It's Bad

Ron commented on my last submission to my blog about finding a needle and spoon in my son's pants when I picked them up to wash them. His comment was "if it looks bad it probably is bad". Well, it is bad. My son stole my debit card today while I was unloading groceries from the car. He left shortly after I got home with the groceries to pick up his bicycle that he left at a friends house several weeks ago. Something told me to look in my purse after he left and sure enough it was gone. I called him immediately and asked if he had "borrowed" it. He denied, denied and denied. I called the grocery store to see if they found it, searched my purse again, then searched my car. No debit card. I called my son again and gave him another chance. NOPE, he didn't have it. We started the process of getting it cancelled which was not an easy task. He came home and even suggested that we go to the market and look in the parking lot for it. After talking to customer service at the bank my husband learned that just shortly before my son returned to the house two withdrawals had been taken from two different ATMs near our home. He still denied doing it until my husband put the pressure on. He caved then. He seemed to think that by offering to pay us back that everything was ok and no one should be mad. He said he needed the money to pay a guy for housing the bicycle (which did not come back home with him) for all these weeks.WHAT?

He remembered the PIN number from two years ago when in a weak moment I allowed him to use it for gas. This is the second time he has "borrowed" it without permission. We have kept it locked up in the car and it would have been there today but he caught me busy and not watching.

He is here to visit with his son over the weekend. He has pretty much been high the whole time he has been here. I am at the point of saying he can't even visit with his son here. This might mean that I don't get to see my grandson very often and it will very likely mean that my son won't see him either. I doubt he has a place to live after rent comes due in two weeks. NOT MY PROBLEM! I'll work something out with the mom to make sure I maintain contact with the grand baby.

Why can addicts justify stealing from their families? We have helped this kid up so many times and this is what we get for it? ADDICTION SUCKS!!!!!

I am wondering how many ways addicts justify stealing from their families. Do any of you have creative addicts? I'd like to hear the most creative justification they have given for stealing from you. This bicycle thing has really got me shaking my head and wondering if he couldn't have come up with something better.

Tomorrow is another day. I'll work to make it a positive one for myself.

Peace,
Terri

"But Mom! It's not mine!"

How many times have we heard that one? I quit counting. My son came home with his dad afterwork yesterday. He left shortly after getting here with his new female friend. He is still married to the mother of his 9 month old son, but that is another story. He changed out of his work clothes before he left. So, being the ever so helpful mom that I am, I picked them up to wash them for him so he would have something clean to wear today. I found a needle and a spoon with some orange residue in it. I called him and told him he needed to find a ride back to his apartment and that he is not to call me unless it has something to do with the baby. He is not to ask me for a ride back to our town and I told him that I did not want to speak to him or see him again last night. His response was, "But MOM! It's not mine! I found it. You just don't understand!". Well, I might not understand what  he goes through on a daily basis but I do understand what I saw and I understand that I don't want that crap in my house. Besides, why in the hell would anyone carry around a bent spoon and a needle that didn't belong to them. That incident reminded me of the time that the cigarettes weren't his, the pot wasn't his, the booze didn't belong to him. Give me a break. Please!!!!

I don't know what I feel. I was disgusted at first, then scared about the explosion that I thought it was going to cause when I confronted him about it. It seems like all those feelings cycle much faster than they used to. I finally just reminded myself that he is an addict and that is something that I have no control over. What I can control is who and what are in my house.

He will only be allowed in my house if he is visiting with his son here. I may even search him before I allow him in the house for that.

Prodigal Son???

My son sent us a text today. To paraphrase it went something like this: I am back! I forgot how good sober can feel. I have people who don't mind being around me now. I have two jobs that I like. I have a library card that I use often. I have people in my life who love me. I don't have to look out of my bedroom window and see the house that I started using in. I have a baby that I love more than life. I am broke but I am happy.

My response was, "We love you and have missed you. We are so happy that you came back to us!"

Okay, the first thought I had was, "rent is due next Monday and he is not sure how he is going to make it." My second thought was, "I am happy that he is sober and doing well today". We are so happy that you are here for today.

Love and peace to you all.
Terri

You know that feeling you get when..............?

We had a great weekend at my house. My 9 month old grandson came and spent 3 days and two nights. There is just something about having a baby in the house. He is such a happy little guy and is free with giggles and baby smooches. My son was also there and it was wonderful to watch him with his son.

Wonderful weekends have often been ruined by my son's additive behaviors. We could have had the most awesome time as a family and then out of seemingly no where my son would just go crazy over some minor thing. This sent the whole family into a frenzy and we would end up having a sleepless Sunday night worrying about him. Now I see that this was his way of making it okay to leave the house so that he could access drugs. After all we were "pissed" and really just "didn't want him to be there anyway". That made it our fault.

So, when I saw that I had missed call yesterday only 15 minutes after I dropped him off at his apartment my heart shifted into that crisis rhythm. My anxiety level immediatly went through the roof and I debated on whether or not to return the call. Of course I did. There was nothing wrong, he wasn't asking for money or demanding that I turn around and come back because he needed a ride somewhere. Nothing like that at all. He just wanted to ask a question. I told him that I worried when I saw that he called and he wondered why. I said, "I guess I need to get used to the idea that every conversation we have doesn't necessarily about something going wrong". 

He sent me a text later in the day thanking me for a used microwave that I got cheap and to thank me for helping him with the baby this weekend. Wow! It is good to have my son back. I have missed him. I hope he doesn't go away again and if he does I hope he will find his way back quickly.

Moving Day!

My son is moving into his first apartment that he is renting all by himself. He has always either lived in our house, his in-law's, with a girl friend or with other room mates. This is his first time to live alone. I am excited for him. I am also frightened for him. He got paid today and he gave me money for his child support and money for the fine that I paid for him. This is a vast, VAST improvement. Paying his bills before spending money on other stuff is not something that has come first nature to him. For this minute I am very proud for him. He carried himself like a man for the first time in a long while. You could see pride in his eyes. There I go with the eyes again. I have always heard that the eyes are the window to the soul. I think I understand that now.

Peace to you. We all deserve it!

Getting Over Another Hump

I don't know how many times I have said, "If he could just get over this hump I think he will be okay." I feel like some days I have him on my shoulders trying to lift him as high as I can to help him get over but it just never seems to happen. We are at another crossroads today. He is doing really well with his job. He is getting a raise soon and has taken on some new responsibilities. He is paying his child support and being proactive about things like, finding an apartment, seeking an attorney that might be able to help get regular and consistent visitation with his son. He found an apartment and was able to get the electricity turn on in his name without help. The problem is the ER bill from last fall that I refused to pay. He hasn't paid it either or made any arrangements to pay it. Now it has been turned over to a collection agency and they are threatening to garnish his wages. Without his paycheck he can't afford rent or utilites and he won't be able to pay child support. We are not supposed to look at the past, only today, but it seems like the past comes back and bites him on the ass every time. I will talk to him tonight about calling the collection agency and seeing if he can work out some type of payment arrangement with them. My shoulders are getting very tired. I pray that he can pull himself over this time.

The Things They Will Do

We recently received a bill from an emergency room visit by my son from several months ago. I knew that he went and told him then that I wouldn't pay this bill. Receiving the bill brought back memories of many trips to the ER with him. He was diagnosed with his first kidney stone at the age of 15. This required the stone to be crushed with a laser. He had a couple of confirmed episodes when he was 16 and 17. Each episode resulted in a prescription for pain medication. It sort of shocked me how freely doctors wrote these prescriptions.When he was 18 he was going to the ER once or twice a month complaining pretty convincingly of back pain he believed was caused by a kidney stone. Pain is not something that is easily measured by anyone other than the person dealing with it. It took me a minute to accept that my son was exhibiting drug seeking behavior. I stopped taking him to the ER and would not provide my insurance info to him. I even called several of the ERs he had used and asked that they mark his chart. When they started asking him for $100 up front he quit going to the ER and start shopping for doctors. Many of the doctors caught on pretty quickly and basically "fired" him from coming to their office. We paid thousands of dollars on these unnecessary ER visits after insurance paid.
I don't know why I am posting this. He hasn't done this in awhile, at least to my knowledge. When he complains to me now my standard answer is, "I am so sorry." and then I walk away. You know it amazes me to look back at all the crapola that we went through with this young man. Looking at it now I just have to shake my head at the pure insanity of it all. Man, addicts do crazy stuff and us co-dependents just follow right in behind them doing some crazy stuff too. At least for today, I will be sane.
Blessings!