Is there a way you can find someone in recovery his own age? Relating peer to peer is sometimes much more helpful.

We intervened with mine. Didn't go well. He got ticked and walked out. When I approached him alone it was much better.

I waited for an opportunity to just say I love you and I'm glad we are close enough to have an honest conversation. I'm worried and I don't want to lose you. I know you don't like this life. I see you hate what you are doing to yourself. How can I help you.

Honestly I said this a million times. He said it was the only thing that worked for him. He said mom it was the non judging and not yelling that made me listen.

Who knows what the answers are. I do know this...no one could make an addict feel worse then they already do. They
Hate themselves. If you do an intervention it needs to be without lectures. It's a fine line.

If you need a peer you can call a local recovery group or program and ask for one.

Interventions that work, as far as I know, are ones where you are very prepared with a concrete plan for what you want him to do right away and with serious consequences if he doesn't do it.

Just be ready for a walk-out and to follow through immediately on whatever consequences you have planned if he does not get help. Decide in advance - will you continue to pay for a phone? Health insurance? Can he take things from your home as he leaves if he does not take help (if he lives with you)? Do you have some real options that he can start right away for treatment? Do you have the number of a locksmith so you can change the locks? Does he know any of your personal codes or passwords? Are siblings on board? Does he have any sources of funds that you control? Can you shut them down immediately?

Be aware he will be amazingly great and creative in the ways he tears down your plan! If he is at all violent be ready for that. You may have to call 911 and have a decision ready about bailing him out. If he is destructive, he will be then. If he is self-destructive be ready to intervene or for threats of self-injury.

The great part is you get to choose the time so try not to rush it. Choose a time when you are ready with his bag packed so he can go to treatment, or get out and stay out until he is ready for it. This sounds strange to consider but I really recommend choosing early summer. If he has to be on the street for a while you will feel better knowing it isn't snowing and you have a few months before it gets cold. I also recommend morning so he doesn't storm off into the night.

If he says yes and backs out - consequences start immediately. He will likely choose to back out at 4am when you are tired and weak :) so be ready to throw his bag out the door and go back to bed. It is also good to know exactly how long you will offer the help - is this a program that will hold a spot? What will you do if the spot is lost and he decides 3 weeks later to go?

Oh boy do I feel for you! He is SO LUCKY you care enough to do this. He won't tell you that, so I will.

Thank you both for taking the time to lend your wisdom. I probably should have included a little more detail in my initial post. Just so you have a better idea where we are in all this:

~ Our son {I'll call him "A"} is 27

~ He does not live at home and hasn't for many years

~ He has just been given notice by his current landlord
that he has to be out in 2 weeks

~ He just got "laid off" from his job - again - for not showing up

~ We have tried to get him into rehab in the past, the latest
attempt being last November when everything was in place
at a local facility, only to have him back out at the 11th hour

~ We repeatedly tell him how much we love him, how valuable
he is as a human being, regardless of his addictions, and
that we will do anything within our means to help him, with
the exceptions of giving him money or any financial aid, or
allowing him to move in with us

~ He is not on any of our insurance policies, nor do we pay any
of his bills, including cell phone {we support him in no way
financially}

~ Because he has state insurance, we could not simply whisk
him off to a rehab center on the spot if we stage an
intervention

We fully realize that a staged, formal intervention likely would not result in an instant commitment to enter rehab, and due to the fact he has state insurance, immediate entry wouldn't even be a possibility. It could take anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of months to find an available bed.

At present, my husband is not sure that a staged intervention would be the best option. He feels that it would only antagonize our son and exacerbate the situation. The only reason we were considering it is because it's the only thing we haven't tried yet. My husband feels that it would be more beneficial to just continue reminding him that we love him, we're here for him, and we desperately want him to get help, and wait for him to come to the end of himself.

We constantly tell him that he has too many gifts, talents, and skills to just throw his life away like this. We tell him that nothing he could ever do would cause us to love him less, including addiction. We tell him that if we could, we'd take his addiction upon ourselves so he could be free from it once and for all. But, we also remind him that financial support is out of the question.

Our communication with him is intermittent...an occasional reply to a Facebook private message or phone call.

My last conversation with "A" was this past Monday. He was complaining about losing his job, his home, and his girlfriend breaking up with him, etc. It's always someone else's fault and the drugs have nothing to do with it, he says. He often says he might as well kill himself because his life will always be s**t. Lots of manipulating, lots of attempts to play on our sympathy. We've been through all of these mind games before with our older son who has now been clean for 2 years.

As far as someone in recovery his own age, there are many, but none he knows personally. He claims that everyone he knows that has been to rehab has relapsed, some several times. He figures it's pointless to go to rehab when he'll just relapse anyway. I told him that if he goes and relapses, then he'll just start again...and again and again if necessary. I also told him that if he goes and relapses, he'll still be a little further ahead than if he never tried at all. He'll still have acquired some new knowledge and skills that will move him forward instead of backward. He doesn't want to hear any of it.

He especially doesn't want to hear anything about God. As devout Christians, that's a little difficult for us. The Lord is an intrinsic part of every aspect of our lives. "A" is so angry at God and convinced that God is evil and that his life is a mess because it's God's fault for allowing it to happen. We try not to pound him with it, but we do let him know there are a host of Believers actively praying for him. Of course, his response is, "You see what good your God and your prayers are doing. My life is s**t." When I gave him a different perspective {he now has no job, no girlfriend, and in 2 weeks, no home so it's the perfect time to enter rehab}, he totally shuts me down.

I guess what I'm looking for is direction. The current question is, should we or shouldn't we pursue a staged, formal intervention? I suppose maybe there's no right or wrong answer. Just trying to find our way.

Thanks for this clarification. After reading this, I think an intervention is likely not to have an impact. If you think it would feel good to know you tried and the info was there for him, I might consider it. I have found that offers of love are not accepted when a child is using his addict brain. So it is good to keep in mind how much rejection you feel you can take. Love will absolutely NOT influence him to stop. It never will. It is not relevant to him. Many addicts avoid treatment because of its reliance on a "higher power" so while faith is important in one's life, developing a sense of it takes some sober time - sober time does not come from faith.

I guess my depressing view :( is that love and faith won't work. They are still important and worth sharing but they will never ever work when talking to an addict brain. He will need to face his inability to cope. That generally happens when all of a person's safety nets have been pulled or burned out from under him. If your love is a safety net, you may want to stop offering evidence of it.

I have found that helping my son get and then stay sober has felt like a brutal act. I have had to ignore my better self and my natural instincts to fight this disease. But it can't be helped because he is still not out of his addict thinking.

I'm told you need 24 months sober before thinking really changes. I wonder if we will ever get there? He is still blaming others, looking for short cuts around emotional challenges, running from himself. I weep when I think of it and of how bewildered his young self would be at the thought of what his life has come to. I pray for him. I love him fiercely. But I share as little of that as I can bear to. I tell him I love him for MYSELF. Not for him.

When I express love for him he cannot handle it. He is just as likely to threaten to hurt himself, express rage at me, or do something else that injures himself like yell at his boss and get fired as he is to accept my love with grace. When I am tough - when I say "no" to any request, when I simply leave the room when he is at all unpleasant, when I hang up on him with no warning, he toes the line, does some dishes, and goes to work - even at the times he does not live with me. I HATE this. But it is my lot and knowing it makes me a better parent to the child I have - not the child I thought I would have.

I will pray for you. I hope you are well and have some peace.

We did and paid 4,000 for a professional interventionist top work with us. Its pretty much what you see on tv. There are specific guidelines.

It's a 3 part letter from each attendee to the addict. I'll do my best to explain but having a god there with you is best. First off all participants must be willing to follow through with part 3 of the letter. If they can't, they shouldn't attend.

Part 1 is the I love you's happy times and memories.

Part 2 this is how I've seen drugs negatively impact your life

Part 3 if you don't take the help we're offering today, this is what I'm going to do. That 3rd part is the crucial one. Your telling them that you will not help them in any way with their addiction. You will not give them money, pay bills, or give them a place to live. You can add to that list. You might be willing to turn them into the police, take their car, but allow them tosee younger siblings etc...

When an intervention is done, the idea is to have rehab ready to go at the end. When they say yes, you are supposed to be ready to scoop them up and get them right over to rehab.

We had a great interventionist who spent the evening before going over all of our letters and showing us what needed tweeking. He was tough and prepared us for every possible outcome including my son taking off in the middle of it.

I wish you luck. It worked for my son. Although he relapsed 6 months later. He knew just how far we were willing to go. He's now 2 years sober.

Have a *pro there not God lol
*not allowing them to see siblings

Corrections

Thank you all for your input...I value each of your experiences more than you could ever know.

missmaple, I'm in awe of your strength. We have very little contact with our actively addicted son, yet completely cutting communication is where I'm struggling. Somehow - and maybe it is as you said, for myself and not for him - I just can't seem to grasp the concept of not letting him know we love him and are here for him when he's ready for help. Our older son, now 2 years clean, has advised us to completely cut off communication of any kind, as has a close friend of his {also a recovering addict clean 17 months}. They have both told us that, having been addicts, they know all the tricks of the trade and that even limited communication is a tool of manipulation addicts use.

Our recovering addict son has also reminded me what happens on those rare occasions I do speak with our actively addicted son. Often times, I have a major emotional meltdown which finds me crying for days on end. I'm gripped with fear, dreading a phone call from the police chaplain to inform us he's dead; fearing he'll have a serious car accident and kill some innocent person; fear he'll overdose and be an invalid for whatever is left of his wrecked life.

Daily living has become an intense challenge for both my husband and me. Waking up in the wee hours of the morning with our thoughts flooded with frightening images of our prodigal son, we just lie there...praying, crying, wishing, lamenting. Is there any more painful existence for a parent than that of watching your own child destroyed via self-inflicted addiction?

I agree and understand about the addicted brain. It's impossible to be rational or logical with an addict. Even if they're sober at the moment, their brains are still under the influence of the profound chemical changes that have taken place. Our addict son also struggles with severe clinical depression. Sadly, he started drinking and using drugs to self medicate before his depression was ever stabilized. He's dealing with a dual-diagnosis, a double-whammy. And so are we.

We are in so much emotional pain so much of the time. Some days, life is barely tolerable. We struggle to release the fear and our lost son completely to God's care, as we know only He can rescue him, but it's so, so hard.

I thank you for your precious prayers and for your gentle guidance.

missmaple, you also mentioned your son, now clean, and if he'll ever "get there". I believe the answer is YES, but it does indeed take a lot more time than you may think it should. We saw this in our older son. When he came out of rehab, we assumed the rest of his life would immediately fall into place. Not so. It was many, many months before we began to see him moving forward....getting a job, attempting to be self-supporting, maturing, etc.

We have learned that the addict not only ceases to mature when they begin using, they actually digress. Our recovering addict son was 28 when he went into rehab two years ago. He had the mentality of a 17-year-old when he started, and it was a good year and a half before we started to see an adult emerging. It was very frustrating for us, to say the least.

During this time, I read the book "Everything Changes" by Beverly Conyers {http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Changes-Families-Recovering-Addicts/dp/1592856977/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1457367484&sr=1-1&keywords=everything+changes+beverly+conyers}. Ms. Conyers wrote this book after her addicted adult daughter got clean but failed to mature and thrive.

This book helped me to understand the profound changes in mental functioning that had taken place in our son during all his years of addiction, and the fact that it can take years for the brain to fully recover and begin functioning normally. It encouraged me that eventually our son would mature into adulthood. He is now two years clean, and we have just started seeing true maturity beginning within the last few months.

The one thing loved ones of recovering addicts are not prepared for is the amount of time it takes for someone in recovery to heal completely. Our expectations were way beyond what our son was capable of, and it caused unnecessary friction between us. It also discouraged him in his recovery. We had to learn to develop a new measure of patience while we waited for normalcy to return to him.

If you haven't already read "Everything Changes", I highly recommend that you do. It may give you a fresh perspective and much-needed encouragement.

UPDATE: "A" moved out of his rental last night. He stopped by to stash some of his belongings at our house. He was on his way to surrender his dog to Animal Control, then on to his next "flop house". The only thing he has left is his car, which is ready to fall apart. He actually had the gall to ask me for $6 so he could go by cigarettes after telling me he hasn't eaten in two days.

He looks horrible. Who is this person that has taken over my once-lively son??? A gifted musician, he no longer finds joy in his music. No joy in anything. Except being high.

Oh, Lord, how much longer? When will You rescue our lost son??? My heart breaks.

I so feel your pain. I found my 28 year old son dead early morning on January 4 this year. He too had lost all joy in anything and everything, including his music. He too was a talented musician, self taught. All of his instruments slowly disappeared over the last 6-8 months of his life. Nothing brought him any happiness except his next "high" which he chased with a vengeance. It is so heartbreaking, yet so "untouchable" because they live their own life in their own way. I hope and pray that he is able to overcome this horrible addiction. My thoughts are with you and yours.

Susan...I'm so, so sorry about your son. I know that surely, this is the greatest loss a parent could ever suffer. Our son also gradually sold or pawned his equipment - instruments, recording equipment, etc. - over the past several months. The external hard drive to his computer which held everything he'd ever written was stolen while living in a drug house.

All I can do anymore is cry.

My husband said to me one morning at breakfast, "I've been thinking...maybe we should take out a life insurance police on "A". He's going to end up dead and we won't have the means to bury him."

For months...years...we've been grieving the loss of our son...almost as if he's already gone. In so many ways, he is.

Mom,
I'm NEVER for
Cutting off communication. It's just my opinion that my last words to someone I love won't be never call me again Til you get it together. There is ALWAYS hope. He seems at pretty rock bottom. If it were my son I would just keep saying you will be there to support him in rehab. He doesn't seem violent. That's when I would cut loose. You are doing everything right. No money no shelter. Usually most give into help at that point.

My son was cut off to where it was help or homeless and broke. He took rehab. He's relapsed a couple of times. The thing that I find difficult in cutting him off is if his parents give up hope why shouldn't he.

I've cried myself to sleep for many
Many years. I've prayed at all hours of the night when I bolted up from a deep sleep. But I've NEVER just given up hope.

There are no answers to what works. Some make it (small percent) and a lot don't. I think in some ways we slowly prepare ourselves for the worst.

Sending love and prayers.

Hi
Yes I've done an intervention; I hired a professional and it really helped. He was in control of the process, had us write letters (told us how t write them). Most that do interventions, are recovering substance users, so they can relate to the people they are helping. It was very scary to do, you have to sneak around in terms of getting them there, but it was so very powerful. They have a good success rate in getting people into treatment (again if they are qualified). The interventionist, will arrange for a treatment centre and will take them right to treatment, there is a however, though. People who go into treatment because of an intervention have more difficulty with the treatment process, because they didn't choose that they wanted to get clean. But I was desperate and glad he went to treatment. Not sure what it costs, but it was about $3,400 for me...I don't know what they cost in other areas.