My Mother's a Hardcore Drug Addict (meth, heroin, and everything else). What the Heck Do We Do?

Well, she's already been imprisoned twice for felonies related to drugs. I definitely don't want to see her serve a life sentence. I know that AA is a really crappy program. In fact, almost everyone that she does drugs with, presently, she met in AA.

Also, the stats I took from the studies I found during my educational career in psychology showed that relapse rates were higher for people that completed AA than for people who had no treatment. Anyway, I just don't want to get into that argument.

Here's my specific problem: my Mom does NOT want to clean up. Her dependency goes up and down with her mood. Right now it's at a high point. She will not accept medications to take away the effects of the drugs she abuses and remove the come-down symptoms. She cries and whines and complains, so much. She could probably come down with methadone, but from what I have seen, she just abuses that stuff when she gets it at the clinic.

She tells me all about her behaviors and what she is doing. It is disgusting, but I am the only link she has to the family, it seems. Nobody would know what was going on with her or if she was alright if someone didn't listen to her talking about guys abusing her, constantly being high, always fighting, etc.

Like I said above, she's twice a felon. If I had the choice, I'd rather be dead than imprisoned, and prison rehabilitation has failed her twice, anyway, of course. It just looks like she wants to live a fast live and die hard.

Maybe we will get lucky, and she will just be the crazy lady in the nursing home. The real handfuls are the retired drug addicts that go in at a young age. On the other hand, maybe she will kill herself. She has already overdosed almost to death on multiple occasions. "Life saved by friends," They say. But I have many reasons to believe that the one who saved her may have been the one who poisoned her. She has also wandered into traffic a few times.

I am beginning to believe that some diseases are incurable and some desires are indestructible. It's disappointing because I have seen a lot of success around me. I had a lesser trouble with addiction. My brother had a similar one. I have had many friends overcome their addictions with controlled use and, less often, abstinence.

They did this with the support of the community. This is something that a double felon retired drug addict does not have. She has reached out to a few people, a few times. I wish they would all recognize the cries for help and reach back.

I am pretty strapped for cash, these days, also. I do have some people that would sponsor certain efforts, I believe. My dad offered to do things. He just said that she had to be willing to accept them. So, therein lies the problem. She will not accept help. So, he will not help pay. I am barely making ends meet, but I would be willing to further restrict my food budget, kill a few bills, dip into savings....

Answer

The short to answer to what you can do about your mother is not a lot unfortunately - not until she's ready to want to at least quit her addiction.

Because the crux of overcoming an addiction rests entirely with the addict. You can't just take on a passive role, swallow some pill and be cured like with other diseases. You have to actively work at achieving sobriety ... and then work even harder at maintaining that.

Addiction is multi-faceted - it destroys you mentally, spiritually and physically - so to ever recover successfully means a lot of change and growth has to happen on all those levels. And those are things the individual addict is entirely responsible for.

Your Mom's case does seem extreme. And the sad reality is that in some cases an addict is beyond help because they have no real desire to change. I hope that's not the case with your Mom, but you just don't know what that trigger is that will make her go, 'hang on, I can't do this anymore.' Or even if there is anything that will trigger that for her.

Have you tried doing an intervention yet? That can be a very effective method to get a person into treatment, but it won't work on everyone. We used it on my Mom ... and it worked, so can be very powerful if done correctly.

In extreme cases, some people choose to cut the addict loose, and hope that by doing so they'll reach their rock bottom sooner. The bottom line though is that until your Mom wants sobriety for herself ... and is then willing to get help and do what is necessary to get clean and stay that way ... there is not a lot you or anyone else can do to help her.

The insanity of addiction is a terrible thing to have to experience ... especially because as loved one's we're so helpless. In some cases all that is left for you to do unfortunately is pray and hope that something eventually changes.

Sorry I don't have any better suggestions, but unfortunately often when dealing with addiction in a loved one, there isn't a lot you can do.

Best of Luck and Take Care.

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