I recently relapsed and tried a whole new drug, for me anyway. But I'm going to get back up and fight like I've never fought before. " Don't ever give in to the disease" was the best advice I ever heard.

I found that my enabler, my husband, is just as sick as I am. We both need help. He goes to Narc-Anon and he lives his life. He loves me enough to tell me, not just no, but hell no! He has stuck by me for sure, but he now lets me suffer the consequences of my own actions and it has helped a great deal. It has helped us both.

Sorry for rambling. My head is kind of weird today. I hope things get better for you.
It wasn't until I joined this group that I released how bad of an enabler I was. My husband let me, even though he wasn't the father and he didn't like my son. But I was his mother and he wanted me to be happy and being happy was trying to show my son what it's like to be clean and sober clean. Have a roof over your head and a job. Material things gotten legally. For my pains I got thousands of dollars in debt and he ended up on the streets. The last time I sent him $50 only. You would think he can't do much with that. But ohh NO he found a new type of heroin called Flakka. He almost lost his arm. To this day that lousy $50 will haunt me. It was me that sent the money, it was me that gave him the chance to use, it was me that almost cost his arm. When I found the 'rig' he hid in his brother's car. Imagine my horror. If he brother was pulled over for anything, the 'rig' could of sent my youngest son to jail. He doesn't use drugs. His older brother was a great example of what not to do.
After everything he ended up in jail and has three years probation. My son is 35 been doing some type of drug since 13. I've heard it all, seen it all. And still wanted to fix him. Guess what he is on the run. Calls now and then to complain about being dirty, living on a floor and hardly anything to eat. No hot showers. Do I care of course, do I miss my son yes. But I don't miss the addict who uses emotional blackmail on me constantly. He knows I love him, but he now knows there is nothing coming from me. Never again! He won't seek help, he makes feeble attempts, did the rehab the 12 steps. But he doesn't want to stop using. It's part of him now. It will take a miracle for my son to give up drugs.
You need to think of you, your family your life. You didn't create the addict. They make their own choices. Whatever reason they come up with. My son makes excuses for his actions. Even makes them up to make himself feel better. He uses the bi polar and depression card alot.
Life is too short if something happen to you first, he probably wouldn't even care, he would only be worried who can he call and get the needed funds.
Don't be hard on yourself, be strong. Read other stories on this site you will find many of us mothers suffer the same. Trying so hard to fix our children like when they were little, but they are not children anymore.
X
My son relapsed after one year, and we are now waiting for the call that a bed is available and he can go to detox. When your son left rehab after a few days: Was he in a detox program? I guess every place is different. Where my son went, they drug tested, and if the patient was "dirty" they had to go to the detox program before they could go to the rehab. He'd gone through withdrawal at home a couple of times, and when he finally asked to go to rehab because he couldn't fight the addiction alone, he said he wanted to go where they had medically supervised detox. (Actually, he just wanted to detox there and then come home, but we finally got tough and said, no he had to do the detox and then the 30 days, or he couldn't come home.)

Anyway, last year while we were waiting to get a bed for him, I watched him withdrawing. My son was begging me to drive him (even he knew he could not function to drive a car) to make a buy. Are you kidding me??! But that's the kind of pain he was in. Thank God that same morning we got a call back that there was a bed available at a detox that was a close car ride from our home. So if you can get your son into a medical detox, maybe he will stay thru withdrawal and then transition to rehab... the pain of withdrawal causes them to fail. They keep using because they fear withdrawal. Best wishes to you.
Jenna,
He was in detox then rehab for 45 days, once made it to 90 days. He doesn't want to quit ever. He is on the run now I have no idea where he is. His brother just got another hospital bill for emergency room visit in another state so I know he is still dr shopping. I wish I could lock him into to rehab for years. It's been so long that he has been sober that there is no changing him. He is in a world that I have no idea how to break through. Until he makes that decision then I just wait for that fatal call.

I wish you son best of luck that he really wants this. It's full time job to stay sober.God be with you and your family

Sue
I'm going to say something a little bit scary and ugly but here it is FWIW...

Every time you pay a bill, give money for anything...you are part of the problem. It goes beyond enabling to active involvement and acceptance. All that does is allow your qualifier to score. In effect, you are providing the drugs. Sorry, but it's true. Been there, done that. In the end, the only thing I would spend a nickel on was urgent care paid directly to the provider. She had to go to state funded detoxes (ugly, awful, uncomfortable places), walk to work (while she had it), and bum smokes from others. Tough luck. Until the pain of using exceeds the pleasure...well, why stop?

We make choices as bad as theirs in our codependency, in our addiction to their problems.

Peace ~ MomNMore
Mom No more,
I finally got it that I was part of the problem. I think when he almost lost his arm because I sent him $50 , a fifty losey dollars he could of lost of his.
It was so tough at first. But once I started listening really listening to the stories he told me and the more I listen the more untruths unfolded.
He is gone now, on the run with a warrant on his head. He won't contact me because since Feb when he got out of jail I refused to pay or do anything. He releases now. Not that it has stop him from using but using me. No more emotional blackmail. There is nothing I can do nothing I can make him do to change. Nothing he will do for himself. He is lost to the drug world and I just hope one day that when he does OD someone will contact me so I can burry my son and put him at peace.

Thank you for the tough words every now and then I just need someone to reiterate to me that I did the correct thing and cut him off, hook line and sinker.

XX bless
Dear Sue (Helpless) - thank you. He really does want it and is trying so hard. He works. He's attending meetings every day, has a sponsor (that's new for him) and they seem to have a great relationship and it's helping, and goes to therapy every week. He's still trying to get into a program. At this point, IOP or OP, not inpatient. Yes, everyday is a new challenge. I really do believe him that he wants to get out of this nightmare he'd created for himself. He's started running a few times every week, does yoga, meditates, draws. Is just trying to have a lot of positive things to do in his life. He's spending a lot of time with his aunt, helping her with a "honey do" (she's not married, so he gets the list) list at her house. He's even asking if I want him to go grocery shopping -- just to have constructive things to do. His only social outlets now are when he goes to the diner with his sponsor, and they went bowling once last week. His girlfriend is still in his life, but the relationship is casual. They see each other once or twice per week. I think she is smart enough to know that he needs to focus on recovery, and seeing her on a Saturday gives him a bright spot in the week. I know they also talk and text. She's a good kid and a good influence.

It feels good to write those things.

But it also feels bad because I know this can change in an instant. I know that many others have been down this road and back more times than I have. My heart hurts when I read what others are going through, too. We're all different, but we have that common bond.

I always keep my message board friends (here and another site) in my prayers. I want all of our families to heal.

Be well.
Dear Jenna,
It's heartwarming to hear that someone actually wants to do it. My son never ever had that much motivation. He had excuses and the lies oh gosh the lies. I can only advise you that if he has anything that stresses him out he will relapse. He will need coping mechanisms to over come the want to use instead of facing his issues. My son never had it in him to begin with. Even as a child. No matter what I did and what counseling I used.
I will keep you son in my prayers that one day you can come to me and say YES there is hope if one does the walk they can overcome it.

Drugs have become our children's heritage . I know it's been around of ages, but to this day I would like an answer why some children get addicted and some can walk away.

xx Sue
Sue, your son is in my prayers too. I hear you about stress. He says he does not "need" his therapist any more... but I know it's just because of the money because he has high-deductible health insurance. I struck a deal with the therapist for a steep discount (we're paying what he would have received from insurance, as a private pay rate), and although my son can't afford that expense every week, my husband and I can, and are HAPPY to pay for therapy!!

All the best to you and your family - Jenna ((hug))
Jenna,
How is your son doing, still staying the course? Mine has been gone a month now. I won't hear from him anytime soon. It's summer and he will be working at a fair. when it slows down I am sure I will hear from him.

Keeping you in my prayers that your son stays focus and overcome the demons of the drug world..

xxx
Sue