I'm Struggling Blades

Blades,

I'm struggling keeping it together tonight. My family is falling apart and it's tearing me up, and it all boils down to my sister being an addict. It's absolutely sickening. She wrecked her car today cause she nodded out at the wheel, and this is like her 6th accidet that my parents now have to pay to repair.

I've had the same car since I was 16 and not a single ticket or accidet. She is in college with her own apartment...that my parents pay for. I'm absolutely livid! She gets everything paid or and then goes and steals money from us?

God damn growthe fuck up. She doesn't have a job. She sits around and sleeps all the time. My parents are doing something drastic apparently.

I'm crying so heavily right now out of pure anger, and she's seen so many of her friends go down the wrong path and ruin their lives and she's had everything so fcking good. She came out of the closest in high school an that's when she started experimenting, but she grew up in a great household. Parents aren't divorced. No abuse. She does great in school and wanted to be a criminal justice major, but now it's all on hold. And from experience and statistics it's near impossible to recover sometimes.

Idk what to do blades, I don't want to support her cause she's a liar and manipulator, but I love my sister and I miss my relationship with her.

God damnit!

I'm not giving a TLDR, if your to heartless to read my post then I don't value your opinion anyhow.

Man that's some heavy stuff. :/ sounds like she needs a wake up call. I hope things turn around for you.

Yea dude me too. I often think to myself that my parents are going to exhaust all their resources on her and when it comes to me needing financial help for schooling there will be nothing left.

Either your parents need to cut her off or send her to rehad. Or a combo of both. If they really want to help, they actually need to take an interest in their daughter and not just turn a blind eye and act like everything is just normal

sorry man its hard to see loved ones go down the wrong road. and i could see why those things would piss you off. but sometimes theres nothing you can do to change things, and sometimes it even makes it worse. let it known that youll always be there.. most of the time thats all you can do!

Shit dude..... Sucks your stressed out about it but not much you can do but wait for the problem to solve itself and or cut her off all income which your not in authority to do. Maybe think about the worse problems affecting you and tell her how you feel maturely if she is unreasonable slap the ho okay man.

Blades,

I'm struggling keeping it together tonight. My family is falling apart and it's tearing me up, and it all boils down to my sister being an addict. It's absolutely sickening. She wrecked her car today cause she nodded out at the wheel, and this is like her 6th accidet that my parents now have to pay to repair.

I've had the same car since I was 16 and not a single ticket or accidet. She is in college with her own apartment...that my parents pay for. I'm absolutely livid! She gets everything paid or and then goes and steals money from us?

God damn growthe fuck up. She doesn't have a job. She sits around and sleeps all the time. My parents are doing something drastic apparently.

I'm crying so heavily right now out of pure anger, and she's seen so many of her friends go down the wrong path and ruin their lives and she's had everything so fcking good. She came out of the closest in high school an that's when she started experimenting, but she grew up in a great household. Parents aren't divorced. No abuse. She does great in school and wanted to be a criminal justice major, but now it's all on hold. And from experience and statistics it's near impossible to recover sometimes.

Idk what to do blades, I don't want to support her cause she's a liar and manipulator, but I love my sister and I miss my relationship with her.

God damnit!

I'm not giving a TLDR, if your to heartless to read my post then I don't value your opinion anyhow.

This happened to me, except me and my sis kinda had a fucked up childhood, parents were divorced, she tried killing herself, she also had a car when she was 16 and she always crashed, was (or is, idk about now) addicted to C and prescription pills, was intern in a (expensive) "psychiatrist clinic" more than once.
So i feel you, thats a tough thing to go thru, since a sister is pretty much the person you share the most with in your life (genetically and personally) and the person you love the most other than your mom, dad, and future kids.
My story with her didnt end up well, i mean i think (hope) she is doing well, she moved out of the country (dad is paying for it) and i think she is studying, but we dont talk to each other no more, which sucks because i love her to death, but i had to make some decisions at certain points that werent good to our relationship, but that were the best call i could make for her well-being.
Sometimes you have to be the bad guy to protect those you love.

Your parents need to cut her off so she learns responsibility ... How else will she learn it your parent can't buy it for her ..... I wish my parents had money to support me like that but then I wouldn't know how to do things for myself ..... If ur parents dont give her a wake up call she will eventually die .... Not to be mean but it's the truth ...

If the addiction is the strongest factor in this behaviour, then maybe a family intervention is in order. If the behaviour is more related to pre-existing personality traits... your parents cutting her off is a better step imo.

Confront her, and as everyone else said cut her of (financially, not emotionally). when i was about 15 and smoking pot my mum was a pussy about it and i continued to use. If my mum had put her foot down and kicked me out instead of sheltering me i would have been alot better off (but i am pretty inelegant so im doing ok)

Anyway your parents need to grow a spine and stop sheltering her if they want her to learn. You have to get her away from her drug using "friends" she is swirling down the drain with the rest of those druggies. put the plug back in bro. the plug of love.

(i realized after reading this that, i kind of said your sister is not inelegant, and that your parents are spineless. Dont take it the wrong way, i dont mean to offend, im just offering advice)

don't take it upon yourself to do anything about your sister dude, it will just eat you alive as she relapses time and time again... opiates are no joke, and a person will not and can not stop using them until it's what they want to do. It's hard to watch someone you love do that shit but it's even harder to wear yourself out by trying to help an addict

The only thing that works in this situation is tough love. Your family needs to cut her off financially, as do you.

By giving her anything, you are freeing up other monies for her to do unmentionables. Paying her rent, is actually putting drugs right into her mouth in this case.

Beg your parents to cut her off if you actually value her life. Because the more help she gets, the more drugs she does, and the closer to death she gets.

Not much you can do, addicts will only change if THEY want too, cutting her off can lead her to do things to get money (steal,prostitute herself, ect.) and putting her in rehab could help, but it could also make things worse.

Coming from a former addict who was in college at the peak of my use with my own place, shes gotta come home and be watched (No money, no phone, etc). It sounds extreme but I know I wouldnt of been good if my parents didnt do that for me. She also wants to have to get clean to or shes gunna relapse right after she comes outta rehab. Im at 1/2 a year clean now and still get cravings. Opiates are very very hard to quit and she needs as much support as she could get especially the first month.

Theres always hope man, if I could do it she definitely could.. Hopefully shes still just doin pills tho cause if shes shootin D its much harder. Also make sure she doesnt go to a clinic for suboxone or methadone. Its all a scam unless you use it for a week or less but every doctor ive been to said I needed it for the rest of my life which is a fucking scam.

HMU if you have any questions at all dude, the next month or 2s gunna be hard but after that it just get easier and easier, you literally fo insane during w/ds and wanna just drop dead.. Be there for her and let her smoke as much bud as she needs. Also if shes hanging out with other junkies shes gotta stop talking to them ASAP, she will relapse if she continues hanging out with them.

Edited by Thai, 16 May 2012 - 05:45 PM.

Hey man. I'm sorry you are going through a rough patch with your family. I hope your sister knows how much she is loved.

I was a heroin addict for awhile. I've been off dope about 1.5-2 years. Not completely though. I have had a couple of relapses. Luckily they have only lasted 1-3 days at the most and my family has never found out. I hope it never happens again, but I would feel really shitty promising. I was in school at the time i was really bad off and I had to come home. I just got my BA from another FL institution though, just graduated this spring, and I graduated high school in 2007 so I wasn't even very late!

Enough about me. I was just sharing that so you know that your sister CAN get better. I agree with the poster above. My parents bought me a car when I got a full ride to a FL school (which I was able to finish out at a different FL school). When I came home bc I was messed up on drugs, they took away the car. After I was sober about six months and employed for a couple months, they gave it back.

I agree with the above poster (Thai) except for the suboxone/methadone thing. If she is shooting heroin/pills, she may need it. I am still on it (but on a taper off, so I only take .325 of Subutex per day now), and I think that my couple of 1-3 day relapses would have been way worse if I wasn't. Some doctors do try and scam, but it is a priceless detox tool and some people just need opiate replacement therapy (if that is what she is on), because the brain needs help stabilizing after the withdrawal of the opiates.

Thai is right about hanging out with other junkies. She needs her family, she needs to get rid of her junkie friends. Somebody else has "taken me back out" each time. I don't say that to blame them, I just mean that once you are out of the game for a few months, you have no connections and if you are a white girl (like me) with no tracks, people will think you are a cop. So it takes another junkie to hook you back up into the scene. She should avoid that happening if she can.

So, to recap what I think, cutting her off is a HORRIBLE idea, but cutting her off of her car, phone, apartment (so she can move back home) and spare cash is a good idea. If she is ready to stop, and has her family by her side, it may be tough and she may relapse a couple times. Btw if she relapses once or twice, don't give up on her. In my experience, you can tell when someone just fucked up and made a bad decision one night, and when they are bullshitting and toeing the line until the heat goes away. So yeah, be there for her emotionally as much as you can.

With such a loving family, I think her chances are above average.

P.S. NA is a fucking scary ass thing. orange-papers.org check it out before/if you wanna check out an AA/NA meeting.

P.S. I agree with Thai about smoking weed. Some people may try and tell you that smoking weed will lead her back to using heroin the next day. Those people are 12 Step alarmists that should be avoided.

Well your parents are doing something wrong if they are still breast feeding her.

Only reason I mention the subs in such a negative manner is because the w/ds were 10x worse then powder.. Shit lasted a month I was literally hallucinating from no sleep. Stay clean and healthy brotha. Peace

Your parents are gonna have to cut her off. I know it's gonna hurt them to do so, but it's the only way. They can't just keep supporting her lifestyle, and paying for all of her expenses. She is hurting and manipulating your parents, along with you. Try to sit down with her, all of you, you, your parents and whoever else..and try to get her to consider rehab. I know it's gonna be hard, but your parents can't keep babying her because it's only gonna get worse.