Hi Lyn:

There is no easy solution or tactic for that case.

I too have a troubled son who is now 43 and I still wait and pray for the day that I ever get the chance to "save" him from his self.

My suggestion is that we ( you ) must learn to detach, and that means to detach emotionally, so yes you still get to try to help your son and still get to hope and pray and even to intervene some times, but you must learn to completely detach your feelings and emotions from him and from the troubles and the complications.

To me detachment means that I keep living my own life and my son is kept as a sideline issue which never gets fixed or cured.

The opposite is the codependency of attachment where we try to control the crazy son and try to fix his problems and try to prevent the consequences from happening and get our own emotions attached to the other person.

Keep your self detached from the drama and let your son go.

You say that he might go to jail this week - and yet the Court might order him into rehab - so do not attach your self to any of it - and just deal with what ever happens as being his problem and make it as not your entanglement.

My affirmation is an old one - Let go and Let God.

Welcome here to this group.

My best suggestion is attending alanon
To help you learn how to detach and to
Self focus. Its a spiritual program of
Changing and growing. It would help
Just about Anyone.

I go myself and my ex has been dry for
30+ years yet we still had an alcoholic
marriage And it ended very badly.

Hugs and welcome to the group

I think it is healthier for ourselves to learn to detach with love and allow the other person to be in control of their lives. This means stopping the over giving and the control. Pushing your son into rehab is a control tactic, if I may be blunt. If he isn't doing it of his own free will, it likely "won't stick." He'll be marking time until he is free to use again. Your own health is suffering because you are enmeshed with his sickness. When do we start to love ourselves first? When does your emotional health come first, and your physical health? It is not wrong to save yourself first. You can't rescue him, only he can. And we sure can't rescue others if we are drowning ourselves. I second Al Anon or something similar. That is where I learned that my controlling behaviors made me as dysfunctional as my substance abusing loved one. I learned I could control how I thought and did things but not the loved one. It really changed my thinking and freed me to work on me and fix me. Best to you. It is very distressing to watch another person self implode.

Thank you! I’m going to follow your advice and try my best to detach myself. And I’m looking into meetings in my area. And I’ll continue with my self care. Your response means a lot.

Updating my post. No jail or no rehab. He was evicted from the extended stay motel. He has to be out tomorrow. He had the money and chose to rent a car and take his girlfriend and her kids to a fair and to the beach for the day. And is blaming me because I didn’t tell him the 25 year old to not do it. I kept telling him I was worried about his living arrangements. I guess that wasn’t enough. Today I accepted multiple calls and tried to direct him in things he could call . Eventually after many calls it got to me and I was crying and went to bed. It ruined my plans for the day. So I’m not doing to well on the road to recovery from codependency . I found a group starting next week. Detachment is going to take some time. I did good yesterday knowing this was coming. I started good. Tomorrow is the big day. Today was standing the ground to not give him money. Tomorrow if he doesn’t decide to do something he’s homeless. He’s asked me to pick up most of his stuff and bring backpack. I’m sure he’s counting on me caving in and paying for something. Not sure I should go. Any suggestions? Thanks

Here is a good article on detachment

Healthy detachment does not mean complete disengagement as other answers have suggested. It's just less ENTANGLED and dependent. It starts with the realization no matter how connected the relationship may be, people are still going to make their own choices for their own reasons.

What is detachment?
Detachment is the:
* Ability to allow people, places or things the freedom to be themselves.
* Holding back from the need to rescue, save or fix another person from being sick, dysfunctional or irrational.
* Giving another person "the space" to be his/her self.
* Disengaging from an over-enmeshed or dependent relationship with people.
* Willingness to accept that you cannot change or control a person, place or thing.
* Developing and maintaining of a safe, emotional distance from someone whom you have previously given a lot of power to affect your emotional outlook on life.
* Establishing of emotional boundaries between you and those people you have become overly enmeshed or dependent with in order that all of you might be able to develop your own sense of autonomy and independence.
* Process by which you are free to feel your own feelings when you see another person falter and fail and not be led by guilt to feel responsible for their failure or faltering.
* Ability to maintain an emotional bond of love, concern and caring without the negative results of rescuing, enabling, fixing or controlling.
* Placing of all things in life into a healthy, rational perspective and recognizing that there is a need to back away from the uncontrollable and unchangeable realities of life.
* Ability to exercise emotional self-protection and prevention so as not to experience greater emotional devastation from having hung on beyond a reasonable and rational point.
* Ability to let people you love and care for accept personal responsibility for their own actions and to practice tough love and not give in when they come to you to bail them out when their actions lead to failure or trouble for them.
* Ability to allow people to be who they "really are" rather than who you "want them to be."
* Ability to avoid being hurt, abused, taken advantage of by people who in the past have been overly dependent or enmeshed with you.

If you are unable to detach emotionally for physically from something or someone, then you are either profoundly under its control or it is under your control.

How to Develop Detachment
In order to become detached from a person, place or thing, you need to:

First: Establish emotional boundaries between you and the person, place or thing with whom you have become overly enmeshed or dependent on.

Second: Take back power over your feelings from persons, places or things which in the past you have given power to affect your emotional well-being.

Third: "Hand over" to your Higher Power the persons, places and things which you would like to see changed but which you cannot change on your own.

Fourth: Make a commitment to your personal recovery and self-health by admitting to yourself and your Higher Power that there is only one person you can change and that is yourself and that for your serenity you need to let go of the "need" to fix, change, rescue or heal other persons, places and things.

Fifth: Recognize that it is "sick" and "unhealthy" to believe that you have the power or control enough to fix, correct, change, heal or rescue another person, place or thing if they do not want to get better nor see a need to change.

Sixth: Recognize that you need to be healthy yourself and be "squeaky clean" and a "role model" of health in order for another to recognize that there is something "wrong" with them that needs changing.

Seventh: Continue to own your feelings as your responsibility and not blame others for the way you feel.

Eighth: Accept personal responsibility for your own unhealthy actions, feelings and thinking and cease looking for the persons, places or things you can blame for your unhealthiness.

Ninth: Accept that addicted fixing, rescuing, enabling are "sick" behaviors and strive to extinguish these behaviors in your relationship to persons, places and things.

Tenth: Accept that many people, places and things in your past and current life are "irrational," "unhealthy" and "toxic" influences in your life, label them honestly for what they truly are, and stop minimizing their negative impact in your life.

Eleventh: Reduce the impact of guilt and other irrational beliefs which impede your ability to develop detachment in your life.

Twelfth: Practice "letting go" of the need to correct, fix or make better the persons, places and things in life over which you have no control or power to change.

Steps in Developing Detachment
Step 1: It is important to first identify those people, places and things in your life from which you would be best to develop emotional detachment in order to retain your personal, physical, emotional and spiritual health. To do this you need to review the following types of toxic relationships and identify in your journal if any of the people, places or things in your life fit any of the following 20 categories.

Types of Toxic Relationships
* You find it hard to let go of because it is addictive.
* The other is emotionally unavailable to you.
* Coercive, threatening, intimidating to you.
* Punitive or abusive to you.
* Non-productive and non-reinforcing for you.
* Smothering you.
* Other is overly dependent on you.
* You are overly dependent on the other.
* Other has the power to impact your feelings about yourself.
* Relationship in which you are a chronic fixer, rescuer or enabler.
* Relationship in which your obligation and loyalty won't allow you to let go.
* Other appears helpless, lost and out of control.
* Other is self-destructive or suicidal.
* Other has an addictive disease.
* Relationship in which you are being manipulated and conned.
* When guilt is a major motivating factor preventing your letting go and detaching.
* Relationship in which you have a fantasy or dream that the other will come around and change to be what you want.
* Relationship in which you and the other are competitive for control.
* Relationship in which there is no forgiveness or forgetting and all past hurts are still brought up to hurt one another.
* Relationship in which your needs and wants are ignored.

Step 2: Once you have identified the persons, places and things you have a toxic relationship with, then you need to take each one individually and work through the following steps.

Step 3: Identify the irrational beliefs in the toxic relationship which prevent you from becoming detached. Address these beliefs and replace them with healthy, more rational ones.

Step 4: Identify all of the reasons why you are being hurt and your physical, emotional and spiritual health is being threatened by the relationship.

Step 5: Accept and admit to yourself that the other person, place or thing is "sick," dysfunctional or irrational, and that no matter what you say, do or demand you will not be able to control or change this reality. Accept that there is only one thing you can change in life and that is you. All others are the unchangeables in your life. Change your expectations that things will be better than what they really are. Hand these people, places or things over to your Higher Power and let go of the need to change them.

Step 6: Work out reasons why there is no need to feel guilt over letting go and being emotionally detached from this relationship and free yourself from guilt as you let go of the emotional "hooks" in the relationship.

Step 7: Affirm yourself as being a person who "deserves" healthy, wholesome, health-engendering relationships in your life. You are a good person and deserve healthy relationships, at home, work and in the community.

Step 8: Gain support for yourself as you begin to let go of your emotional enmeshment with these relationships.

Step 9: Continue to call upon your Higher Power for the strength to continue to let go and detach.

Step 10: Continue to give no person, place or thing the power to affect or impact your feelings about yourself.

Step 11: Continue to detach and let go and work at self-recovery and self-healing as this poem implies.

"Letting Go"
* To "let go" does not mean to stop caring; it means I can't do it for someone else.
* To "let go" is not to cut myself off; it's the realization I can't control another.
* To "let go" is not to enable, but to allow learning from natural consequences.
* To "let go" is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands.
* To "let go" is not to try to change or blame another; it's to make the most of myself.
* To "let go" is not to care for, but to care about.
* To "let go" is not to fix, but to be supportive.
* To "let go" is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.
* To "let go" is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes, but to allow others to affect their own destinies.
* To "let go" is not to be protective; it's to permit another to face reality.
* To "let go" is not to deny, but to accept.
* To "let go" is not to nag, scold or argue, but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
* To "let go" is not to criticize and regulate anybody, but to try to become what I dream I can be.
* To "let go" is not to adjust everything to my desires, but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.
* To "let go" is to not regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.
* To "let go" is to fear less and love myself more.

Step 12: If you still have problems detaching, then return to Step 1 and begin all over again.

Developing Detachment | LIVESTRONG.COM

Doesn’t look easy but I’m willing to try.

Yesterday I went and picked up my sons belongings. I stood my ground that he could not come home with me. After an exhausting day and lots of arguing I caved in after 8 hours and put him in a cheep hotel for night. I'm upset that I let this happen. I was not in a good place. I even had to pull off the highway to calm down. So today I came up with a plan. The word ACCEPTANCE brought me to this plan and it might help me work towards change in my life. Im still working on detachment. Thank you all for yours wise words.

Acceptance is a tough one and so
Is letting go. I found detaching from
My ex brutally hard to do. Its one day
To a time as we work on our recovery,
HUGS

There must be at least one homeless shelter in your area so that must be another option.

And if he needs a place to live or to stay then there in the in-house rehab places.

So your son has other options besides pestering his mommy.

I can not see why you would "pick up his belongings" because that would be his own highest priority and yet you did it for him, so that probably created the grounds for getting him a room.

I do not like any permanent ACCEPTANCE as if we must accept our adult child as lost forever, so my way is that my own son is still lost for now until some thing changes and that is my temporary ACCEPTANCE.

I just do not believe in totally giving up on any person.

There are homeless shelters that have waiting list near him. But there are other shelters I could take him to. Unfortunately, he doesn't want to go into a shelter or a rehab. Temporary acceptance is a good way to look at it. Hope has been the thing that has helped me get by all these years. I'm not giving up on my son. I will be here when he is ready to try something different. How
can I expect him to change if I cant change my ways. So I'll continue to work on my codependency. I will continue to love my son and try and let go.

You are doing great, awareness
And coming out of denial takes
Time.

A child is different than a spouse
They are yours forever regardless
Of their troubles.

You can pray for him to seek recovery.
Often addicts need to hit bottom first
To get humble enough to seek help.

Many of us codependents are not
Much different. I was on my Knees
when i entered the rooms of alanon,
hugs

I’m considering not taking my sons phone calls for a while so I can get stronger and focus on my own self care. Not sure if this is a good idea. And should I tell him? I’m planning on doing it at a time that would be easiest for me to do it. Which would be when he gets his disability. Is this wrong? I would have to block him on social media too. I know he could still contact me on my landline and through someone else’s phone. I just feel like I can’t take it anymore. I need to start living my own life again. Interested in others people views.

In alanon we don't try to fix or tell
anyone what to do. We offer our ESH
experience, strength and hope.

It would be best to keep Up with
your alanon meetings and do what’s
best for you.

There is a good book by dr henry
Cloud on “boundaries”. Plus we often
need To learn How to detach With
love from someone.

We can only fix and control ourselves
Not others. Firmly keeping the hula hoop
Around ourselves, HUGS

Greetings: I'm a newcomer to this group as well. Years ago I could have written your message when my 2 kids were "acting out" as teenagers. I used to tell people that I'd rather be in prison, for at least I'd be "free." What I meant was free of them. They were drinking and drugging and coming in at all hours (son was drinking and driving; my husband bought him a car). I had no one to turn to. My husband, their father, would just say "hell with them" and do nothing. I was always waiting for something bad to happen and wanted to run away myself. It was the hardest period of my life and it seemed to last forever.

I can tell you that things will get better, mainly because your son will get older. But in the meantime, it's a good idea to go to Al-anon, which I did. There are some groups just for parents, although I never found one at the time, but I know they exist today. At Al-anon, no one is "shocked" by your story, You will find someone (or many) who've been there. I heard someone say of her son, "He's heading for disaster but he's not going to take me with him." That was the key: separating yourself from his problems. Don't make them your problems. As they say in Al-anon: detach, with love. That sounds impossible but there is great strength and hope for you in just attempting it. Hold onto that idea of detachment because it will save your life. Good luck!