Every family situation is different. Every individual is different. The only thing we can know for certain is that God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow and that He cares about you and your family. Pray for your son, for his healing, for his heart to be softened and receptive to God's love and forgiveness...keep your husband and yourself covered in prayer as well. remember His mercies are new each and every morning. Trust in God. You will know when you should reach out, but do so without any expectations other than God's Will to be done. Sometimes a simple note stating something like, "we love you. we miss you. and we will be here when you are ready" can leave the door opened enough so they know they are not rejected.

I don't know your situation, but I feel like maybe he's just going off by himself for a season to heal from what he's been through as an alcoholic. I don't think it's rejection towards you, just dealing with himself... unfortunately, in the process, wounded people wound people.

Praying for you.

Thank you so much for your replay. It is nice to find a place where others understand. We pray for him all the time and for us to know what God wants us to do. I guess just want to do something instead of nothing. But it was good to hear your thoughts about him healing. I had not thought of that.
He has a girlfriend that is only 17 and her Mom is VERY involved in their relationship. I have only seen them both a few times and do not know them. He has told be a lot of negative things about them both, so that makes it tough to stay open-minded. Her Mom is a drug-addict (he told me) so that is just a mess of a situation for all of them. I don't know if he is drinking and I don't ask- just pray that he is not.

I understand more now... The girlfriend and her mother is not a good mix to have in there. We will pray for a Romans 8:28 to come out of all of this.

I so understand what you mean when you say, "I want to do something..." If only we parents could fix everything, we would! Unfortunately, we cannot. It's so hard to watch our children make these choices.
I will keep you in prayer...

Christmas is a rough time for us.
XO

This is always a difficult question. After 4 years I still am burdened with it. It does seem to be different for each of our journeys. If an EC is reaching out with a right heart attitude it may be right to respond back in a loving not forceful way.

As far as an addiction problem which one of my sons also had (thankfully healed) we are also told at meetings to Let Go. In other words we are to Let Go and let our Adult child be accountable for their own actions and not enable them.

Letting Go and Letting God is hard but in the long run it is always best. God is able to do all things. God bless your son.

Thank you both for your prayers!!
In letting go should I wait for him to reach out to me personally? Or should I send him a text letting him know I love him? Not sure if it's better for me to wait for him. He has been living on his own for a year now and we really don't enable him. Except maybe we have been the ones to reach out and try to hold our relationship together. Maybe we should just "let that go" wait for him to make an effort? We are doing our traditional Christmas Eve, but Christmas Day we are getting out of town for a day or two- just can't sit hope and wait and then have him not even come over.
His girlfriend and her Mom are a huge part of the problem. She threatens to break-up with him all the time according to him. He tells me that that Mom has many problems but we all (including me) have to keep her happy or girlfriend will break-up with him. I have had apologize to hurting the Moms feelings or she would break-up with him, I should have said "let her break-up with you then". When he was in rehab the Mom wanted to be involved with all the family counseling, I nicely asked her to let my family handle it. That is what i had to apologize for. As it turned out my son added her to the family and they (girlfriend and Mom) had their own "family weekend" with him. They refused to come when his family came due to me asking them to stay out of it. His girlfriend told me that the way she saw it we all are family and I was just going to have to get use to that. They have been dating 8 months.

When my married ED went silent ... we thought something was wrong ... but we were mindful that perhaps they were having marital problems but we still wanted to stay in touch. So, after much counsel with my own mother and my siblings and close confidant friends, we came to the conclusion that only one of us would call her once per week and leave a message (as she would not pick up the phone) and tell her we loved her and missed her and wanted to make sure she was doing okay....
Two months of zero response, we finally called and left a message to let 'someone' know that she is still alive and okay ... or we would come check on her ... nothing, nada ....
We went to her apartment to check on her and she CALLED THE POLICE and stated that they 'feared for their life' and had been 'harrassed' day and night.
Essentially she blatantly lied to the police, called the police on us (I believe hoping we would 'lose it' and be taken away) ... and then through the police stated they wanted zero contact and if we ever contacted them again, they would file a restraining order!
She basically knew we were worried about her ... and she 'laid in wait' until we came to see about her just to create this drama so she could allege she had been harrassed.

So, because of my experience, I always say err on the side of caution and let them do the contacting ... but then again I have read many stories where the EC blames the parent because they 'never' call them ... or have breached some other 'unknown' expectation they had.

There is no mercy from these EC's ... they invent what they want to ... blame blame blame and I don't know that you can really completely protect yourself from whatever evil thing they scheme to do .... In the 5 1/2 years since this happened to me .... it has increased exponentially and I don't expect it to get better.

The society encourages meanness and if you don't like somebody or something somebody says ... the consensus is to 'cut them off' .... after bashing them on social media of course.

This is spiritual warfare plain and simple. Satan has deceived many and like it says in Matthew 24, the love of many will wax cold ... and it has. People are lovers of themselves and our EC's have fallen for the deceptions.

When we see and experience these things ... I guess it should be no surprise .... we are to look up and rejoice because the King is coming soon! In the meantime, we must do battle in prayer and leave the results to Him.

Mombrokenheart, so sorry for your pain. So much wisdom has been shared by the responses to your post- don't we have a wonderful group of kind-hearted, Christian women here? I think so, and I am so thankful for that. I always learn something even if the situation is different from mine.
Letting go has been SO hard for us also, but I do think it's in the EC's best interest. We have not had to deal with alcoholism, but I would say to listen to others who have been down that road. Unless there is risk of danger, I would agree with the others to keep the door open for communication, without pushing. As long as your ES knows you're there and knows your care, he will come back when he is ready.
I miss my daughter so much it physically hurts, but I have to say, I believe this time of letting go and her working things out on her own with God directly is very good for her and necessary.
Hang in there. Just take things one day at a time. You only have to answer to God for your decisions, so do not feel pressure from anyone or anything. God gives us the blessing of His peace.
Hugs :)

Thanks for all the encouragement I needed to hear the kind and God centered thoughts. I am sure that once the Christmas season is over my heart will settle down a bit. I will just keep giving it up to God on a daily basis until I get better at it. I know that God works all things for our good and I have to stand on what I believe. I think I will reach out to him with no expectations just me wanting to tell him I love him.