A) He will only accept help if he is ready
B) Never give him money, feed him, clothe him, etc.
C) Get him into Rehab and Narcotics Anonymous
Hello...what?!
If you give an addict money, he is going to spend it on his addiction.
That is the only thing that matters to an addict. If he doesn’t dose, he is going to get very sick, and that consequence trumps all other consequences.
The truth of the matter is that he is the only one who can help himself. No one else can, except for God, and the way that God can help him is to give him the strength to help himself.
He has to love himself enough and love his life enough to muster the strength and will unlock the chains he wound around himself. He must then walk away from the chains and never look back, or he will return to them and bind himself in them again.
And that is very serious for heroin users, because what often happens is that after X amount of time sober, they may fall back just once, and give themselves the dose that they remember doing last, and with no tolerance, it kills them.
If he does not love himself and his life enough to release himself from the prison that he built, he will be consumed by his addiction.
You can’t save him, no matter how much you may want to.
Tell him this.
You are going to love that nephew to death
I am sorry for your loss. It is heart breaking.
The sad truth is most never recover. At some point the natural consequences of all his decisions and actions are his. He will spend that five and much much more before he changes. There is nothing YOU can do. For your own sanity I highly recommend getting into some family support group such as alanon or naranon for your own sanity.
This is not your battle. You have nothing to offer your nephew in the way of experience, strength, or hope. All you can do is muck up what might be his bottom by helping him out.
Shed your tears. Pray for him. Let him walk his own path of pain.
Sorry to hear about your son. Opiates are a very tough addiction to kick if not impossible.
Do what you can for your nephew but DO NOT become his enabler, ever. Codependence is insidious.
He needs to get into treatment and make that decision to do so himself. He needs to experience the consequences of his addiction himself. An addict will look to transfer those consequences on to others at the first opportunity.
You will not love him into treatment.
Do not bring it into your family again. Your responsibility is to them first. You are still mourning the loss of your son and are very vulnerable to someone like this.
I’m speaking from experience.
Best of luck to you.
I dont have any advice. Addiction to heroin is terrible. I’m very sorry for your loss.
While I was in college, I had a very good friend who was absolutely brilliant in his field of study and a great guy. I watched him in less than a year go from a casual drug user to full blown junkie. Meth, coke, herion and acid.
His family tried to convince him to go into treatment, I tried to convince him to go to treatment, and he refused, he cut all of us out of his life.
At the time, I had an extra room in my house and we secured the room by boarding up the windows, emptying the room and securing the door.
Another friend had a van and we went looking for him one night and found him walking on a street where drugs could be scored.
We grabbed him off the street, tossed him in the van, handcuffed him and tied up his feet.
We took him back to house, placed him in the empty room and let him detox.
He screamed for days, ripped the Sheetrock off the walls.
To feed him we would open the door, shine a spotlight in his face and enter the room. We gave him a bucket to go to the bathroom. He did not always use the bucket.
It took three weeks for him to even talk to use, a week later he agreed to treatment.
Today he is clean, has a family and is an architect with his work in AD.
It worked. We saved his life.
I wish it were possible to lock away addicts for 6 months in comfortable cells. I think that’s the only way to help the addicts who are too weak to break the habit themselves.
Lock them away and let them watch tv and eat good food.
Second he will need an ID, to get help he needs. However if he's not ready to accept help, it will be a waste of time.
For the record, I'm an alcolalic, with six years of being clean and sober and went to a lot of group meetings with opioid addicts.
Not knowing where you are in the State,not sure where you can go to get him help?
Dude. I am a recovered addict. Contact me by Freepmail. We can share phone numbers. There’s a lot you have ZERO clue about. I can shed some light.
Allow me to offer a prayer for you and your family.
The name of Jesus is in our hearts because in his name there is peace. We believe in your name, who died on the cross and we in faith receive your endless love and boundless comfort. Please bless this family and their heart who in your sacrifice find themselves fighting pain.
We seek your blessing and guidance. That is all, that is enough.
He will most likely spend the 5$. You shouldn’t take it personally. He is an addict. I guarantee you he wishes he wasn’t. You need to go toalanon meetings to learn and understand families of addiction. You will definitely benefit as well.
What state is he in?
If you naively try to do this with merely the power of your love and your smarts and your will, you will fail and he will die. I am not being overly dramatic.
During the process of quitting booze many years ago, I came to know many young people who were addicted to opiates. Merely being involved with AA means I regularly hear the stories of relatives, sons, nephews dying of drugs.
The booze usually takes 10's of years to kill people. The drugs take a matter of a few years or less.
Getting a job is the least of his worries.
Your role is to do whatever you can to get him into serious help, but you are almost certainly not that help, other than facilitating him getting that help.
Get in touch with N.A. and/or a treatment facility (I would call Hazeldon,) tell them exactly what the situation is, and do whatever they tell you. Some of it may not seem to make sense to you, or it may seem extreme. It isn't.
I am very very sorry to hear about your son.
You said a couple time in your note "my thinking" and "my thought was" etc. This is not a put down: The addiction will not respond to your thinking, has no respect for your thinking, is bigger than your thinking, no matter how much love is in it.
You need advice from experts and to follow that advice.
Give him your love and your spiritual support, but leave this to experts when it comes to the drug and the addiction. If you don't, the statistical chances of recovery before death or for all purposes ruining his life are not not good at all. If the right people with the right expertise are brought into his life, he has a chance.
Here is Hazeldon's website - number is on the page you'll land on ... call them now ... Hazeldon.org 1·800·257·7810 and for the sake of your nephew just find a way to do what they tell you. I don't believe they will try to 'sell you' on Hazeldon itself - rather I think they will help you do whatever needs to be done first - probably they will recommend treatment - but there are many great treatment facilities.
If and when the time comes, it can be decided where he should go - I just refer you to Hazeldon because they know what they are talking about. There are a ton of resources available who know what this is all about. Tap into them and learn from them, do what they tell you, unless of course it goes against your ethics, which is unlikely. Get as much information as possible from people who know about this.
And ... none of this will amount to anything until he chooses it, but you can be ready, and you can support him towards it. Do not enable him with money or helping him get jobs etc. It's sad - unfair in a way - because they have no idea what they are getting into. To some extent - booze gives fair warning and is usually more gradual.
Summary: Get in touch now with people who know not just 'how horrible this disease is' ... but who actually know what can be done in the real world, what works, what doesn't, and how people who have actually made it through did it.
My good friend actually called the police, on her own daughter when she found heroin in her bedroom out in the open. This after she tried helping many other ways. It was what saved her. She’s been clean for 7 years. But, she WANTED to be clean. If they aren’t ready and don’t want it, absolutely nothing will help. Sorry for the loss of your son. I’ll pray for you to find guidance with your nephew.
Thank you for seeking counsel from the FR community. Every counsel here is sound and worth posting on the refrigerator with magnets.
Sorry to hear about a nephew who is suffering. I repeat the counsel given here: step aside, light a candle and pray that your nephew hits rock bottom in the street surrounded by homeless and concerned strangers who call the police. If the police ask you, “Is this your nephew? Can we take him in?” You say, “Yes, please do.” Then the nephew gets a record, a social worker and help. Then he will need al-anon 2x daily for one to seven years. Amazing people work at Salvation Army.
The best thing is to get them out of the local community before you dry them out. I they’re around people they know, they won’t say no.
Before you do anything go to a bookstore or a library and read some books on addiction. If you don’t you’ll be opening yourself up to a world of manipulation, financial destruction and you own set of mental problems.
Been there and done that. Get him into a good rehab program.
As you are well aware....they will only get help when they have hit rock bottom.
Until that time, you are best to keep a certain distance, lest they abuse your good will.
I have a brother who is an addict to anything. Heroin, Crack, Meth, Pot, nicotine, alcohol. If it gets you high, he’s all in. Squandered everything that ever belonged to my family on drugs. Over a half million dollars. He’s homeless, toothless, and worthless.
Best of luck, and stay safe.