DRINK & DRUGS NEWS :: Q&A

You ask the questions - you answer the questions. Please keep your answers coming, and feel free to email a new question.

Thanks to this issue's respondents for their contributions.

Question:

I am mother of a 22-year-old. I feel like I'm in an impossible situation. I discovered a while back that my son was a heroin addict. I joined a local support group and when he found out he went mad at me. He accused me of betraying him and telling the neighbours. I have been too scared to go back. Now I feel like a prisoner in my own home. Please help - I don't know how it has come to this. [Sandra, Yorkshire]

Your replies...

Dear Sandra,

I really understand how difficult this must be for you and see why it must feel like an impossible situation. It is very common for people, particularly parents, to feel like this. Without knowing more about you and your family's situation, it is difficult to give you clear advice but here are a few ideas.
Your son seems to have a lot of control over you, which he manages by intimidating and manipulating you. This means he gets what he wants and you don't get what you need, rather than seeing everyone's needs as equal and different. One reason he may be angry with you is that you took some control back by going to the group and in his powerlessness he has tried to regain control over you. If you seek help with how to cope with his intimidation and manipulation (such as exploring how conflict is created and identifying strategies to cope with it) you can experiment with ways that enable you to begin meeting your needs.

What about communication? Has there been a breakdown in the way you and your son communicate? Have you explained to him exactly why you are going to a support group and what happens there and that it is confidential? Maybe he is imagining all sorts of things are happening that aren't. He may need reassurance that you are getting this help for you and that by helping yourself you may be able to understand him better and help him. Maybe he is fearful of you changing.

At Adfam, we often find that if one family member changes the way they do things this has an effect on all the other family members. Maybe, by receiving support, you are learning to transfer back to your son some of the responsibility you might have been taking for him. Naturally your son could feel some anger - even betrayal - around this if that is what he has grown accustomed to. Responsibility is often related to issues of dependency.

Parents often feel the need to provide all the care they can for their children and protect them from the consequences of their actions. While they are children this is wholly appropriate, however when children become adults it is sometimes difficult to relinquish that protection and allow them to take more responsibility for themselves and learn that their actions have consequences.

Instead of the child learning to satisfy their own needs, they continue to seek satisfaction from their parents. This co-dependency between parent and adult 'child' is very common and can be worked through where there is the realisation that that is what is going on. Maybe there is some co-dependency with you and your son?

It might be that you need to think about how you are parenting your son. Is your relationship one of parent-child, or is it one of adult-adult? Are you protecting him from the consequences of his actions? Is he expecting you to continue satisfying needs that he could satisfy himself? There are still many ways for you to help and support your son that will also encourage him to mature as a person and take more responsibility for himself. I suggest you get support with what to do and how to do it.

You might also want to think about the boundaries around the behaviour you are prepared to accept from him.

Boundaries are like rules; they can define what behaviour we find acceptable from those around us. Often, in families where there is drug use, the family accepts behaviour from the drug user that they wouldn't from anybody else. In your situation, is it acceptable to you to feel a prisoner in your own home? Is it acceptable for you to not attend a support group? Is it acceptable to live in fear of your son? Would you find his behaviour acceptable from your other children?

When setting boundaries consider: What do you hope to achieve by setting the boundary? Is it realistic? Can you follow through if the boundary is broken? Where, when and how should you set the boundary? What support might you need to set, keep and follow through on the consequences of a boundary being broken? I suggest you seek help, guidance and support with this.

Ultimately you cannot stop someone using drugs if that is what they want to do. What you can do is change the way you respond to them and their drug use. You can do this by looking at how you are managing it now and how you might do it differently in a way that is supportive of you and your son. This is neither pain free nor quick - but it is possible.

I suggest you get as well informed about heroin use, its associated behaviour, the risks from its use for you and your son, how to reduce those risks and how drug users change. This will help you to understand what is happening and to reduce the harm caused through drug use.

Much of this will probably take time and you need to cope with this situation now. I encourage you to continue seeking the help and support you believe you need. I suggest you explore other avenues to get the help, guidance and support that anyone would need facing your situation. For example, a counsellor, helplines, the internet, and booklets such as those written by Adfam.

Russell Cowan, Co-ordinating Support Worker, Adfam

Hi Sandra

I am an ex-addict. You must not keep this problem to yourself, as life will get very, very horrible in every way shape and form for all your family members involved. You will have to lock every thing valuable away, or it will end up in the local pawnbrokers. Secondly don't trust a word your son says, until his addiction is under control.

I'm sorry to be so blunt, but you have a rocky road ahead of you unless you get the right help. GPs are working well with local drug/alcohol teams, to combat addiction. Your son needs telling by you, how much you love and care for him. But he also needs telling the hard facts about heroin addiction.

Please be strong and remember one thing. Never ever help to feed his addiction. Also be prepared to find him alternative accommodation in the short term, as the pain and strain can break a family.

My heart is with you, be strong.

Andrew Kevan

Dear Sandra,

I too am the mother of a son who is a heroin addict. In fact you may have read my story in DDN 30 May. I understand your fear because I have first hand experience of it. I also know that what is happening to you is wrong. No-one has to accept the unacceptable. Families Anonymous has a group in Bradford and another in Pocklington. There is a website www.famanon.org.uk. The helpline number is 0845 1200 660. Phone for free literature and the members' password for the website.

I started going to meetings four years ago. My son had to be sectioned because he became so violent and out of control. The Court granted me an Injunction with Power of Arrest to stop him coming to my house. He is now living in a hostel and is in recovery.

Anyone who is subjected to violence is entitled to police protection. Ask yourself this: if MY son behaved like your son in YOUR home, what would you do? The fact that we happened to give birth to someone does not entitle them to abuse us.

When someone is in the grip of drugs the only thing that matters to them is how to get their next fix. Everything else is secondary. The 'real' person is hidden behind the compulsive need for the next fix.

I am not a bit surprised that your son said you had betrayed him. He is probably frightened that you will become stronger and that you will stop being his doormat. He knows what he is doing. He is working to his own agenda. But he is manipulating you so that he can continue his drug abuse.

Please telephone the Families Anonymous helpline. The office is staffed from 1pm to 4pm every day. Every evening there is a volunteer that you can call who knows exactly how you feel. This is from 6pm to 10pm on weeknights and from 2pm to 10pm on weekends and Bank Holidays.

My thoughts are with you.

Anne, Surrey

Dear Sandra

You have a 22-year-old, full adult male living in your house as an addict. This is not a child. To begin with, his anger at you involves the fact that you have been helping him shelter and hide his addiction. Now that you have sought assistance for yourself, he feels exposed. Answer: so what? At some point, he will have to come out of denial and get help for himself, or suffer the other three consequences: jail, institutions or death. Do you want him to overdose and die in your home?

An intervention would help with other family members, preferably an uncle, brother, sister and/or any number of family members who can support you in attempting to get him in treatment. Support in numbers helps. Additionally, maybe you seeking help for yourself with a support group of your own will encourage him to seek assistance.

A. R. Hassan PhD, RAS, CCS

Dear Sandra,

Please go back to your support group. It is nothing to do with your son. If your neighbours know - so what? (Chances are that they are perfectly aware of his heroin addiction without you having to tell them). If your son is threatening you - call the police and have him removed from your home.

Why should you have to be scared because of his illness and his unwillingness to do anything about it? In the long run you are not helping him by keeping his addiction a secret, in fact quite the opposite. The sooner he faces the consequences of his addiction, the sooner he can get help. If he is not yet ready to address his problem, why should you have to put up with it? Living with an addict is soul destroying - you need support and have every right to get it and if he doesn't like it, tough. Remember, you are not helping him by enabling him to carry on - there is plenty of help available for drug addicts out there.

Fiona Dunwoodie, One North East (London) - 1 NE

Sandra.

There's a lot of stuff going on here.

To start with your last comment '....how it's come to this'. You seem to wonder how come your son's on heroin in the first place - 'why me/us/him?'
Well, it's not as unusual as you might think and it's, generally, NOT the parents' fault. So don't beat yourself up about it. You appear to have gone to a support group for yourself - not your son - and good on you for doing that. As a recovering addict myself (and now an addictions counsellor) I know that no amount of cajoling, persuading, threatening - call it what you want - from my family made me give it up, and you have to face it, your son is no different; he'll only deal with it when HE is ready.

In the meantime you need to look after YOU; only by doing that can you be there for your son when he IS ready to seek help. He's the prisoner - of the gear - not you, so don't be pushed into that corner by him; it sounds tough, and it is, but you need to be.

You can do it, if you want it enough; just as he will, hopefully, find recovery.

Best wishes.

Geoff Walker

Dear Sandra
Joining a support group is vital to your survival under your present circumstances. You will learn coping mechanisms, the effects of drugs on your son, how the family is affected by substance misuse and attending the group will also take you out of isolation. Often the mum's needs are never met because all the attention is given to the child who is using the drugs.

Your son needs to be made aware that you have needs as well as him. You can offer your son support by accompanying him to a drug agency were he will receive treatment for his substance misuse. If he decides he does not want help, you will need to be firm with him because his drug use will become more problematic. If you decide to let him stay at home, you will need to make some ground rules that need to be adhered too. If the situation becomes unbearable, which at some point it will, you may have to ask him to leave home.

Hope this information is of some help to you.

Maddy Vaz, Sanctuary Family Support, Liverpool

<< Return to main Q&A page

^Top of the page