Answered questions(22)
Hubby Quits Pot - Yells at Me a Lot!
My husband is a marijuana addict. He started smoking when he was 14 and he is still smoking now that he is 32. Now he is trying to quit. We have 2 children and I made an decision that I was not going to put up with marijuana in the house any longer. They are 6 and 8 and they are old enough to start to suspect that something is wrong with their dad when his eyes are all red and also it gives him mood swings and they never know what they are going to get with him. It is not good for them. Now he has not smoked for three weeks. He is so grouchy all the time. He blows up at me for any little thing. When I get angry about how he is treating me he never fails to remind me that I am the reason why he is in such a bad mood. I kind of think that he is not grouchy from quitting any more and that he is just getting revenge on me for making him stop. Should he still be so angry all the time after three weeks?
Read answer →Addicted to Coke or Bike?
My husband is a real type A driven guy. He recently completed a stay in rehab for a cocaine addiction that had developed over the last couple of years. He is doing really well and we are all very proud of him. One of the things that really helped him stay clean after rehab was lots of exercise. Whenever he was having trouble dealing with the way he was feeling he’d hop on his bike and spin out 30 or 40 or 50 miles and he’d come home feeling a lot better. I am not sure if I have a legitimate concern here, but it seems to me now that he is getting addicted to exercise. I am not even sure if this is a bad thing or not, but he has gotten really intense about getting his daily training time in and he is spending a lot of hours each day out riding. He has never been a real in-moderation kind of person and now when he can’t get his riding time in, for whatever reason, he gets really cranky and bad tempered and hard to be around. It’s like the exercise has to come first and no matter how valid the reason for not doing it, like when he had the flu a couple of weeks ago, he just can’t accept it in his head. Is this something I should be worried about? I guess being an exercise fanatic is pretty far preferable to being a cocaine addict, but there is just something compulsive and fanatical about the way he is doing this that sets of some alarm bells in my head. Should I be worried or should I just let him do what he needs to do?
Read answer →Welcome home to the abusive son.
My son is coming home from prison in 3 weeks. He was physically abusive to me before going to jail but that was because he was using so much meth and crack he didn't even have much of a grip on reality anymore. He says he is clean now and he has been working an addiction recovery program in prison. He is asking if he can come home to live with me again since he has nowhere else to go. I want to help him but I am scared it will turn out like last time. Is there anything I can do to help him stay off drugs so he can stay with me without getting violent?
Read answer →"Happy" Alcoholic, Sad Family
My brother is an alcoholic and I need to know how much I should do to try to get him to stop drinking. My brother is in his 40s now. He is a lifelong bachelor and has always enjoyed a pretty debaucherous lifestyle. He did really well in Silicon Valley in his twenties and he is pretty much set for life now. We’ve always joked that he is like the real life Charlie Sheen character in the show Two and Half Men. He has always been attractive to women and he likes to sleep late and go out pretty much every night. He also likes to drink and he has never been apologetic about that. In the last couple of years though I can see that something has really changed in him and whereas he used to be sort of a playboy type he is starting to get a lot sloppier and more disjointed and where it used to be about drinking and going out with friends and meeting girls – now it’s just about drinking, mostly alone at home. The alcohol is also ruining his good looks. I popped by unannounced late this morning and I was pretty disturbed by the squalor he was living in. I hadn’t been by in more than a year. He always comes to our place to see the kids. It’s a beautiful house but it was dark and dirty and it smelled and there were empty bottles everywhere you’d turn. I got so upset by the way he was living I actually started crying. I asked him how he could live like this and why he was killing himself with alcohol. He is usually pretty mellow but he got pretty angry and defensive and he asked me to respect his right to live as he pleases. He says he knows he drinks more than is healthy but that it is his body and he’d rather ‘be here for a good time than a long time’ as he put it. He said he doesn’t tell me how to live and he doesn’t need me to tell him how to live. I don’t want to watch him die but if he doesn’t want to change I don’t know what I can do to stop this from happening. As I understand them interventions work when a person denies the problem. My brother doesn’t deny that he drinks too much – he just doesn’t want to stop drinking too much. Is there anything I can do to get him to see that life is to valuable to throw away down a bottle?
Read answer →How long can I let my ex-addict son stay at home?
My 26 year old son came back home to live with us after he went to rehab 3 years ago. He was addicted to meth. He has been doing really well and I have been very proud of the way he has overcome his addiction. When he came back I told him he could stay as long as he liked. But now I wonder if after 3 years it is time for him to move on in his life. He has not found a full time job yet. At first I did not want him to feel any stress or pressure so I thought that this was OK. After 3 years I think that he is just used to living at home and not having to work very hard. He is a kind person and I enjoy his company and it is no imposition to me to have him around. I enjoy it that he lives at home. But I am concerned that because I am trying to support his recovery I am stunting his growth as an adult. How can he start his own family if he lives at home with mom and dad and has no job? My wife says just let it be. He is pleasant to have around and we are financially secure and even though it is not perfect it is far better than the hell we went through when he was using. I don’t know. After 3 years is he ready to be pushed a bit? I don’t want to push him back to drugs but I want him to grow a bit into a self sufficient adult.
Read answer →How do I live with an abusive demented mother?
My 75 year old alcoholic mom broke her hip while drunk 6 weeks ago. She is due to be released from the hospital in the next couple of weeks. Her therapy assessment indicates that she is not longer capable of living on her own. I had not had much contact with her for a while and she is also clearly having some issues with dementia, probably alcohol related. I do not have a good relationship with my mother. She is an abusive person. She physically abused me as a young child and has been verbally abusive to me my whole adult life. Because of this I have basically cut her out of my life. Now she has nowhere else to go and no money to pay for any care. I have put her on a waiting list for a public long term care facility but I am told the waiting list is about a year to get in. It looks like the only place she can go from the hospital is to stay with me. I don’t know how I am going to make it through the next year. I know that I have to do this (I have decided that I have to, even though I don’t want to) but she is still very abusive to me and to especially to my husband, who is a saint for allowing me to bring her in. How can we survive this next year as a family without losing our sanity to this terrible woman? I am not sure we are going to be able to do this…
Read answer →My parents are enabling my alcoholic brother.
How can I convince my parents to stop enabling my brother? He is an alcoholic and he has never really had a job that he can stick with for longer than a few months. He is in his 30s now but he still acts like a child and relies on my parents for everything. They still pay the rent on his apartment so any money he makes he can pretty much just spend it all on alcohol, but even with that he still managed to get evicted for taking that rent money for a couple of months and pouring it down his throat. He was the life of the party in his teens and early 20s, but now all his friends have moved on and he just stays at home alone and drinks by himself. My parents just can’t bear to see him face the consequences of what he’s doing to himself. But how is he ever going to stop when he has this easy life, and my parents are also getting older. What’s going to happen to him when he’s in his 40s and all of a sudden there is no one around to take care of his every need. They need to stop treating him like a child and he needs to man up and start taking care of his own self. He is smart and big and strong and there is no reason why he can’t take care of himself. I am so frustrated because I have worked so hard on him to try to get him to take some responsibility for himself and to try to get him to drink less but I feel like my efforts are just so totally undermined by my parents so it’s just all a waste of time.
Read answer →How to deal with a alcoholic retired father
My dad was always kind of a heavy drinker but he kept it under control while he was working, but since he retired a couple of years ago he’s really gone crazy with the booze and now he starts drinking in the morning and he’s drunk pretty much all day long. He lives with my family in a small guest house out back, so we are front row spectators to what he gets up to every day. I love him and he has always been very good to me and this is very hard for me to watch, and sometimes when he gets drunk he becomes quite belligerent and difficult to deal with. I am at my wits end with him and I don’t know what to do. A friend of mine recommended I check out alanon as a group that might be good for support, but when I looked at it I saw that it is all about surrendering to a god and powerlessness. I don’t believe in god and I am not looking for any kind of group that will tell me what I can’t do to make things better, I want to find a group of people who will help me to actually make things better. Are there any other groups that operate as support for family members of alcoholics that do not operate on this faith based 12 step model?
Read answer →Loving an Addict
My uncle lives with now us and he is a very nice guy and I love him but he has a real drinking problem. He is on disability and does not work. My mom also drinks. There’s like an unwritten law in my family that YOU DO NOT DISCUSS anyones drinking. It was easier to love him when he lived 600 miles away. He is a nice guy but he can get kind of aggressive when drunk, which is a lot of the time. Last weekend he picked a fight with some people I know outside of a bar and I had to get involved to help defend him from the ass kicking he was about to get. Now I’ve got a problem with these people and the truth is if I were in their shoes, I’d have wanted to fight him too, he was totally in the wrong. I don’t know what I should do anymore. I can’t leave him to get beats and I can’t always be fighting his fights, especially when he is wrong. Am I enabling him by defending him from people that want to hurt him…since he’s going to go out and pick that same fight a few nights later? My mom doesn’t want to hear anything about my doing anything but fighting on the side of family. To her, he can do no wrong.
Read answer →Happy Birthday, Alcoholic Brother?
My youngest brother (51) is a raging alcoholic. We were very close when we were growing up, but have been estranged for over a year now. He cut me out of the loop because I told him he needed help. He told me to mind my own business and not to contact him ever again. Of course I feel guilty but I have adhered to his wishes. However, his birthday is coming up and I am wondering if I should send him a birthday card. If so, what do I say in the card, or should I just sign my name and tell him best wishes for a happy birthday
Read answer →Brother in law stealing prescription drugs
My brother in law has a history with addiction. I am at present living with my sister and her family in their guest cottage as health issues have left me unable to work. I am forever grateful for their help and I don’t know where I would be without them. They are also all lovely people and I am happy to have them in my life. My sister and her husband are much younger than I am and still working. I have lupus and I take several analgesics for pain. Some are opiods. Over the last couple of months I have started to notice that my prescriptions were running out a little faster than I thought they would. It is not really a problem for me since I have a wide discretion over how much pain medication I want to take and I don’t usually use nearly as much as I am prescribed. I just prefer to feel clear headed I suppose even if at the cost of a little discomfort. My brother in law comes into my cottage daily to help me tidy the place up and to help with little odds and ends and we usually sit and have a coffee together after. He usually goes to the bathroom where I keep the pills while he is here. Because I was having some suspicions about pills going missing I decided to count and write down how many pills of each kind I had before his visit and again after. He must have been taking some when he went to the bathroom everyday because when I recounted after he left I saw I was short 4 pills. Now I don’t know what to do. I am so much in their debt that I do not want to make any trouble for them. I do not know if I should simply move the pills to a more secure spot and not say anything or if I should get involved in their lives and talk to my sister about what is happening. I am not an expert on addiction but he did require some treatment in the past about 10 years ago so maybe he does again. To me however, he seems to be acting quite rationally – for all I know he isn’t even using them himself. I am loathe to act the busybody, but as a health issue, does my sister need to know about this, even though it may cause discord in their marriage.
Read answer →Do Alcoholic Parents Make Alcoholic Children?
I am adopted. My parents were always very moderate drinkers but definitely people who enjoyed a few glasses of wine with a good meal on a Friday night kind of thing. I am 22 now and I enjoy wine with dinner and I also really enjoy heading out to the clubs and having a few drinks or more than a few drinks sometimes and just cutting lose after a hard week at work. I think sometimes that I might enjoy the drinking a little more than the dancing whereas my friends are perhaps of the opposite opinion, but it’s all no big deal. I met my birth mom last week for the first time. She finally consented to see me after a few years of my making a request. When I met her I understood why she hadn’t wanted to meet me. She is an alcoholic and lives in a not very nice place. My real father is no longer in the picture, but I she told me that drugs and alcohol are a problem for him as well. Anyway, because my family grew up in a such a stable upper middle class environment and because I never really saw the effects of drinking I guess I never really thought about it too much in my own life. But seeing my mom and hearing that my dad is the same way is kind of shocking. I certainly do not want to end up where they are in life. I know that alcoholism is in some ways a genetic thing. How worried do I have to be that I will have inherited their alcoholism, even though I grew up in a family without any?
Read answer →Should I stay with a dying alcoholic husband?
Before my husband agreed to marry me 4 years ago I had to promise that I would never question his drinking or drug use. That makes it sound like he is a big jerk but actually he is not he is very sweet but his previous marriage had ended because his ex wife couldn’t accept his drinking and he didn’t want to go through that (or put anyone else through that) again. He says that he knows his drinking is not good for him but it is a choice he has made as an adult and that he asks that those around him respect that so long as he does no harm to anyone else. He is financially secure and ok looking and we have a lot of fun together. Maybe I was blind, and foolish but I agreed. He drinks a lot but he never gets angry or violent or causes trouble, and he very rarely even looks drunk, though considering how much I know he has been drinking by about dinner time, he really must be. Now he has very high blood pressure and the doctor says he’ll have a heart attack or a stroke soon unless he stops drinking completely. He is still drinking and I don’t know what to do. I never thought this day would come so soon where I might become a widow (I am only 36). I asked him why he was still drinking and he got furious and reminded me of my promise. Should I break my word and try to get him to stop, even though it will probably ruin my marriage and leave him alone to die or should I just stay with him like I said I would, through good times and bad? It’s so hard to imagine not doing anything, but so many people have tried and failed over the last 20 years to get him to stop drinking maybe it’s foolish for me to think I will be able to do any better.
Read answer →Religion and addiction
My husband has begged G_d for help with his addiction for years. We all have. Still he has never managed to beat the monster of addiction. Is religion powerless, what does the Torah teach us? We are at our wits end, please help...
Read answer →Druggie brother is ruining my relationship with Mom and Dad
My 26 year old brother has been in and out of treatment for heroin and other drugs several times. He has overdosed two times, the most recent being a week ago. He lives with my parents. I have two kids myself (9 and 8). My mother is taking it personal that I don't allow my kids over there. I don't see things getting better..they say things like, we are just happy he is alive and if he is alive there is hope. My relationship with my parents has deteriorated...I had to distance myself, and of course my kids are missing out on a close relationship with their grandparents. What to do...i lose sleep over this!
Read answer →Can I save my pill popping sister?
My sister is a 46 year old type 2 diabetic who is also addicted to whatever opiate pills she can get her hands on. She used to be an alcoholic, which is why I think she got the diabetes but she stopped drinking about 6 years ago. Unfortunately, she has recently moved on to something much more dangerous. She moved in with me after her husband passed away last year. If she were not living with me and if was not taking care of her I am convinced that she would be dead right now. I check her blood sugar levels for her all the time because when she gets high enough she just forgest too or doesn’t seem to care enough. There have been times when she was close to death and I have had to slap her awake to try to get her to take some juice in. I don’t know what to do. She will not get help for her addiction and I do not want to see her die so I cannot just kick her out of my house. I feel like I am a prisoner and there is nothing I can do but watch her get so high everyday in my house and worry about her every second. That she is a danger to herself there is no question. Is her inability to manage her own serious diabetes enough to get her committed to the hospital for some treatment?
Read answer →Becoming a parent after an alcohol addiction
Due to my alcoholism for the last 12 years my children had to spend a lot more time taking care of me than I took care of them. I thought I was a fun dad. I did not see this at the time but when I look back at it me getting drunk and playing in the pool with them was not really being a dad and them helping turn me over on my side on the couch when I passed out so I would not choke on my throw up was not their job as kids (and I could provide many examples like this unfortunately). Now I am 9 months sober but my children still look carefully at my eyes when I come in after work and I can feel them smelling my breath whenever we are in close quarters. When I am in a bad mood they try to cheer me up but they do it in a way that is from fear that I will drink. I wish they could stop being so afraid. I feel shame and guilt every time I see them afraid because of me. It actually makes me want a drink more than anything else. They are so used to looking after me and worrying for me that they cannot stop it even after nearly a year without a drink. How can I stop them from trying to parent me? I don’t deserve them and I don’t deserve a chance to be their dad but since I have it I want to make up for the past.
Read answer →Losing my lovers, loving my alcoholic mom
I have had some difficulty maintaining romantic relationships. I can start in with them but they rarely last more than a month or two before something goes really badly. I read about the characteristics of adult children of alcoholics and some of what was on the list really described me, like I lie instead of telling truth, even when it makes no sense to, I am way too serious and have a hard time letting go and having fun and I am loyal to people even when they don’t really deserve my loyalty. My mom was (is) an alcoholic but I never thought that it was something that was affecting me. She drank a lot and was unreliable but I am very used to her ways and she is still a sweet person and I love her. There are no dark issues lurking below the surface. Could my childhood growing up with an alcoholic be affecting my relationships today? It would feel weird going to an ALANON meeting or something, since I don’t really have any problems with my mom.
Read answer →Mother a slave to drunken brother
I'm hoping you can help me. My 52-year-old brother is an alcoholic who lives with my 80-year-old mother. He has been an alcoholic for years, with a few sober moments in between. My father passed 2-1/2 years ago, and my brother has pretty much been drunk ever since. He is destroying my mom, her house, etc. I have BEGGED my mother to throw him out, but she refuses. I think she has convinced herself that she can "save" him. Yet, I think the ony chance he has is to suffer the consequences of his drinking. I live one mile away, and feel totally helpless. My mother isn't interested in being educated about alcoholism. She still thinks he will one day wake up and quit drinking simply because she has asked him to!!! The entire situation makes me sick to my stomach. He passes out in the garage, and my mother works for hours to drag him back into the house. He sits in a chair and pees himself, and my mother works to get him into his bedroom, then goes about cleaning everything up behind him. I am looking for information on how I can learn to cope with and/or accept this situation. I worry about both of them constantly. I can see sadness and sorrow all over my mother, but cannot get her to toss him out. At this point, I have nothing but contempt for my brother, especially when I see what he is doing to her and how he speaks to her. Please point me in the right direction.
Read answer →Drugs in the underwear drawer: Is it a problem?
My wife is a recovering alcoholic. I found a bottle of percocets in her underwear drawer. She doesn’t have any pain problems and the fact that she kept the pills hidden where I never normally look rather than in the medicine cabinet speaks volumes (I was only in there at all because I wanted to surprise her with some new lingerie and needed to find out sizing information). When I confronted her on this she admitted that she took one once in a while when she was having a very hard day. She says she’s had the pills for over a year and she only took one once in a while, a couple a month or so. She said she didn’t want me to worry and that she was embarrassed by her need for this but that it was either bend once in a while with a pill when things got too heavy or break entirely and fall back into drinking (which was very bad). I can understand because I will have a joint every once in a while to take the edge off and sometimes it helps. But I do not have an addictive personality like her, though she has been doing so good for so long. Do you think she needs to get back to do another treatment program? She was at Caron 7 years ago.
Read answer →What to say to your kid when he and hubby smoke weed
My husband has been a daily marijuana user for the last 25 years, since before I ever knew him. It’s not ideal but it’s just who he is and he held a good steady job for all that time and never been in trouble with the police or anything like that. I don’t think he is able or willing to change, and he doesn’t really think he should have to. My teenage son however has been quick to point out our hypocrisy. He was suspended at school last week after a teacher caught him with a group of students who were smoking a joint. It couldn’t be proven that he had actually been smoking himself or he would have been expelled. We grounded him for using drugs but he has long known of his dad’s ‘secret’ and so he is pretty reluctant to listen to anything we have to say on the matter. I have known so many people who were harmed by drugs and alcohol and I really don’t want to see my son go down that road. What can I say or do to convince him that even though his dad is able to smoke marijuana without having much trouble with it, most people aren’t so lucky and drugs and alcohol often end up in pain and suffering for all those involved. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Read answer →Son on drugs, no job, feels hopeless
I have a 24year old son that his senior year, less then a month before graduation he was in a near fatal car wreck as a passanger. with the injuries that he sustained he lost three college scholorships offers for sports, football and baseball. He was a star player in both, his dream was to play profootball. at that point he started heavily drinking and I believe got hooked on his painkillers, even though he says he did not. We then thought his life was going to turn around 2years later. he was going to start college and go as a walk on for the razorbacks football, but a month and ahalf before that two boys broke into our house and attacked him while he slept and he is now permently blind in his left eye and cannot play any sports again in his life, because one hard hit to his head could cause him to bleed to death. At that time he kept it together because he had a daughter on the way. Just after she turned 1 the mother left and went back to mo. because of her parents and she filed custody papers asking for sole custody and for no visits for my son, I beleave it is because of my sons race. He is half blace and the mother is white and her father father is a raciest. Now my sons hard drinking and drug use has started again and I am at my wits end on what needs to be done. any advise would be most helpful. he does not have a job so he has no money to pay for rehab.
Read answer →