SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

The hardest part is that you think if you say something just the right way, they'll get it and understand. He won't. He cannot hear you. His brain is hijacked and nothing you say will matter. No matter what you do or don't do, he'll be the victim. He is insane right now and you cannot help him. No one can help him until he's ready to help himself. Anything you do to prop up his life is actually harmful to him. It is unbelievably hard to watch someone you care about in active addiction. To watch how low they get, to hear the words they say, to see them destroy every relationship in their lives and lose everything of value. Watching all that and knowing there's nothing you can do is awful. I agree that Al-Anon would help you. You'll find that everyone has the essentially the same story and that you aren't alone in this. No matter who the addict was before drugs or alcohol took them, you are now dealing with a very selfish miserable person who isn't capable of caring about other people and causes pain everywhere they go. I'm so sorry you are faced with this. It's a genuinely tragic thing.

He was valedictorian of his HS class and had a full college scholarship. He dropped out after a year or two.

my addict kid wasn’t valedictorian, but close… had the scholoarship and blew it. I get it.

Back in the day we called it "tough love", but it’s really just boundaries 101. With my addicted kid (who also has a borderline personality Dx), I ultimately found a simple boundary that works for me: resentment. If I am gonna resent ANYTHING I do, I have to say no. I’d rather deal with whatever pain/anger an addict has about saying no than deal with my own resentment (you know, the drinking poison and hoping the other person dies drill). ANYTHING I do for the addict is done without any expectation of reciprocation, and no "deals" that involve the future (eg buying a car and expecting an addict to make payments….sounds to me like a pretty good recipe for resentment AND having to pay for someone else’s car).

I’ve learned that boundaries with an addict can actually feel GOOD. I like that I can simultaneously hold immense love for my kid AND not get hoovered into what is THEIR crap. I guess you could say that holding my boundaries gives me more space to actually feel that love, w/o getting bogged down with my frustration or fear about the addiction, w/o spinning my wheels trying to figure out the "right" words so they’ll "get it" (which I had to "get" myself when dealing with the infidelity).

And I DID kick my kid out, in a -literally - ‘your stuff is on the front porch, you can pick it up when you want, but I’m not responsible’ kind of way, and the reason was bc they would not abide by my Covid needs/restrictions by regularly going to bars & parties, at a time when I was still freaking out about a simple trip to the grocer (Summer of 2020). And if faced with the same situation today, I’d do the same thing.

I think it’s also important to remember that not keeping our boundaries / enabling is NOT doing the addict ANY favors (any more that rugsweeping an A does any favors to the WS).

this thread has a lot of references to "priorities" - and if something is a priority to another ADULT (even one with mental health or addiction issues), that ADULT will figure out how to make it happen. And while being an addict or having mental health issues is not that person’s “fault’, it IS their RESPONSIBILITY to figure out how to manage it. Again, my kid has a BPD Dx, which is not fun. I can provide all the love & support in the world, but it’s up to them to figure out how they want to address & manage it all. It’s not MY life…. It’s theirs, including their choices.

Anyhow, just some ramblings off the top of my head :)

[This message edited by gmc94 at 6:59 PM, Wednesday, February 9th]

Tell him "No – no money, no car, no financial help but here is a meal and there is the couch where you can sleep every now and then as long as you do not use any substances here".

Bigger you are almost always spot-on, but I'm gonna disagree with this. IME the only thing that works for dealing with an active addict is a hard boundary - no soft spots to land. And telling an active drug addict that 'you can stay so long as you don't use' almost never works.

When I finally had the drop-the-rope moment with my mom, my boundary wasn't 'I'll stay in touch so long as you're not calling me drunk." It was "I will not have a relationship with you if you continue to drink." Because ultimately, I can't control if they use or when, but I CAN control whether or not I will tolerate it in my life.

When he asks for help: "this church is where the local AA meet every day at 7PM. I can give you a lift here if you want".

Likewise with this. If they ask for a ride to AA that's one thing. But offering to drive them there is the proverbial horse to water. When my mom got sober, she had about a week between her last night of drinking and her first AA meeting. In that week, she was stompin around trying to control my reactions (this was a common pattern during her drinking years, the difference at this point was that I was no longer playing).
Day 1: She told me "You can't just stop talking to me - I will just make sure to not drink around you". My answer: "I love you very much but if you continue to drink, I will no longer have a relationship with you."
Day 2: She told me "I will just cut back on my drinking." My answer: "I love you very much but if you continue to drink, I will no longer have a relationship with you."
Day 3: She told me "I can see that sometimes I drink too much." My answer: "I love you very much but if you continue to drink, I will no longer have a relationship with you."
Day 4: Her: "Fine Ellie you win, I guess I am a horrible alcoholic." My answer: "I love you very much but if you continue to drink, I will no longer have a relationship with you, and yes you are right - you ARE a horrible alcoholic."
Day 5: Her: "I'll quit but I'm not going to fucking AA." My answer: "I love you and if you're serious about stopping drinking I will support you however I can. But just my opinion, you cannot do it alone because you would have done so already. Why not give AA a try?"
Day 6: Her: "I don't even know where to go." Me: "Google it. I'm sure there's meetings nearby."
Day 7: Her: "I went to a meeting today." Me: "And? How did it go?" Her: "I'll be going back tomorrow."
That was 9 + years ago, and she hasn't had a drink since and she is VERY active (and immensely enjoys) in her AA life. Sorry - I'm sitting here tearing up remembering all that....

Point being - I didn't do ANY of that for her. SHE chose it, SHE did it. And if an addict is going to stop, THEY must make the choice to do so or it will not stick long term.

Asks for money for shoes: "What size? I’ll get you some".

If you can afford it sure. But you are under no obligation to do anything for them. And JS, but if you buy them brand new shoes, they are just as likely to go try to return them for the money. Addicts get really creative when they have to find money for drugs.

I've been mostly away from SI for a couple years but topics like this draw me back.

I completely understand your dilemma. My oldest son is an alcoholic and pot head.

I put him through rehab in a somewhat controversial program, and it got him sober for 4 years, which was enough to get him through high school and an automotive tech 2 year program, before he joined the local volunteer fire department and spent a lot of time drinking with firemen, accumulating DUIs, and eventually becoming a felon and serving a short jail sentence.

That was a turning point, but not as good as you would think. He hasn't, to my knowledge, started drinking again. It's been about 10 years. But the pot and his need for it and his denial that it feeds his addiction have caused him to make various bad decisions over the years. Mostly, what he learned was alcohol puts him in jail, pot just loses good jobs, and he has enough tech skills to get another job whenever he wants.

His life skills and coping abilities have improved over the years, but only under extreme pressure. I had to kick him off my farm because he was planting pot. He moved to Colorado. When his probation ended, he got a drivers license, bought vehicles under his own name instead of using friends' names, and actually got insurance.

So it's a mixed bag even though it's mostly a success story.

My point is, none of the good decisions happened until I stopped supporting and enabling him, and he had to face his consequences face on and without my help.

This is one of the central teachings of Al Anon, and the hardest lesson for us to learn.

I've been thinking of how to update my post. I don't know why that's so tough for me.

We heard from a mutual acquaintance that our nephew is planning to go back to his mother and her boyfriend's house. Our nephew basically won't tell us what's going on or speak to us unless we speak, and that's a terse reply with little info. My husband called the mom/boyfriend to arrange. The boyfriend was planning to drive down, pack my nephew up, and drive back. That would have been ok, because my nephew brought down only a truck bed of personal belongings. However, he has acquired a bunch of "construction stuff" down here. It's material like old sinks, wood moulding, etc. My husband asked him to throw out any of the materials from our other houses at the dump, but obviously that didn't happen. Nephew/boyfriend were planning on leaving it here at our house for a while. My husband has already asked my nephew multiple times to get rid of it, and he said no to leaving it.

We told the boyfriend that we are willing to pay for a Uhaul. The boyfriend said he would fly down this weekend instead and pack up the Uhaul with everything. He also mentioned that my nephew could go back to their house, but he wouldn't put up with him sitting around all day drinking like before. So, that's a new story. My nephew told my younger brother he left because of the boyfriend's drug problem. He told us he left because of a girlfriend breakup. Now the boyfriend is implying my nephew was kicked out. Who knows at this point.

My husband and I discussed it during coffee this morning, and we are highly anxious of what will happen this weekend. So many "what ifs" are flying around in our brains. We're also not being told anything, and we don't like not planning ahead and winging it.

I really appreciate everyone's support here. I have mentioned the situation to a few people in real life who seem to understand in a way that makes me think they have personal experience.

On a positive note, my husband found a new employee. Things are going great on the job sites, and the other employees are much happier and relaxed. We didn't realize how uncomfortable the situation had become for others.