((hugs)) Be strong. You are doing the right thing. He is an adult now and can manage on his own - and he has been doing it for the last month now without your help. He'll be back and hopefully it will be different. For now he may be feeling angry and upset that he cannot manipulate you any more. Chances are he may try to pull at your heartstrings to get what he wants. Be firm. You are being a good mom.

Your encouragement makes me feel stronger and gives me direction. It is so appreciated!

Im 22. Smoked pot for 9 years with many other drugs included.

I have seen what being an addict has done to my mother. Although he may not acknowledge it in your presence, what you tell him about how you feel is filed somewhere in his mind and he will have to deal with it some day. It may be 5 years from now, but nothing you said to him will be forgotten. Even in my most heavily induced drug moments, the tears in my Moms eyes still had a profound effect on me, I just smoked those feelings away and continued to argue....I was so immature.

He wants to argue and justify his position, but when he realizes emotions are nothing that can be debated and he made you feel that way , whether it was justified or not(i think not), he will feel horrible. I dont know him but thats exactly what happened to me. My mom told me every day what I was doing to her and how it made her feel. For the longest time I tried to argue about it until I realized I was out of line. Your feelings are there and very real.

I can not promise that he will come to my same conclusion, but our stories sound very very very similar. Even they way my parents treated me sounds the same.

My one suggestion is this. If he tries to come back home to get sober or save money whatever, make a contract. Put everything that he needs to do in paper and have him sign it. Even include what happens if he breaks certain parts of the contract. leave nothing out! That way if he does come home again and starts down the dark side, you can just refer him to the document he signed. Its not open for discussion, these are terms he agreed upon when he came back. He can not blame you for making him leave, he cannot try to argue with you over the severity of the transgression, there is no discussion necessary. Its all there in black and white. This worked for me. It transfered the blame from my parents disciplining me, to me breaking a contract I agreed to. It seems simple, but it worked for me.

You can send me a private message using that button at the top of the page and ask me any specific questions you want. Maybe I can give you a little view into the world of a 22 year old, 9 year smoker, living at home, with tearful parents that also gave me support.

I was in the same position as your son. I made it out. Your cause is not lost.

Thanks for your perspective. It is information that I've not had before and I am grateful. I want you to know that I want my son to get straight not because his behavior is painful for me, but because changing his behavior will have the best outcome for him. I rarely cry in front of him. I used to get really angry and yell. Now, I stay calm and make it about behavior...either it is acceptable or not. I cry at night , alone, when I think about when he was my little boy and I never imagined we would end up so emotionally distant. I have spent a lot of time worrying about him. He needs to worry about himself. I haven't let him do that. I want my words and actions to convey that he means the world to me, but its not my responsiblity to rescue him from his bad choices. You give me hope.

"We don't want to back down from our position. We have been easy to manipulate over the past few years. We have loaned him money, etc. It has done more harm."


That's why he treats you like caca. You enabled him and made yourselves easy to manipulate. Don't blame the drugs for his moody behavior.

So, our enabling him is the cause of his moody behavior? Our enabling him has screwed up our relationship, that's for sure! But, drugs have changed our son. His priorities, his interests, his maturity level, his coping skills.....he is not the person he was before he began using. My failure was refusing to see the changed person. I wanted to help my boy. The boy I knew before the drugs changed him. I fell into the trap of thinking I could fix him. Reading comments and talking things out on this forum is really helping me to get it through my head that rescuing my boy from the consequences of his choices isn't going to change him.

I would respectfully like to disagree with this statement.

Without having more information than that which has been provided in this forum, it is impossible to diagnose where exactly his behavior changes originated. To boil it all down to a statement as cut and dry as that, shows a flaw in your logic.

Emptynest is aware of the dangers of enabling and according to her post, is now intent on not backing down. Keep it up!

I've been doing drugs for about 10-12 years and I recently tried to quit smoking weed .I always said that I would never quit weed and that there was nothing wrong with having a puff every now and then but every now and then is 7-8 joins a day....I spend 40 dollers every 2 days on a half quarter and I just cant affors it anymore.Im also on methadone because I was addicted to morphine and dilaudids. I never ever thought I would have withdrawls from weed but I am.Even with the methadone Im still fidgety,restless,shaky,sweaty,cant keep anything down,etc. Its weird.I thguth the nethadone would at least help....I dont know,mayby its my mind....methadone works for opiates so it should help with some of the cravings....I really wanna go through with giving this caca up but it is so hard....I dont know if I should have weened myself down instead of just totally stopping or not....But I guess if I can stop sticking needles in my arms everyday then a bit of weed is no prob....You would think,hey?This is tougher than I ever thought.

I chose not to present 8 years of experiences with my son behavior and drug use. It seemed a bit over the top to go there! I condensed my most recent experience with him. I have worked in mental health, I participated in out patient counseling w/ my son, I attended Alanon meetings for 3 1/2 years, two gr. fathers were alcoholics (they died), and my brother is a recovering substance abuser. Given all this.....its embarrassing to admit that I STILL engage in enabling behavior. But, in my experience, there is evidence that doing drugs does change people's way of thinking which leads to changes in behavior. Getting high becomes a priority and good people begin to do bad things. Drugs impact the brain...especially growing adolescent brains. With that said, I am now considering the possibility that we are guilty of basically spoiling our son. I wouldn't have thought so previously. But, the comments from cannafield are thought-provoking.

to be honest.. this sounds exactly like my uncle.

hes in and out of jail, trouble.

he runs to my grandmother (his mom) and drains her of money, always coming up with an excuse (usally so lame anyone should know better) but my grandmother is such a great and loving person she gives in.

Hes never had to fend for himself. Hes always had his mom to run to.
If she'd stop fixing all his screw ups and bailing him out, he'd have to become a stronger person and learn to either bail himself out of things or become a better person and avoid such predicaments.

This is called *tough love*.

We cant always do everything for our kids.. they'll never learn to function as a solitary person otherwise.

I agree. Again I am confronted with the reality that if I don't knock off the bleeding heart routine and stick with tough love, I am going to be dealing with this situation the rest of my life.

It was easier to be tough with my brother when he was making a mess of his life. I watched my mom struggle to stop enabling. Then, it was my son. Being the mother is really an unhappy position to be in. Not an excuse....just an explanation.

trust me.. i know. I have two of my own.

I know that its hard to sit back and not help your children.. we feel we are doing an injustice by allowing them to make mistakes.

But as parents we need to accept that one day we wont be here to help them, and they need to learn how to do for themselves before we go or else they will be lost. Thats our job as parents, to teach our children to function on their own.

Before you blame drugs, ask yourself this; is it the nature of the drug thats bad, or the nature of the user?

Neither.

I am suspicious of philosphical discussions about drugs. Substance abusers put the substance ahead of everything. That's the nature of addiction. Addicted people make destructive choices. Marijuana isn't addictive they say. But, it seems that it is psychologically addicting anyway. So, basically, there you are...unable to get through the day. So you use....enjoy...then wish you could stop...promise yourself you will stop...the cravings start...eventually you use..and on it goes. Functional people make informed free choices. Using addicts aren't able to exercise free choice. The only people I've encountered who employ philosophical discussions about drugs are people who use drugs. That's my experience. Sure, there are people out there who smoke pot occasionally and are functional people. But, there are a whole lot of folks out there who smoke a lot of pot and can't stop. They are making poor decisions and messing up their lives. They turn to the philosophers to justify their behavior. Watching someone you love do this is a terrible experience. I feel my feelings, I don't blunt them with drugs and alcohol. I have allowed my feelings to dictate my behavior and that is dysfunctional on my part. I continue to work on detaching with love. This forum is helpful.