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Welcome to my blog. I hope we can help each other endure the pain of the addiction of a daughter or son.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Making More Distance Between Us

I have decided to hang on to my rep payee status for a little while longer. There is one big reason for this. When I see the withdrawals being made I know that Beth is still alive. This will be particularly important if she goes to Florida. As bad as I have been feeling lately it is not so bad as when she was gone for 6 weeks without a word and I thought she was dead. I was looking for her at various morgues throughout South Florida at the time. It was the hardest thing my husband and I have ever been through. Especially knowing at the time that we would not let her stay with us, she had no money and no where to live.

In case some of you think that we are enablers, you should know that we tried the whole tough love thing and kept it up for 4 long years. She was homeless a lot during those years. She also went to about 7 rehabs during those times. Our position was that it is rehab or the street. We will only pay for rehab and nothing else.

She only has enough money to barely cover the necessities in life so she may be spending her food money on drugs but then there is no food money. We do not give her money. She was able to doctor up two checks that I gave her to pay legal fines so that she cashed them at the food market. This means that those fines are now not paid. I will not pay them from my money. If she goes to jail than so be it.

There will be no more checks given to her under any circumstances from now on. This will mean that she has to wait on many items because I will not go running around paying things at her convenience. I am giving the check book to her Dad. He will pay legitamate bills by mail twice a month.

I am no longer going to take calls from Beth regarding giving her allowance to her a day early because she has a ride to the bank on that day. No more of that, her food allowance will be in her spending account once a week on Friday by 4 pm.

Other than that, she will have to talk to her Dad and getting money from him is like getting money from a stone.

I am not telling her that my intention is to talk to her as little as possible but that is my intention. She will dissapear just to punish me if I tell her so she will not be told. She does just about everything in dramatic contrast to what we have ever taught her or how the rest of us behave. This is what I think they call oppositional defiant behavior.

To summarize:

1 no more checks
2. less contact
3.less communication
4. no more discussions about money as it is all systematized.
5. Anything that does not fit in the system must go through the Dad.

There are no good choices here. It is contantly a trial and error process searching for the lesser of the evils.



4 comments:

  1. Anna, please do not apologize for adding to my sadness. I am grateful to have other mom's who walk with me, and sad or not, I am so grateful to be able to walk with you! Thank God we aren't alone in our misery. I do so feel for you because my gosh....as a mom, I know how hard all of what I go through is. I can only imagine how you are feeling. I just keep thinking how overwhelming it all is, but it sounds like you are making some really wise decisions in regards to your involvement. Good for you. Its been a rough week here in our little blogger world...I am sad for a lot of us. :o( The good news is that what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger. You are doing the absolute best job you can.

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  2. I think when dealing with an addict there are rarely good choices, but the ones you just came up with sound like the best for your situation at the time.

    I think Annette is true - what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. No one can understand what its like to love an addict except for those of us who do, and its especially hard when its your child (no matter how old they are).

    You and your family are in my thoughts and prayers as always.

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  3. I can tell you have given this a lot of thought. It's a great compromise.

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  4. Thank you. I appreciate your support and honesty.

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