Tammy:
Your son and his wife should not be on speaker phone with you having to listen to them. He is a grown up. IF she doesn't like what he does, she also must throw him out. In his discouraged state, he says he will turn himself in, but then in the morning, he doesn't feel like that any more. He is trying to get others to continue to help him.
When Ant turned 21, and I think I was still posting frequently on this board at the time..he was on the run with his baby and galpal. They ended up in Reno and she got fed up with his ways and left with the baby. He was drugging and out of control. He called me during the night and I told him happy birthday. He told me that he had just called to tell me goodbye, that he was going to overdose.
I was sick about it but told him good bye and something about him doing whatever he chose. I knew if he chose that route, I could not help it. The next day, he called to ask to come home and send money for a bus ticket. He took that money and said it was stolen from him...I had then called and bought a bus ticket that he had to get to the station to get..no money. He came home and after a wild few days, he went and turned himself in. I was sick about that too, but constables had been at my home looking for him and there was no where to go but straight through the fire.
From time to time, when he gets frustrated he says he is going to quit his job...AND he has done that. I think he has had a couple jobs a year since he got out of prison. Some very very good ones that he walked from...and some not so good. If he wants money, he has to work.
Point is, that his life is his life and mine is mine. I am done with the long nights of worry and I do remember many a long night here on this forum with so many of you holding my hand. Ant was young then and I felt so responsible for him. Now that he is older, I feel no responsibility for him. How can I? Most of the bad decisions he has made, he never asked my advice and I found out after the fact that he had screwed up. I tell him often that he has never taken my advice since...oh....birth. LOL
IF your son wants to tell on himself, the PO still might not turn him in. It is up to the PO. He is not the first client she has had. She is wise to this stuff. More often than not, the PO lets them stay out so they can work. Sitting in prison doesn't pay any fines.
Please don't let yourself get drawn into the chaos again. You threw him out and he cannot come back. That would make you next in line to find drugs in the house. NO...the only answer is for everyone to get on the same page and be hard as nails.
I personally know three dear parents who took their kids in and had them overdose and die after the parent went to bed that night. (One of them is our own dear Lia here). If any of you recall tpcmom from a few years back, (her son Timmy had been murdered) well, her son Joey overdosed and died just this past June and he is gone now. She is distraught and had tried her best to make things turn around for him.
LMS....love your son enough to let natural consequences take over, guilt free. You have done over and above what most parents would do for their kids. You left no stone unturned and your son knows it. He has to get back on the job and make money, and get help for his problem and stick with it.
One text I have from ant...I saved says this:
I'm gonna work harder on being a better father and husband. I know it's on me....I'm the one that causes the problems in my life...and I'm the one that needs to fix it.
Your son knows the same. He has to want it bad enough to change. he has to lose the roof and food his wife and her mom provide. When he is sitting on the curb and gets hungry, he will realize like the prodigal son...that there are people and food waiting...and support. He has to walk the walk first.
hang in there, tammy and be very good to yourself before you are in the hospital from the stress. A heart can only take so much pain. ((HUGS))
