Snippy, I don't mean to sound heartless, but you're stuck with people only if you let yourself be stuck with them.

Pinky lived with us on and off for many years, first with one kid, then two, then the third. Every single time she started using we threw her and her kids out. She ALWAYS found a way to survive - usually, she would sign up for a rehab that never worked.

Finally, she was living with yet another sugar daddy when she went out to party with yet another sugar daddy for the weekend. The first called us and told us he had to go to work, could we take the three kids. And that's when we said "enough is enough" and got custody.

Over the next few years fewer and fewer people tried to "help" Pinky as they, too, had enough. At one point she was on the streets and she says something clicked. She's been as straight as we've ever seen her for almost two years now (as far as we know), and takes care of the kids every weekend.

She says that she actually credits our "tough love" for getting her to straighten out. It could be - her cousins, whose mother continues to give them a place to live, etc., are still deep in their addictions and will probably die that way.

No you are not heartless and believe me I understand and he has made great improvement but there is always just that one lingering bit that keeps hanging. if he continues in the treatment he is in for two years then they will train him as a counselor but i'll be dead by then. i want him to finish his on the job work training program find a job which around here there are none . I even thought about making him apply for public housing but that would put him in a better place to choose the wrong friends.

I was in your situation once. DD was living with me with her child. I had been given custody at birth, then gave DD custody back while she was living with me so she could go to a long term drug treatment center for mothers with their children. Of course the morning she was to go she refused. So, even though her living with me became an unspeakable horror, I continued to allow her to live with me because of the child. Eventually I was forced to make her leave despite my fears for the child. Within 2 weeks she was leaving GD with me more and more, and I shortly regained custody. Now DD only has supervised visits, but DD is mostly out of our lives which is the best for everyone, including DD. She has straightened out some, although I have now accepted she will never be "normal". These drug addicts are experts at using the good will of others for their benefit and move on to another caretaker when the previous one is "used up". Don't allow your fears to control your actions because that usually isn't the best for all involved.

I agree with Sara and Maya......we also had our son and his ex wife and all 4 (or 5) gc in and out of our house for years. Fear also ruled our decisions because we did not want the kids on the street. 2 yrs ago it became unbearable to allow the adults to stay. We did lose our 2 youngest gc for a very short time but bio mom brought them back because they got in her way of partying. We have the 4 gc now and while it is hard, it is so much easier than having the drama the adults were always creating. You will always love your son, but you can't help him change...only he can do that for himself and unfortunately that does not happen very often.

Son actually went and made appointment with his counselor for Thursday for he and I to see if we can air some of this out cause we can't on our own. I can hardly speak to him or look at him. This is a good step cause he has always been a private person he said but I think he is just darn sneaky. If you don't know everything you don't know what I'm doing, but I peg him every time. Will let you know how it goes.

Your comment about graves disease puts a different light on what we might suggest. Perhaps the counselor can help you seek housing for your son where there will be supervision. I don't know all of the effects of this disease but I do believe many people are criticized for their behavior when due to medical issues they may not be able to control their behavior.

Graves is an auto-immune disease that attacks the thyroid, both of us have it however in most areas i handle it. i realize most of the times when i get stupid its the graves causing my brain not to work right so i try and calm down and think different but not him he just goes with the flow.

Your story is identical to mine! I was the "badguy" and my husband befriended our son for many years. Our grandchildren would come here for visits since our son lived here. He had children by two different women, and a five year history of drug use, then got help, but never went to actual therapy/counseling. He went on to marry a girl that is severe bi-polar, narcissistic personality disorder, they have a child together.
She has managed to completely turn him against his entire family. The only one he speaks to is our daughter, and his dad on rare occasions. The huge prob is that his wife has caused probs with the other childrens mothers and myself when there weren't any prob before. I managed to repair one relationship and we are now seeing that grandchild again (after an almost 2 year separation/alienation from her due to my sons wife) Right now she is controlling the other mother of our grandchildren and we haven't been allowed to see them now for 8 months! After we practically raised those children in our home when our son was living with us! This is mental abuse to the children, not to mention what is does to the grandparents and the rest of the extended family when this happens.
My husband and I have finally come to terms with this and have learned to let him go. The turmoil he was causing in our daily lives was getting to the point that we didn't care if we saw the sun come up the next morning. We feared the phone ringing or a text coming through for fear of what his wife "said" that we had done this time! Although she would invent something even if we hadn't spoke to anyone, used the phone or anything all day, she'd have him believing the worse in us so we had to put a stop to it by stopping the communication. It was a hard thing to do but for the sake of our sanity we had no choice.
We are moving forward with a court battle though. We have the right, since these children were practically raised in our home, to fight for at least visitation rights, possibly more.
Here is a site that can give a lot of hope to many Grandparents out there going through the same situation as we are. It's called Alienated Grandparents Anonymous, Inc. www.aga-fl.org and there are at least 35 other states who have formed a Strategic Alliance with them so you can possibly locate a support group in your home state. If you would like more information on this please go to this web site, it's full of documents, links, etc. Here is a link to the Ecumenical Panel for AGA where the clergy met and dicussed how alienation affects the family, it's also very interesting, get your notebooks/pens ready to take notes! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo0sq0L6rIg
I hope these links helps someone. May God be with us as we are there for our Grandbabies! :)

AGA KY