This is one of the most terrible things to endure in life. It is absolutely heart breaking to file a report with the cops because 
your son or daughter has stolen your credit cards. It’s hard to say they can’t stay with you because they are still using drugs & who knows if they will end up homeless?
Generally the parents take turns caving in & saying Yes when they know they should say No. It can take a long time for both parents to get on the same page. As long as one parent is still playing the “Rescuer Role” then there will not be success. Both parents have to be a team together to be successful.
Both parents have to recognize their children lie & manipulate while looking you straight in the eyes. You as a parent, have to understand that generosity and pretending reality isn’t that bad only helps your kid dig the hole deeper.
I asked a Father to write some of his thoughts down about this powerful journey:
“I just wanted to contribute to the blog about our visits with Rhoda and Nar-Anon meetings. The reason we see Rhoda and go to Nar-Anon meetings is because we are dealing with our son who is 28 years old now and has been on Heroin for 10 years.
My wife is the one who mostly visits with Rhoda and occasionally I go with her. One of the main ideas Rhoda tried to get across to us was “get on the same page”. I have to say once we did get our heads together and start acting more like a team, things did get better for us.
When your loved one has an addiction such as this, believe me you are asked to do the most un-natural thing any parent could be asked to do. Detach. Oh we tried and tried but finally I guess we hit our bottom and we really did detach from our son and his addiction.
We are letting him suffer the consequences of his addiction rather than enabling.
We started having more consistent boundaries & stopped being so foolishly generous. Last week he signed himself into rehab. Now we know this is not an end at all but it is a start.
He has been there before and walked out. We just pray he’ll stick with it this time. Our time with Rhoda and Nar-Anon has been well worth our time. It is amazing how much it helps to be able to talk to someone who understands and you can really say what is on your mind without the fear of being judged.”
This is a hard path for parents to travel because you know your kid can die if they don’t turn things around. I admire the strength so many parents have shown over the years in learning to stop enabling. “Detach with love” is the key.
