Nephew and His Drug Addiction: Parents Enabling, How to Help?

My son is currently at our county state jail For about the tenth time 🙁
I can’t bail him out again
I do not think he will survive and I am completely saddened daily ( hourly) but petrified for his safety if i bail him out again
He has been in active addiction over 10 years with over 20 plus times unsuccessful treatments 😞🙏

@aubrey1985

I am so sorry for what your going through this with your son. But there is only so much you can do if he is not willing to help himself.

Have you looked into Al-Alon? It is for family members / freinds who are dealing with love ones who have addition problems.
https://al-anon.org/

Laurie

I didn’t give enough information the sad thing is everybody says he doesn’t want help he wants help he’s at Our state Cumberland county jail that won’t let him call anybody to say yes I’m on the waiting list etc. I’ve put so much money on the account but the way things work you can’t call out like that long story short the last three years that I had him sober for a little little bit of him begging for my help he begged and begged and begged and bagged for me to help him get somewhere I tried so hard in Maine nobody nobody can help us

But thank you so much for reaching out and by all means you have no reason to apologize I haven’t skipped a beat to change places with him🙏

I was a problem for my parents early on. The reasons why, I only came to understand as an adult and they don't really matter. At 11 I started drinking by 15 I was, doing coke and having an affair with a 30 year old counselor. At 17 I go arrested and was tried as an adult. My case was continued for a year for me to strengthen out.

During those troubled year's my father wanted to take a tough love approach. My mother enabled me. They divorced after 26 years of marriage. I can tell you he was right. When the court put its foot down I cleaned up my act.

Thirty years later I had a psychotic episode and got arrested again. During the three years of pretrial I moved in with my mother and her husband. He wanted to take a tough love approach she enabled me. I went to prison they divorced after a 30 year marriage.

Now have terrible resentment against my mother and sisters that I am working through. It will take a long time if ever to repair those relationships. My father died with us estranged my step father and I never liked each other anyway. My wife divorced me and my children do not speak to me.

Could it have been different? I'll never know for sure. Maybe the tough love approach, what Al-Anon calls detach with love, might have caused my mental illness to get diagnosed much sooner allowing me to start treatment in my teens instead of as an adult 20 years later. Who knows, I also may have died.

I love my children more than life itself. I know I would take their place in hell if they needed me to. Do I have the courage to let them face the consequence of their actions? I don't know. I hope I would but I've not been tested.

When I love someone who is suffering it is easier for me if I could take it from them, I know how to suffer. But is that truly love? Lately it is the central question of my life. “ if my only purpose on this planet is to love, how do I extend that to everyone without losing myself”?

Perhaps letting go with love is the answer!

Good luck on your journey. Remember you are loved.

Yes! 12-Step programs are the key to self-healing of any illness, especially a mental/spiritual illness. Personal calls from Dr. Paul of the Big Book, Dr. Abraham Twerski, a Chabad rabbi/psychiatrist, & founder of Aliquippa Rehab. Center, & cancer surgeon Dr. Bernie Siegel all vouch for the integrative healing that we can bring about for ourselves through daily practice of the 12 Steps. So far, I am a 51-year cancer survivor, am practically off all psychiatric meds. over a 6-7 process, take less medication over all at age 75 than when I was diagnosed bipolar 30 years before. This is all a product of my stepwork, meetings, & dependency on 12 Steps & God. You go, girl! You can reach your goal, one day at a time with patience & partnership with a spiritually attuned practitioner. Hugs, Trudy

Something you could do is : Try to get a chance to talk to your nephew. When no one else is listening, ask him if he's ever been punished. He may sau something like" Yes, just last week so and so punished me in such and such a way. Then tell him he could write that person a letter telling him in no uncertain terms exactly what you think about what he did, and then rip up the letter. Then, in this exercise your nephew may begin to think of other worse treatment he has gotten and for each one he should write letters. It's a lot of work but that's how a person can begin clearing out the "baggage" of their past which drive people to many things including addiction. Also rewards can be included as a problem. But, if there are ptsd experiences in a person's past, there should be someone around in case it gets too hard for the person affected to manage. And he shouldn't do it for too long in one day.- Maybe a half hour. A counselor would also be nice.

@sal, you could be your nephew's hero by approaching him alone and talk to his face about seeing a therapist to get to the root of his addiction because if he does not do anything soon, he will find a way to get into a bigger and bigger addition. This is a self-destructive behavior.

I see there was a reaction to this comment of mine . But I can't see it because I seem to have forgotten my password.

Would family services help, anything in the community where you are like counselors ? Better that everyone is embarrassed,peeved and clear thinking then hiding how things are to the world