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Sadlinda, what do you do with the information once you have tested him? Your son is young and I can remember when mine was that age-- I used to do things like test him, and my heart would only break because I knew that my gut insticnt was correct. So I confronted, I cried, I yelled. Knowing through a kit that my kids were using did me no good at all. Then I realized that I knew when they were using because their whole attitude stunk. Kids are quite different when they are clean. I thought I raised kids with lousy personalities, turns out they were both addicts.

We love our children frist, above all else, but we have to take care of ourselves so that we can help them when they are ready, I think.

Thanks for the info. I wonder if that is how my son's drug screens through the drug court have been coming up negative I'll have to check on what test they use.

You can ordert the complete drug screen panel online....I found several sources and you can get a better price if you buy several at a time. I had some at my house and some at David's house for his fiance.....he agreed to take a test any time we had suspicions....that lasted about two minutes!!! But it is good to have them around, if you have doubts, test them.

Crest of waves,
My son had me fooled for about the first 6 mos. he was using. I feel like I should have detected his substance abuse but I thought he was depressed and just going through a difficult time. I took him to talk with counselors and he fooled them too! Once I drug tested him and he was positive for opiates, I immediately got on the phone and contacted many rehabs. He did not know that I was taking him there. I told him he had a doctors. appointment. I think deep in his heart he knew, as he really did'nt question me about his appointment. That was his first rehab. at the age 17. He lasted in there for 2 mos. He has been in 3 rehabs. and in and out of jail many times. He is presently in jail and will be 19yrs old. this Monday. Prior to his last arrest I was trying to trust him. He went out with ''good kids'' and I needed to get in touch with him that evening, he would not answer his cell phone. I knew in my heart he was back on. He came home late, I did not say anything to him. The next morning got up early and drove to the police station and bought another test kit. When he woke up I handed him the cup for a specimen. He started to cry and told me he would test positive for opiates. His father and I are divorced and we both told him he can no longer live with either of us and that he must go back to rehab. While looking for anohter rehab. which was just a couple of days he ended up arrested again for possession of heroin again. I wish I would have taken him immediately to a rehab. I should have been prepared.
Linda

Sadlinda: He should not have used. He could have checked himself into a hospital. The last 3 times David relapsed, I made him find his own rehab. He had been kicked out of seven....some of them did not want him back. I sat with him for 6 hours waiting to get him admitted at one and they refused to admit him. I was furious and really let them all have a piece of my mind. They just looked at me and said "He is an adult."

Now, I see what they were telling me. As long as I treated him as a child, finding rehabs, waiting while they decide if they should admit him, begging for help for him....it never was going to work.

When he moved into sober living, I commented to the director that I would be praying every day for David's sobriety...he looked at me ...dead into my eyes and said "That's his job. He should be praying every day for his own sobriety." At the time I thought he was rude. Now I get it.

It has taken years for me to GET IT!!! These horrible things happen to them because of their own choices. Your son was in possession of heroin. Not YOU. Your son needs a rehab. Not YOU.

You cannot be responsible for how another person behaves. You can only be responsible for yourself. Your son is not in jail because you didn't take him to rehab soon enough. He is in jail because he broke the law.

Atleast you know he is safe from drug use there. When my son was arrested for domestic violence...he tried to run me down with a car because he needed a fix and I was trying to keep him home....the next day he called and said" Mom, why am I in jail? Why am I on suicide watch? When are you coming to get me?" Uh..like nothing ever happened. I know he knew what he had done. I know he was trying to manipulate the jail to send him to the hospital, where they would give him drugs to keep him from going into withdrawal and in jail they don't.

Sadlinda....please do not continue to blame yourself for your son's actions. He is not a child. And he is making his own choices. Nothing that has happened to him is your fault. He did this all by himself by his own free will. Getting clean and staying clean are two very different things. Staying clean is so much harder. I don't see the addicts I know stay clean unless they are living in a sober living facility or in some type of group therapy...AA, NA, Teen Challenge....whatever program they choose will only work for them if they work the program.

Hugs to you....hoping you will look in your heart and know you have done the best you could do as his Mom....and that you will begin to look for peace in your heart.

Debb

Hi Deelynn,
You are right, and thank you for your response.
Linda

Dear Sadlinda:

You are in my prayers tonight. Too often we take responsibility for our addicted children. A social worker at one of David's many rehabs told me that in any other situation what I was doing would be called nurturing....but for an addict it is enabling. Man, it took me months to wrap my mind around that. What we do for our children, comes from our hearts, souls, blood, cells. It is on a molecular level. There was never a time, no class, nor an instruction book that told us how to deal with a child who chose to continue a life of addiction. It is especially hard for those of us who would give our lives to have our children safe and sober to understand the choices they are making that endanger them in so many ways. Heroin addicts do not generally die from drug use....they die from the violence associated with the drug use...I still struggle daily with the choices my son has made....the behavior that has caused me so much self doubt and self loathing. But I have to continue the path I have chosen. It is a path that does not include the chaos of illegal drug use. I will never let my son go. I love him with all of my heart...but I have let go of any idea I ever had that I could control, help, adapt, or change anything he has done. I can only control me. And right now that means I am not involved in illegal drugs. Or anything pertaining to them.

Each day I am in agony without my son. I pray he is safe. I pray he is not using. I pray he doesn't owe a drug dealer. I pray he is seeking health and peace.

I pray each day that I can find enough strength to make it one more day without him.

Dear friends,

I am you. You are me. I see we have all gone through the sad process of finding drugs, needles, syringes and what that does to our children. I read every day to remain on a, more or less, even keel. I read about addiction. I read on healing. I read on co dependency to try and get a handle on this problem. Am I escaping?

Some days, I am alright. I go about my busy day and give only occasional thought to Andrew. Some days, I just sit and read and try to find ways of healing for him, for me, for my family.

I would like to ask a question of you dear members. Andrew has not responded, contacted or tried to get in touch with either me or my daughter for the past six months. We have no knowledge of his whereabouts.

In my readings, I find gems of information for him and me to ponder. I don't know if he is ready for even thinking of healing himself. But, I forward them to him via email in the hope that he will find it, read it and just think about him. Also, so he knows that I am thinking of him. For now, I guess he feels that me being out of his life is better for him. Six months is a very long time. The holidays are coming. Will he find it in his heart to contact me? I am hoping.

My questions: Do you think I am doing the right or wrong thing in sending the email to my son? Or, do I respect his wishes and stop trying to reach him?

I was not the perfect parent. I was not always a loving and kind parent. I thought that my children would understand that I loved them by everything I did for them, because of them and just for always being there through through thick and thin.

As grown up, they have chastised me several times for having hit them, belittled them or shamed them in trying to stop negative behavior or just to get them to do their school work, help with the house, laundry and help me. I worked full time. I too only had so much energy.

In my process........ to also heal myself, my issues I found that I did not know how to love myself. I had heard the term many times but had no idea how to start to do that.

Once a friend sent me a questionnaire on line asking . I am sure most of you have received them asking several questions in order to get to know you and then, pass it on and so on. One of the questions was: WOULD YOU HAVE YOURSELF AS A FRIEND? My first reaction was hell no! This revelation made me stop and think and it hurt my feelings. I hurt my own feelings. Imagine that! I had start asking myself 'WHY'? I am a decent person. I worked hard. I tried to live right. I did not drink, smoke or do drugs. I valued education. I value God. I value friends. Many people think I am wonderful. Why is it that I don't feel it?

I found the following text on line

We formed our relationship with ourselves and life in early childhood; We learned about love from people who were not capable of loving in a healthy way because of their unhealed childhood wounds. Our core / earliest relationship with our self was formed from the feeling that something is wrong and it must be me. At the core of our being is a little kid who believes that he/she is unworthy and unlovable. That was the foundation that we built our concept of "self" on. . . . .

History has been, and is being, made by immature, scared, angry, hurt individuals who were/are reacting to their childhood wounds and programming - reacting to the little child inside who feels unworthy and unlovable." - Loving the Wounded Child Within

Is Andrew doing this too? Is he numbing himself with drugs for all the pain he has felt. I want Andre to change his behavior. I hope he will. He needs to own that choice to empower himself to take responsibility for his life and stop setting himself up to be the victim.

All my kids think themselves as victims on some level. I feel I have been the victim up to the tune of nearly $100, 000.00 dollars. They all three needed. Needed for rent, for gas, food, for just about anything they did not have money for most of their adult lives. All three are in their 40s now. I had to stop and start to set boundaries.

Andrew is my only drug user. He needed for teeth, for re-hab, for food. I also spent on his son for air-fare to fly him to an fro......... to see his father. For birthdays, holidays, I always bought two gifts for my grandson. One from me and one to cover up for his dad. I bought two gifts. One from me and one, telling the child, it was from his dead beat dad. Just writing this part, made me angry and I called him a "dead beat" Dad. I don't like myself for it but that emotion came up. I did All to keep Andrew from looking bad in his son's eyes. No appreciation. He did thank me but it all comes with a price.

Andrew has made a choice to remove himself from a relationship with me, his mom. I have read that "We do not have to have any contact with our family of origin; It is vitally important to own all of our choices."

For now that is Andrew's choice......... so am I wrong in trying to keep some remanent connection by emailing him good advice, thoughts of wisdom. thoughts of healing. Andrew has never responded. Or, am I intruding? Should I just give him the space he obviously wants ........ and maybe, needs? Or, do I keep it up in the hope that he secretly wants contact......and can see that I have not abandoned him emotionally. ........ Or am I just projecting my thoughts, my feelings?

Thank you. My best to all of you.
Hope

Dearest Hope,
I would continue to attempt contact, I may be totally wrong but I know I would keep trying. Have you ever contacted a counselor for yourself? I feel better after I vent to my counselor and he guides me. I was once told by a counselor that I have no right trying to control my son's drug rehabilitation. My son was 18 when I was told that (he turned 19 yesterday). I was shocked to hear him say that to me, I said but what if he dies? My counselor said ''then thats his destiny''. I guess that is the tough love approach which I have a hard time with. Your son knows that you love him, he is angry at you because you finally set your limits with him. I think as parents we have the right to set our limits. I hear that you feel guilty, I do too. We have all made mistakes and can't go back an change the past. Oh I wish I could. Please know that we love you and support you. You have written to many of us and you are always very inspirational. Please give yourself a break. I'm just starting to realize that I must take care of myself, and you must take care of yourself too. I wish I had the answers!
Your friend, Linda

One of the phrases I learned to say to the addicts is: You don't have to live like this anymore. I think I would keep e-mailing him with all the love you can muster. Let him know that no matter what he could ever do you will always love him. Let him know you are worried about him and you love him. Let him know that if you could give your life for him to have one you would. I wouldn't however let him know what is going on in the family. He has to have contact with his family for that info. It's really hard not to get into their crap and manipulation. They don't hate us they just feel so bad that they are lashing out at the people that love them. They want to be left alone so they can have their relationship with drugs and the people that they can manipulate and get what they want, drugs. When they say what they say you have to consider the source. A mind hijacked on drugs. Try not to take anything personally. They know what your buttons are also. What you feel guilty about and they will use it for there own to get the focus off of them and on to someone else. This disease affects the mind, body and spirit. It's not the real person, but, the real person is somewhere inside of them. I believe in doing interventions whenever possible. I believe the family can do a lot to get addicts into rehab. and I believe we are there own worst enemy's sometimes by giving them money and places to live when they are using. Addicts don't decide to go to rehab unless they are backed into a corner with no place else to go and no one to give them money. When they can't keep up the addiction anymore or they are scared they are going to be homeless. The younger they are when intervention is done the better. Anyway you guys keep up the good fight. Don't give up on yourself of them. My heart goes out to all of you cause I've been there with you and I'm sure I will be back in the thick of things again. Addiction is a chronic reoccuring brain disease that affects the whole family and that the medical field is just starting to know how to treat.