Expert: Clyde - 7/10/2008

Question
I have a son who is an alcoholic and drug addict who is 37 years old.  We have been living with this since he was 17 years old.  He has been to rehab over ten times over he years.  He has been in jail and we have bailed him out numerous times.  We have spent so much money trying to help him that we should be at a point in our life when we should be enjoying life.  But instead we are in a lot of debt and most of it is from helping him.  We have drained our savings so many times. I know that I am the biggest enabler there is.  This situation has caused so many problems for me and my husband.  The last time he went to rehab he stayed for a year and a half.  The whole time he was in rehab we were constantly having to deal with his problems. He was kicked out several times for continuing to drink.  He would call me crying saying he was on the street with no money, no food and no where to sleep.  I can't even begin to count the number of times that I have wired him money.  Eventually we or I would allow him to come home simply because it would be cheaper for him to be here.  He always makes promises to us that he will abide by our rules and go to AA every day.  This only lasts for a couple of weeks and then we start over again.  He is a mechanic and is continually pawning his tools.  Eventually my husband and I end up getting the tools out of pawn just so he doesn't lose thousands of dollars worth of tools for $20.

If it were up to my husband he would have given up on him years ago.  I think now he just goes along and agrees to help him because of me.  I feel like we are drowning and are going down for the last time.  He has a nine year old daughter and I keep trying to help him so that hopefully she will someday have a father.  My son and her mother were never married.  They met at a party and were both drunk.  It was a one night stand.  We didn't even know about her until she was almost three years old.   In fact, we along with her mother's parents have custody of her.  I know everything I have done has been wrong.

We have attended Alanon meetings before and it was comforting to know that we weren't alone. But for some reason or another we would stop going.

My question is:  Is it really okay to just give up on him and kick him out?  At this point I don't know what to do.

Answer
Brenda,
     Thank you for your story and for your ultimate question: It is really OK to just give up on him and kick him out?

     Yes and no. Let me explain.  Yes, for your sanity and for you and your husband to have a life from this day forward, it is absolutely OK and it is the right thing to do.  Do it now.

     No, it is not good to give up on him but you have perhaps been trying to help him in a way that he is not understanding and a change is needed there.  That change is to fight even harder for him through prayer.  Let go of him physically and financially, yes, but maintain a vigil for him in prayer that he would allow God (or some idea and concept of a Higher Power) do for him what he can not do for himself.  he obviously is not going to get the message that this is a life and death thing by anything you can do as a human being.  It is now time for some miraculous work to be done.

    I hope you will see that this change in your approach will lead to your continuing to be caring for him  and remove your burden of guilt at "letting go."  If he will open himself to God's grace, then he is going to find that there is one thing he has failed to do all these years - grow up.  Somewhere within himself he is a scared little boy that will not face the fear of growing up.  

    You know from Alanon the three C's - you did not cause this, you can not control this, and you can not cure it.   

    It is my opinion and my experience that alcohol stunts the maturity process and this is very difficult to reverse, if not impossible for some alcoholics.  We say in AA that there are such unfortunates, as sad as that is to say.

    I will keep you and he in my prayers and ask for God's speed in taking him to a place where he will begin to see what alcohol has done to him.

     Let me know if I may be of any further help.

Grace and Peace,
Clyde