The next morning at 4:30am I went downstairs and J was passed out on the floor of his bedroom. I got him up and he was very drugged. We talked some and as I was getting him into bed I tried to take his jeans off but he resisted so something told me to put my hand in his pocket and I pulled out a bottle of pills. I got him into bed - he asked me to lay down with him, which I did and he immediately went back to sleep. My heart ached for my son!
I had done some research online a few weeks earlier and came across some articles that I have attached at the bottom. It was if the blinders had been lifted. I had also attended a Naranon meeting.
I called a drug crisis hotline and I explained some of the circumstances of the situation and the gentleman told me that his 19 yr. old daughter was in prison and would be out in February, that he was watching her baby until then and that I should make my son leave the house immediately and if he wouldn't then to call 911 (non-emergency) and ask them to take him from the premises. I knew that he was in no condition to leave so I called. Two cruisers arrived and they asked if he lived there (did his mail come there) and I said yes - so they said they couldn't take him - that I would have to have him evicted. I asked them to wait and I walked away and called the hotline again.
I got a different guy this time and didn't give him any details other than that the police wouldn't take him and should I tell them about the pills. He said YES - so I did and they went to his bedroom with me and handcuffed him and took him to jail.
It was the hardest/easiest thing I've ever done. By easiest I mean I felt like I was being led to do this and didn't feel much at the time. By the hardest, for the weeks to follow I would analyze it to death (in between all of the reading I've been doing for the last few months - mostly spiritual books (Dr. Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle, and the Bible) and worry that because he was within weeks of getting into the rehab and had been doing well - except he did confide in me a couple of days before this happened that he found a way around the system for the hotline - he would call on Friday after 3pm and if he didn't need to go in the next day then he knew he could party because they were closed on Sundays.
His new charges were a felony drug possession and a misdemeanor possession. I then grappled with the decision of whether to get another attorney for him because these charges were in a different county and he was now facing certain prison time (although he had still never been to a drug rehab). I DIDN'T WANT TO ENABLE.
I did hire another attorney and now the two attorneys (who know each other) are pretty certain that he will be admitted to a 3-6 month lock-down drug rehab (there are 4 more upcoming court dates by mid-Oct.) and that the felonies will be dismissed in lieu of treatment.
So, as you can imagine, I am concerned that when my son comes home today, will he stay clean until he is admitted to the rehab. He was able to get himself off of two different drugs and stay clean for a few months and now that he knows what jail is like and that he is facing prison if he doesn't stay clean, he says there is no way he will do anything. I will have some strict rules and if he breaks them I will make him leave the house.
These are the articles:
- My name's Jon. I'm an addict. And this is what addicts do. You cannot nor will not change my behavior. You cannot make me treat you better, let alone with any respect. All I care about, all I think about, is my needs and how to go about fulfilling them. You are a tool to me, something to use. When I say I love you I am lying through my teeth, because love is impossible for someone in active addiction. I wouldn't be using if I loved myself, and since I don't, I cannot love you.
- My feelings are so pushed down and numbed by my drugs that I could be considered sociopathic. I have no empathy for you or anyone else. It doesn't faze me that I hurt you, leave you hungry, lie to you, cheat on you and steal from you.
- My behavior cannot and will not change until I make a decision to stop using/drinking and then follow it up with a plan of action. And until I make that decision, I will hurt you again and again and again.
- Stop being surprised. I am an addict. And that's what addicts do.
__________________
Have A Great Day - Jon
I AM AN ADDICT.
You can't make me clean, though I know it is what you want for me to be. But until I want it, I won't be. You can't love me clean, because until I learn to love myself, I won't be. I know you must wonder how can I learn to love myself when I am caught up in a life style of self-hatred and self destruction. I can learn from my own experiences. I can learn from the things that happen to me along the path of my own mistakes. I can learn by being allowed to suffer the consequences of my choices. Life has a funny way of teaching us the lessons we need learn.
I know it devastates you to watch me hurting myself. I know you want to jump in and save me. This helps ease your pain, but I don't think you understand just how damaging it is to me.
You see, although I look and sound like your loved one. I am not. That person is in a self imposed prison way deep down inside of my being and what you see before you is an addict ruled and reigned by my addiction. I am an addict and my main focus is to feed the addiction. Every effort you put forth in the name of "helping me" falls prey to my addiction giving it more power to shackle me down a little more each time.
I feed my addiction enough. So please don't help me.
The only way for the real me to get free is to be free. FREE to fall as far down as I need to go in order to find the strength to fight and find my way back. To break free.
How can or will I ever be able to get clean you wonder ...
The same way I gave myself over to my addiction is the same way I can give myself over to my recovery. BY MYSELF
By not enabling me you will be allowing me to reach "rock bottom". By trusting the process you move over and allow me to find my own way back. You see, it is in the fight to get free that I will find myself. It is in the fight that I will learn to love myself and the more I love myself ... the more I will start to do to better myself, but I myself, must do this.
I am aware that when I use I am playing Russian roulette with my life. I know this, but that is a chance I take when I use. The addict in me is willing to take that chance in the name of getting high.
Rock bottom is but a circumstance away. I can't reach it you are blocking the entrance.
I know you love me and you only want whats best for me ... but that very love keeps you blind sighted to just what truly is best for me and causes you to act from/out of fear and emotions.
Please for my sake don't try to stop me... just let me go ... move out of the way and let me fall as far down as my addiction is going to take me ... as far down as I have to, to reach rock bottom. Don't try to cushion the fall. Just believe in me and trust the process. Pray for me that when I do hit ... it is not with the impact that leaves me for dead (I know that is your greatest fear), but if it comes to that, be sure to tell my story so that others might learn from my mistakes and live.
Passion
Recovering addict
"I'm not where I want to be, but thank God I'm not where I used to be" - Joyce Meyer
10 Ways Family Members Can Help a Loved One with a Drug or Alcohol Problem
By Ed Hughes, MPS
The pain and suffering of addiction is not limited to the alcoholic or drug addict. Family members share a tremendous burden as well. Shame, guilt, fear, worry, anger, and frustration are common, Everyday feelings for family members concerned about a loved one’s drinking or drug use. In most cases, the family has endured the brunt of the consequences for the loved ones addiction, including the stress of worry, financial costs, and life adjustments made to accommodate the addicted person’s lifestyle. Addiction leads the addict away from positive influences of the family. The disease twists love, concern, and a willingness to be helpful into a host of enabling behaviors that only help to perpetuate the illness.
Family and friends are usually very busy attempting to help the alcoholic or addict, but the help is of the wrong kind. If directed toward effective strategies and interventions, however, these people become powerful influences in helping the loved one “hit bottom” and seek professional help. At the very least, families can detach themselves from the painful consequences of their loved one’s disease and cease their enabling behavior.
Here are 10 ways family members can help there loved one and themselves:
1) Do learn the facts about alcoholism and drug addiction . Obtain information through counseling, open AA/NA meetings, and Alanon/Naranon.
Addiction thrives in an environment of ignorance and denial . Only when we understand the characteristics and dynamics of addiction can we begin to respond to its symptoms more effectively. Realizing that addiction is a progressive disease will assist the family members to accept their loved as a “sick person” rather than a “bad person.” This comprehension goes a long way toward helping overcome the associated shame and guilt. No one is to blame. The problem is not caused by bad parenting or any other family shortcoming. Attendance at open AA/NA meetings is important: families need to see that not only are they not alone in their experience, but also that there are many other families just like theirs involved in this struggle. Families will find a reason to be hopeful when they hear the riveting stories of recovery shared at these meetings.
2) Don’t rescue the alcoholic or addict. Let them experience the full consequence of their disease. Unfortunately, it is extremely rare for anyone to be “loved” into recovery. Recovering people experience “hitting bottom.” This implies an accumulation of negative consequences related to drinking or drug use which provides the necessary motivation and inspiration to initiate a recovery effort. It has been said that “truth” and “consequences” are the foundations of insight and this holds true for addiction. Rescuing addicted persons from their consequences only ensures that more consequences must occur before the need for recovery is realized.
3) Don’t support the addiction by financially supporting the alcoholic or addict.
Money is the lifeblood of addiction. Financial support can be provided in many ways and they all serve to prolong the arrival of consequences. Buying groceries, paying for a car repair, loaning money, paying rent, and paying court fines are all examples of contributing to the continuation of alcohol or drug use. Money is almost always given by family members with the best of intentions, but it always serves to enable the alcoholic or addict to avoid the natural and necessary consequences of addiction. Many addicts recover simply because they could not get money to buy their drug. Consequently they experience withdrawal symptoms and often seek help.
4) Don’t analyze the loved one’s drinking or drug use. Don’t try to figure it out or look for underlying causes. There are no underlying causes. Addiction is a disease. Looking for underlying causes is a waste of time and energy and usually ends up with some type of blame focused on the family or others. This “paralysis by analysis” is a common manipulation by the disease of addiction which distracts everyone from the important issue of the illness itself.
5) Don’t make idle threats. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Words only marginally impact the alcoholic or addict. Rather “actions speak louder than words” applies to addiction. Threats are as meaningless as the promises made by the addicted person.
6) Don’t extract promises. A person with an addiction cannot keep promises. This is not because they don’t intend to, but rather because they are powerless to consistently act upon their commitments. Extracting a promise is a waste of time and only serves to increase the anger toward the loved one.
7) Don’t preach or lecture. Preaching and lecturing are easily discounted by the addicted person. A sick person is not motivated to take positive action through guilt or intimidation. If an alcoholic or addict could be “talked into” getting sober, many more people would get sober.
8) Do avoid the reactions of pity and anger. These emotions create a painful roller coaster for the loved one. For a given amount of anger that is felt by a family member in any given situation, that amount-or more-of pity will be felt for the alcoholic or addict once the anger subsides. This teeter-totter is a common experience for family members—they get angry over a situation, make threats or initiate consequences, and then backtrack from those decisions once the anger has left and has been replaced by pity . The family then does not follow through on their decision to not enable.
9) Don’t accommodate the disease. Addiction is a subtle foe. It will infiltrate a family’s home, lifestyle, and attitudes in a way that can go unnoticed by the family. As the disease progresses within the family system, the family will unknowingly accommodate its presence. Examples of accommodation include locking up ones and other valuables, not inviting guests for fear that the alcoholic or addict might embarrass them, adjusting one’s work schedule to be home with the addict or alcoholic, and planning one’s day around events involving the alcoholic or addict.
10) Do focus upon your life and responsibilities. Family members must identify areas of there lives that have been neglected due to their focus on, or even obsession with, the alcoholic or addict. Other family members, hobbies, job, and health, for example, often take a back seat to the needs of the alcoholic or addict and the inevitable crisis of addiction. Turning attention away from the addict and focusing on other personal areas of one’s life is empowering and helpful to all concerned.
Each of these suggestions should be approached separately as individual goals. No one can make an abrupt change or adjustment from the behaviors that formed while the disease of addiction progressed. I can not over-emphasize the need for support of family members as they attempt to make changes. Counseling agencies must provide family education and programs to share this information. They must offer opportunities for families to change their attitudes and behaviors. The most powerful influence in helping families make these changes is Al-Anon/Naranon. By facing their fears and weathering the emotional storms that will follow, they can commit to ending their enabling entanglements.
The disease of addiction will fervently resist a family’s effort to say “no” and stop enabling. Every possible emotional manipulation will be exhibited in an effort to get the family to resume “business as usual.” There will always be certain family members or friends who will resist the notion of not enabling, join forces with the sick person, and accuse the family of lacking love. This resistance is a difficult but necessary hurdle for the family to overcome. Yet, it is necessary if they are to be truly helpful to the alcoholic or addict. Being truly helpful is what these suggestions are really about. Only when the full weight of the natural consequences of addiction is experienced by the addict- rather than by the family- can there be reason for hope of recovery.
