Answered questions(9)
LIving with an addict, what about the 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 →Alanon & The family
My daughter is married to an alcoholic. OK. We have accepted her choice but we do not understand it. Actually our relationship is quite strained now because we tried to stop her from marrying this man and now they both resent us. They have been married for 6 months. Now she is drinking a lot more than she used to. She told my other daughter that they get along better if she has a couple of drinks with him every night. I am worried that he is dragging her down with him but anything I try to say to her about it just sounds like I am trying to split them up again and so she won’t even listen to us. My daughter sees how things are with us and she doesn’t want to get involved. What can we do to save her?
Read answer →Interventions
I understand that one person can’t make another person want to accept addiction but when it’s a literal life and death situation are there any more extreme things a family can do to get the person to understand that they are killing themselves? My brother is a cocaine user. 2 years ago he had really severe headaches and it turned out he had a brain aneurysm that was caused by cocaine addiction. He had to have open skull surgery to clip the aneurysm and at that time he swore he was done with cocaine and everything else. Now I just heard from a friend that she saw him using again. He could have a brain bleed and drop dead at any time and using cocaine puts him at high risk of sudden death. My parents have been through hell with worry about him and I don’t know if I should tell them what I know or if there is nothing any of us can do if it is better that they do not know. I do not know if an intervention is going to work since he already had a near death experience and promised to get help. He did not get help but I am pretty sure he stopped for some time since he was quite weak for several months after his surgery.
Read answer →Synthetic Marijuana's Effects on a Toddler
How dangerous is it for a mom to expose her 14 month old son to secondhand spice (fake weed) smoke? My friend is doing this and I am worried that she could be hurting her son. She believes that weed is ok and this is ok too. I am trying to tell her that nobody even knows what is in this and so how can she know it is not harmful for her son who is probably tripping his head off everytime he comes into the room. If she won’t stop doing it what should I do? She is not really a person I like, just a close friend of my roommate who likes to smoke in my house (in her room) with her son playing with toys on the floor. My roommate is a nice person by the way who is also upset by this but she is honestly intimidated by her friend and can’t or won’t tell her to stop doing what she is doing. My roommate is the lease holder and I am her tenant and I do not want to move out so I am hoping to not cause major drama.
Read answer →Smart Recovery Family Support
Can you give me any information on smart recovery’s family support program. In your opinion is it as good, not as good or better than alanon. I have a problem with alanon component where you have to let go and watch your spouse drink to death. I do not know if this is my issue or just a common sense issue that alanon makes no sense!
Read answer →Sacrifice for our children
I don’t know how to break free. How can you break free when it is your SON who has the problem and he is EVERYTHING to you? He is only 21 years old but he has been an addict for 2 years. It is meth. He is 41 days clean now. He has been clean before but it always ends. It usually ends after he gets really upset about something and then he goes out and will not come back for 3 or 4 days. Now everytime he is clean I feel like I am stressed out every second of the day trying to pay attention to his moods and trying to keep him in a good mood. Today he wanted $100 to buy new clothes and I was so worried because he was acting irritated. I want to trust him but in the past he has lied so many times for money but the biggest thing is I dont want to anger him by denying him so I gave him the money and then I lay in bed worrying until he came home at 1 am. But I was right to give him the money because he did buy clothes and he says now he going to look for a job and he was so thankful today. I feel like I am going crazy with worry. I know this is bad for me but I know that I have prayed so many times for him to get clean and now that he is trying to get clean too it is my turn to pay the price by suffering a little bit for a while and by trying to make him happy. I am willing to sacrifice myself for my SON. Is this what I need to do to support him?
Read answer →What to tell the kids?
My husband has a problem with crack cocaine. He can sometimes control it but will often disappear off on multi day binges. For reasons to complicated to get into here I stay with him, but our kids are getting older, they are now 3 and 5 and they are starting to ask more specific questions about where daddy goes when he doesn’t come home at night. I hate to lie to them, but I don’t know how much they should know. Should I tell them the truth, or should I continue to make excuses for him?
Read answer →Alcoholic Neuropathy
My wife is complaining that she can’t feel her legs very well and I can see that she is weak and unstable. She is a heavy drinker and she has been drinking at least a bottle of wine each night for about 5 years, and often times it is two bottles a night. She never drank before that and then she did a wine tasting club and it is like she fell into a rabbit hole. I am sure she is an alcoholic but she will not even discuss that idea. What are the odds that she has alcoholic neuropathy? I do not think she has been drinking for long enough to get this but the symptoms seem to match her condition very well. She will not go to a doctor and I think it is because she knows the doctor will tell her to stop drinking and she cannot allow that to happen. If the doctor tells her to stop and she can’t then she is an alcoholic. If no one tells her to stop then she can keep drinking as a ‘social drinker’. I really don’t know what to do in this situation. It seems that she is starting to drink herself to death and I have to sit here and watch her do it.
Read answer →Helping an adult child who is an addict
My son was jailed for 14 months for felony grand larceny. He was a crack addict and alcoholic. He is going to be released in three months so we want to prepare for him. He says he is thankful he got jailed so he could get cleaned up and he says he is never going to go back to using again. He there are lots of drugs in jail but he has been 100% clean for 8 months. We want to help him but know how strong his addictions are and that what he says doesn’t always mean much. We want to him to go into a halfway house after his release but he wants to come. He is 28. He says those places are full of junkies and that they are worse than anywhere else. I am concerned that if he comes back to his old neighborhood that the temptations will be too much for him. He has never been able to stay clean for more than 2 months in our neighborhood since he was about 18. What would you recommend for a person in his situation?
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