Unless you have been there and lost your child you cannot relate to this at all, as it is impossible to understand. No matter how you handled the situation, if your child died you will forever blame yourself for doing something wrong. My youngest son was hyperactive as a child. This was in the 60s and they had no labels for it then, nothing to do, but "cope" as I was told.  He did below average work in school in spite of testing  with a 178 IQ. We were military & were transferred to Washington DC when he was 16, and shortly afterwards realized he was drinking a lot. It was easy to get liquor there as we lived in VA & he’d stand outside the State stores & somebody always was willing to buy anything for him. He started school, but one day I got a call from one of his teachers telling me he never was there in spite of getting on the school daily. His drinking became more obvious by then and he was a total alcoholic without our even realizing how bad it had become at not yet 17. I took him to a psychologist who recommended he be hospitalized. He was placed in a psychiatric hospital in Georgetown, because at that time there were no rehab places as there now are. He actually enjoyed it there as there were other kids with drug/drinking problems too. He spent 10 mths. there because he used to walk out the door & go to Georgetown & come back drunk so he was kept. He was eventually transfered to a place in Victoria, TX where he spent another 7 mths. until he graduated from high school. He was doing very well by then, returned home, still saw a shrink in DC and was on Antabuse so he couldn’t drink. During all this time he was always depressed, and it was one of  the reasons he  drank…self medication. He was put on Lithium after he was back home. Our life was pretty decent and stable then, but we got transfered to Omaha , where he started going to another shrink and AA. I went to AlAnon, and things were still pretty good. Before we  left for Calif. after my husband retired from the military he had started drinking again, but not enough that we suspected it…mostly at home in his room. We returned to CA, but he couldn’t find an AA group he could relate to so quit going. We bought a beautiful new home where he even had his own bathroom. Things seemed pretty good, but one day he came home, I was watering plants & he sought me out, and I realized he was drunk again. I couldn’t deal with it, as had total burnout, and the thought he was drinking to get drunk  made me almost lose my mind. I called him a terrible name (which I regret to this day & will carry it to my grave), and he said to me "what mother calls her son that?"…indeed! I got in my car and drove all over the place for ages, so mad he had started on the drinking trail again and at what I had called him. Well, it didn’t go much further, as shortly thereafter he killed himself on his motorcycle at midnight..ran head on into another car with a blood alcohol of .04. We’d lived in our new house 10 weeks and he had been 21 only 6 weeks. We never spent another happy moment in that house and moved to another state a few yrs. later. His old shrink & I thought it was suicide as he was too smart to drive that drunk, and after his death I found a lot of writings about his sadness and depression. Tough love, or supporting your child can both result in the same result - death, if they are in a mental state where this helps them survive. You forever ask yourself what did I do wrong, what else could we have done to help him with this? There are no answers and you are forever left with the memories of your beloved child, his problems, and what if? It has been 29 yrs. and sometimes seems like just recently. I still miss him so much,and live with the tragedy of his life and death.

I am a daughter of an addict.  My brother is also an addict.  There is no shame or blame in letting them go.  To surivive emotionally and physically I had to cut my mother and brother out of my life.  Yes, I wait for that phone call to tell me they died, but I have already done my mourning while they were "alive."  I know when I do get that call, there will be a sence of relief and acceptance and I will move on.  I have forgiven my mother the years of abuse and neglect.

My brother is a different story..

My father won’t let my brother hit rock bottom.  It has been 15 years and I still deal with the calls from family "your bother whent bat shit crazy and hurt your father again…this time he went after him with a knife"… there is nothing I can do.  I have called the cops, dad just bails him out and refuses to press charges and gets our uncle, who’s a judge, to pull strings and everything disappears….  I moved away to save myself physically and emotionally…I ran away clear across the country.  Some days it’s not far enough…

4 private rhabs at $30,000 - none of them worked.

Just recently my addict brother called and told me he was in the hospital.  His kidneys and liver were failing.  I was sad.  But there was that part that was relieved, the nightmare was almost over he will die soon.  (I do not feel guilty and will not appologize about wishing he died) A couple of days later he was discharged - he had stabalized.    That night I get a call at 6am my time…. from home on the west coast where it’s only 3am.  It’s my addict brother calling me saying he is standing outside our father’s door and he want’s to kill him while he slept.    I had to talk him down…  I did.    I called my father soon after to wake up and call the cops…   My father did nothing and told me not to worry.  He sounded soul tired and annoyed.  He didn’t take it serously….   I went numb.   Right then and there I KNEW this nightmare is never going to end.

So, now every day I wait for a phone call.   But instead of waiting to hear about the deaths of my addict mother or my addict brother, I am now waiting for the call to notify me that my brother murdered my father…..

 I have already started to mourn my father as well. 

I don’t think for the most part sheltering someone is the best choice. I watched my grandmother do that for my uncle until age 20. In the long run, he still ended up in the state penitentary.

Hmmm. He did a lifetime’s worth of damage to his siblings, wife, children, and mom during those years.  I don’t think sheltering and enabling him was the best choice. True, he might have gone out and gotten himself killed, but it couldn’t have hurt those people any more than he did. In fact, had he been left to his own devices, he probably would have either gotten locked up or done in before he could marry or pro-create. 

It sounds callous, but his mom bailing him out of county jail, paying his debts, not calling the cops when he ran away, refusing to press charges on his forged checks, letting him live under her roof while she worked to pay the bills—-all those things didn’t help him at all. 

The problem is that we want a guarantee: promise me that if I let him hit rock bottom, he’ll bounce up, ready to live. 

Unfortunatly, no one can promise that. 

If the mother in the story dropped the ball, then it was years before when he first began to get wild. It was not when she kicked him to the curb. And who even knows about the past—perhaps she did all the right things even then, but he was buck wild. Perhaps he was wired for self-destruction by nature.