[67drake]

Originally Posted by Cliff R

Your are absolutely correct, that's how it gets started an continues. I'm a doorstop, my wife is the enabler.

However, the words are easy to say but difficult if not near impossible to put in place, and your decision to kick them to the curb could pretty much ruin the rest of your life.

Case in point. One of my very best friends has (or had) the EXACT same scenario as we do. He finally got completely fed up with the BS, kicked his son out of the house and changed all the locks. He'd been dealing with the crap for close to 20 years. Shortly after his son did 6 months in prison for some drug charges. The day he was released his parents picked him up, took him down to a local hotel they had rented for him for a month,and gave him $200 cash.

My friend lined him up with a job cleaning up construction sites for a local contractor. He was to be picked up the next Monday in front of the hotel by the contractor for a ride to work. He didn't show up for his ride and disappeared.

Three days later they found him rolled up in a rug in a dumpster in Columbus, the death is a mystery and never been solved...........so much for "tough love"............

PS: I'll add here that I'm not on here to tell a sob story or anything of the sort. If anything I say can help someone else or if anyone has any answers I'm all ears. I'm out of ideas at this point.

That’s a horrible story and I feel for the parents, but THEY didn’t contribute to their sons death, he did it on his own. I’m not trying to be callous or cold, but people have to be responsible for their own decisions. Note I said be supportive and not judgmental, but from my experience it’s the first step towards them making it. Enabling just delays the outcome while making everyone else around them part of their drama.

[Scott65]

Originally Posted by 67drake

That’s a horrible story and I feel for the parents, but THEY didn’t contribute to their sons death, he did it on his own. I’m not trying to be callous or cold, but people have to be responsible for their own decisions. Note I said be supportive and not judgmental, but from my experience it’s the first step towards them making it. Enabling just delays the outcome while making everyone else around them part of their drama.

This mirrors my experience. My parents divorced over the divide between enabling and not enabling. In the end my brother died at 37 from an overdose. No one's fault but his own. No matter how needless, or sad, he chose his path.
The most profound way I've heard the advise to not enable was by a pro. He was a psychologist who'd personally battled alcoholism. He put it like this, "addiction cannot exist in a vacuum". FWIW