Answered questions(13)
Rescuing Our Children
My son is a recovering alcoholic that is living with me. He has been to rehab (twice) and he has been in AA off and on for over 10 years and he was almost in complete liver failure 4 years ago and his liver function is still touch and go, especially since he cannot maintain total sobriety. He goes to 2 AA meetings a day and I believe he is trying. He is emotionally very fragile and he is not working. I am letting him stay with me rent free and I have been since he was out of rehab 16 months ago. He has nowhere else to go. The problem is he still drinks. He hides it from me but I can see that he is still drinking. I believe that if I made his not drinking a condition of his staying with me he would become homeless very shortly. He is trying but he cannot seem to stop himself completely. I believe that I am enabling the problem but I do not know how sending him to the streets is going to help things. In fact I think it would be a death sentence. What should I do?
Read answer →Help with Addicted Mom
My mom is addicted to a bunch of different kinds of opiates like percocets and others. She has pain but she is so high all the time now that it is not like it was before. I try to tell her she needs to get help but she gets really defensive. We don’t really have any other family except for my grandparents who don’t get along with my mom and my younger brother who is 12. I want my mom back and I know she needs to get help. She is not making good decisions right now. How can I make her get help without getting her into trouble (I know she is going to more than one doctor to get pills). If I go to my grandparents they will get her in trouble.
Read answer →Sister in recovery sneaking vodka – what do I do?
My sister came to live with us after finishing up with treatment for a serious problem with cocaine and crack and drinking. She has been staying with us for 4 months and she has been doing very well. She goes to meetings and to her group a few times a week and it feels nice to have my real sister back from the dead. We have been burned by her too many times in the past so the deal was that she could stay with us but if started using or drinking again she would have to go. My husband was very serious about this due to our past problems with her. She has been doing really great and has a full time job as a landscaper and seems to be avoiding her old friends and lifestyle but this morning I was gardening and I found a half empty bottle of vodka hidden in the bushes behind her room. If I tell my husband she will have to go. But if I let her drink against the rules then I am just enabling her drinking again, like before. On the other hand, she really seems like she is trying hard to get her life turned around. What should I do? Should I confront her about it? Should I make her go like the deal says I should? Should I pretend like I never saw it?
Read answer →Drinking, cheating, anger and forgiveness?!
My wife has been clean and sober for 6 months and I am really proud of her. She was addicted to cocaine and was an alcoholic for years and she finally went to rehab a few months ago and has been clean ever since. I know the odds of relapse so I know that 6 months is an amazing accomplishment. She told me last night that she had cheated on me a couple of times when was really out of control about a year ago. She says both were one night stands that meant nothing, just flings after too much drinking. Right not I don’t know what to do. Even though I can understand that she was not really in control of herself back then I am still very hurt. It is worse because I know one of the guys too. She says she is very sorry and I believe her. She says that it was the drinking and I believe that too. But that doesn’t change the way I feel about it. I feel like I am in a box and I don’t know what to do. I am so angry about what she did but I still love her. I feel like if I throw her out of the house or do anything dramatic I’ll just send her right back to drugs and drinking. I feel like I want to punish her but that would be way to hard. She is doing really well but she is still fragile. This is so frustrating and it makes me even madder, that she is using my own love for her as a way to protect herself, I feel. I wish she had not told me but now that is out there I do not know how to deal with it. I have moved into our guest bedroom for now so I can keep an eye on her but do not have to look at her while I try to sleep. I don’t know how long I can keep this calm manner up for. I don’t know if I can ever really forgive her but I don’t want to see her die in a gutter either. How can I support her when I can’t even stand to look at her right now?
Read answer →Rehab, relapse and recovery
Hi I just found out my girlfriend has been abusing narcos for 1 year now . The sad part is we have been in a long distance relationship for the same amount of time. Her mother is the one who gave them to her and she is telling her she has no problem. She was using 10 a day and her mom uses 20 a day. She decided to start rehab and turn her life around but she is afraid of what will happen once she leaves rehab and goes back home. She was going to move up in 4 months anyway but now she is really afraid of the temptation and wants to move up soon after she is released. I dont know what to do because if I let her move someplace she really doesnt know whats to stop her from relapsing. do you have any advice on being a positive force in her life and our relationship. thank you
Read answer →Second Chances
Should I give my ex another chance. He was a really nice guy who got abusive to me and my children after he got addicted to crack. I left him three years ago. Now he is back in my life and he has been clean for 18 months. He says he is sorry for what he did and I believe that this is true. If it where just me I would give him another chance but what I want to ask about is will it be damaging to my 13 year old son and 11 year old daughter if this person who has hit them before gets back involved in our lives again. Will they understand that it was the drugs that made him like that or is that asking them to understand to much?
Read answer →Overdoing Recovery?!
Is it possible to be too into recovery? After a certain point is the idea not to move away from everything recovery and start having a normal life? After 3 years the concept of recovery as the primary focus of my brother’s life remains. I am so happy for him but now I want to see him grow a bit and stretch his wings beyond the ‘recovery’ life he’s carved out for himself that’s all about 2 meetings a day and staying with my parents forever. When does recovery become fear? When dopes recovery become laziness? And how do you tell a person that you begged to get into recovery to stop being so into recovery?
Read answer →Alcoholic Boyfriend. A bad Role Model for Kids?
My boyfriend is an alcoholic. He drinks everyday but he is a pretty nice guy and he doesn’t get violent and he works a full time custodian job and pays his share of the bills. I love him and care for him and I have given up trying to change him. He is who he is and trying to get that bottle out of his hands after work is a waste of time and energy. I have 2 sons from a previous relationship. They are now aged 5 and 7. How bad is it for them to be watching their live in male role model get drunk every night? I think that if it is just me and him and I am OK with our relationship. But I worry about what affect he might have on them. I do not want them to get into trouble because I let them see a bad example in their own house.
Read answer →Coping with Life Stresses while in Recovery
I am 4 weeks out of rehab and in recovery from a polydrug addiction of cocaine, marijuana and of course alcohol. My boyfriend just got diagnosed with colon cancer. He is only 58. I am 44, if that matters. I am feeling very precarious. We had been together for 3 months before rehab. He was the one who convinced me to finally do what I knew I needed to do. He told me and tried to end the relationship. He says it’s too much for me to have to deal with him when I should be dealing with myself. I told him he was crazy but now that I am thinking about it I am not sure I can handle this. How do I stay with him and go through this without relapsing?
Read answer →Clean and Sober, and Depressed? Withdrawn?
My brother gave up drinking and drugs last month. I don’t know exactly what he was using but I know he was drinking every day and doing cocaine and if he is like everyone else around here I am sure he was doing a lot of pills too. I am really proud of him for quitting but ever since he quit he has just sat at home and watched TV, like all the time. At first I was just happy to see him not drunk or stoned but now I am starting to worry about him. Is this normal behavior for the first month of being clean and sober? He is generally a really sociable guy so to see him at home all the time and by himself is really out of character. He is just so down and he doesn’t want to do anything. Should I encourage him to get out and do more or should I just leave it alone since he isn’t drinking or using drugs?
Read answer →Relationships, Alcohol and Children
There is someone in my life who is a very good person who is probably an alcoholic. He is not violent or abusing in any way. But he will fall asleep drunk on the sofa many nights of the week and sometimes my 3 year old will be the one to find him there in the morning. I do not know what I am getting myself into but one area of concern that I have is how this may impact my children. My children are 1 and 3 currently. At what age would having a live-in person who drinks start to be a bad example that they would remember?
Read answer →Methadone use
My boyfriend delivered a bombshell last night when he told me that he is on Methadone as a recovering heroin user. I am totally shocked. He is a successful sales executive and a totally normal guy and not someone you’d ever imagine as a drug user, or at least I never would have imagined it. He says that he has tried stopping methadone but that for him it’s just better when he uses it and that it doesn’t mean that he is an addict anymore. Is this true? He says he hasn’t used any kind of drug for over three years. I have been considering asking him to move in with me but now I don’t know what to think anymore. Is he likely to go back to using drugs again? I love him but I want to have a family one day soon and I also need to be thinking about what kind of dad he’ll be…
Read answer →Addiction and Rescue
I have a cousin who is a drug addict and he is now living on the streets. Crack is his biggest problem but I think he does a lot of other drugs as well. He has been on the streets for about 4 months now after bouncing around from rehab to a recovery home to get kicked out of that recovery home to another recovery to getting kicked out of that next recovery home to back with his parents to getting kicked out of his parents and then back again and then finally to the street and the Salvation Army sometimes. I see him sometimes and it breaks my heart. I can’t believe this is a person from my family. I guess these people always come from somebody’s family but somehow you never expect it to be from yours. I want to help him but I have no idea how. If I give him money he buys drugs. If I give him stuff he sells it and buys drugs? If I get him a place he parties and then gets kicked out. How can I help him without making the problem worse? I am trying to get him to meet me for lunch in the park once a week just to keep a lifeline in (the way he looks restaurants aren’t really a good option.) Sometimes he comes but mostly he is unreliable with this too.
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