Tags

, , , , , , , , ,


My stepson is a drug addict.  And I don’t really know what to do.

Hubby and I are generally in the dark about what happens with his boys.  We ask and ask and ask and are always told that everything is fine.

Until it’s very very very unfine.

Then we get panicky angry phone calls telling us that we must fix whatever the problem is, and we must do it now.  Often, this is the first we are even hearing about the problem.  This has been going on for as long as I’ve known my hubby.  Every week, child support would be dropped off to the mother in cash.  The mother is a lazy lazy woman.  She has a lot of physical health issues, but she has become an expert at playing the victim. She has been telling us that she only has 6 months to live for the last 7 years.  Which makes her the luckiest person on earth or a fantastically huge liar…don’t really know which, but I have my suspicions.

Because the kids lived with her growing up, the boys have caught this “my life is hard, so everything should be provided to me” attitude.  The daughter got pregnant early, which was actually the best thing that could have happened to her.  Expecting a child whipped her ass into shape nearly immediately, as she realized she would have to care for a support a child.

But the boys…well, not so much.  They are 26 and 21 and have no sense of responsibility.  They finally both got steady jobs about 6 months ago and we thought that things were finally on an upswing for them.

On our last visit we realized how wrong we were.

My oldest stepson “J” looked like a drug addict.  Terribly skinny, bad skin and an awful hollow look.  We tried to give him a lot of positive reinforcement regarding his job.  How proud we were of him.  How having this job will eventually provide him with benefits and opportunity for advancement.  How great it was that he was being so responsible.

A week ago the mother called hubby screaming that J doesn’t pay his rent (mother, J, and youngest stepson “K” all live together).  Again, an issue has been allowed to get so bad that all anyone can do is scream and demand that we “fix” it.  A conversation with J led us to believe that the mother is definitely living outside her means and that’s why she’s flipping out so badly, as he’s only $50 behind.  Hubby asked about the drugs and J told him that he smoked pot to keep himself from doing the harder stuff but he was working on stopping everything and working hard at his job.  We knew everything was far from perfect, but we hoped we were being told the truth by J and that he was, indeed, trying.

Until yesterday afternoon.

My stepdaughter “A” texted to ask if hubby was working.  He was, and I asked if she was ok.

Let me take a moment here to lament texting.  Pick up the fucking phone when something horrible is happening.  Seriously.  Talk to me.  It’s faster and easier and gets the process of dealing with whatever is happening moving much much faster.

ANYway…A texted that J has hit rock bottom and she has been trying to find a rehab to take him, but since he has no insurance, no one would take him.  I suppressed the urge to get pissed off that he STILL had not applied for medical assistance and that the mother’s insistence that she was helping him take care of it was obviously, at this point, a steaming pile of crap.

So, I called A to try to figure out what the hell is going on.  And I find out that J has been pawning the mother’s jewelry for drug money.  He sold his cell phone for drug money.  He uses his paychecks for drug money and pays no rent.  The straw that broke the camel’s back (meaning we were finally called in) was that J took K’s TV and the mother’s TV and was on his way to pawn them when he ran out of gas.  This is the only reason he was caught as A’s husband had to go get him.

She tells me that he is completely addicted to heroin.  He wants nothing else.  Although he is supposedly agreeable to going to treatment, but not interested in participating in figuring out how that’s going to happen.  A tells me that she’s been looking for rehabs for him for a couple weeks.

I tell her to let me see what I can do, and I’ll call her back.  Within 10 minutes, I have found a facility that will take him as an inpatient for detox and treatment using county funds while they help him apply for medical assistance.  10 minutes.  It took me 10 fucking minutes.  Yes, I have an advantage because I do know the sort of questions that need to be asked, but if someone had called me weeks ago, J would be almost done his treatment by now, not bottoming out.

Hubby got home from work at 1:00am this morning and I woke up when he came to bed.  I told him everything that had happened and what I had done to try to deal with it.  He’s appreciative of my efforts, pissed at the mother, and desperately worried about J.

I slept like shit, I’m so worried and anxious.  I’m walking around through an ambien hangover, because I didn’t get anywhere near enough sleep to allow it to process through my system.

It’s 6:40 now.  A is going to try to have J at the facility I found at 8 am this morning to try to get him admitted.  I’m praying that they have an available bed for him.

I’m at a loss.  We are 600 miles away.  The mother hates me (looong story) and cannot set it aside to deal with problems with the kids.  I think hubby is going to have to make the trip up there, but it’s going to depend on whether they can get him into treatment and then whether he is allowed visitors.  I would think that they may not during the first phase of treatment.

Hubby did say, and I conveyed to A via text (it was 1:30 am) that if J is unable to get into treatment, the mother is going to need to call the police regarding the stealing and force treatment in jail.  But, the mother never ever follows through.  Ever.  She just gives up because it’s too hard, even though we tell her over and over and over and over that we will help her.

I don’t know what this day is going to bring.  I hope that J agrees to go to treatment.  I hope that the treatment center has a bed for him.  I hope that if that doesn’t happen that the mother does call the police and have him arrested.  Sometimes jail is a good thing if it gets the person the help that they so desperately need.

This is one of those days where I’m lucky enough to have a therapy appointment during a crisis.

I’m taking all advice.  I’ve done everything that I know to do and if I should be doing something else, please tell me.