Dealing with some issues from close friends who use to live by us, years ago, in California. They moved away, to Nevada, to raise their kids. We stayed put until 9 years ago when we moved to the Pacific Northwest. We maintained contact with visits until life got in the way.

They have a daughter who chose drugs at 15 or so.
To feed her use, the crime of theft was used.

They called a few years ago asking to visit us, we said sure.

They showed with her in tow and a boyfriend, to boot, without so much as asking us if its was ok. Then they proceeded to almost double their stay, without asking once again.
We got through it and licked our wounds.

Upon return she was busted once again and sent to prison, again. She ripped off his (the dads) sisters house.
They defended her in court saying it was her boyfriend, and not her.

To prison she went.

About 2 years ago they found a house by us on the internet and asked if we could help in them buying it (not with money, but in lining up an agent, etc). We did, the daughter was in prison in Nevada, and they moved here to, as they put it, "Start over".

She came up for parole, he (the dad) went and promised the courts he was living in a better place, away from all the influences of her past, and said he wanted her to move here and he'd agree to her probation mandates. The judge granted it against the objection of family members with differing opines.

She is/was here now, same results, she has found her drugs. She rips off what she needs and only returns to steal again.
Our friends invite us in (advice) only to ignore our pleads.

Last night while have Thanksgiving with them he went and got her once again down at the ferry. She returned cranked to the max after telling them she had been in treatment since her last escape where she ripped them off.
Only this time she brought another person, a man they had never met, but one her daughter says, he (this new guy) wants to help her get clean. They introduced him to me, my wife, and son and I could tell he only came to get in on the booty.

We left, and since our calls and texting  go unanswered....

As you can tell, I need to back away from it, as my frustration is turning to anger, and of course that is never a good place to deal from.
Knowing that, I did some internet searching with the hope of getting a better understanding into my emotions, reactions, etc....
and came across this.

I'd love here some thoughts on this mans essay if you will.

BTW, I'm 10 years sober from drinking most of my life. I know the lies I told to keep in my booze. I now know I lied to myself as well. I know I can't change what I did. What I can do is live in the moment, for that is all I have. To do so requires I'm honest and open at all times. For if not, then darkness can slip back in without me evening knowing it, evil is that good!

raydog


____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
By Douglas Yeo
This column originally appeared in The Lexington Minuteman
September 26, 1996. © 1996 Douglas Yeo. All Rights Reserved.





It perhaps came as no surprise to most, but reasonable citizens likely shook their head in disbelief when, on September 10, they opened their Boston Globe to read the screaming headline, "Study: Parents expect teenagers to try drugs." What goes around comes around, I guess. Now that the pot smoking baby boomers of the 1960's and 70's have kids that are old enough to know better, their children are not only trying and using drugs but mom and dad are simply shrugging their shoulders as if it's not a big deal and they are powerless to stop it.

Drugs have been a hot topic even in our quiet little bedroom community. The alarm bells went off in January when the results of the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, given to students at Lexington High School in 1995, were reported. The numbers weren't just bad - they were catastrophic. 42% of LHS students admitted they had tried marijuana (lest we think this is no big deal, reports indicated that the pot sold on the streets today is 10 times stronger than that which Bill Clinton didn't inhale in the 60's), 10% have smoked pot on school property and a stunning 44% said someone had offered, sold or given them an illegal drug on school property in the last 12 months. This is not good.

Naturally there was the predictable call for more drug education in the schools. The mostly ineffective security guard at the high school has been replaced by a policeman and our new D.A.R.E. officer (a terrific guy, I hear) is now doing his thing in the elementary schools. But all of these interdictions are too little and too late. The real solution to the problem lies with parents, and that's why the new survey telling us that parents expect their kids to "do drugs" is so disturbing.

We have reached a true crisis in our society, one that is far more serious than alleged homophobia, historically revisionistic multi-cultural education and the curricular fiasco being foisted on our elementary school students called the University of Chicago math program. The real, significant crisis is the fact that so many parents today have given up being parents. They feel helpless, unable, or uninterested in actually parenting their children, or, in the ultimate misguided application of the PC twins "tolerance and diversity," they feel they have no "right" to interfere in their children's dysfunctional journey through puberty. Perplexed and paralyzed, many parents (two-thirds in the recent survey) simply feel they have no control over their children's inevitable experimentation with drugs and turn to the schools, police and courts to parent their children.

This is wrong.

What the Globe story, in its accent on the horrifyingly negative statistics, failed to mention was that the report showed clearly why kids who don't use drugs decline to smoke a joint when it's offered. Kids who don't use drugs: live in homes where religion is important, have an active, personally interactive family life, believe that using drugs is morally wrong and have a fear of the consequences should they get caught using drugs.

Alas, many parents feel that inculcating these important virtues in their children is either not possible or not permissible, as our PC police (beginning with First Lady Hilary Rodham Clinton) are more interested in promoting the "rights" of children over teaching them what is "right." Digby Anderson, in his insightful introduction to This Will Hurt: The Restoration of Virtue and Civic Order, comments, "Older societies were not afraid to discuss and use conscience, guilt, pain, shame, ostracism, degradation, ridicule, stigma, authority, example, approbation, and uniformity to make men good and hold society together. . . They knew that men have bad, selfish, and destructive appetites which must be restrained and that civilization is a precarious thing."

Having sensed that many parents have abdicated their role as teacher and example for their own children, our schools are giving it a go. But when it comes to teaching "virtue" (bedrock principles of right and wrong that have been the glue of societies for the last 6000 years) as opposed to "values" (personal principles that can be relative and neutral), the schools do no better. The D.A.R.E. program continues despite study after study that has proven it utterly ineffective in keeping kids from experimenting with drugs. The policeman now stationed at the High School is a near impotent enforcer; stripped of his uniform and gun (so as not to make students feel "uneasy"), there seems to be a vague hope that kids will see him as their friend rather than the authority of the law he is. And, echoing the confused thinking of many of today's parents regarding drugs, there is the condom distribution program at the high school. A parent quoted in the Globe story on parent attitudes about adolescent drug use said, "It's not so much that people are resigned [to kids using drugs]; I think they're realistic. Drugs are everywhere and that's hard." Substitute the word "sex" for "drugs" and you have the pathetic, flimsy rationale that continues to prop up the condom program at LHS. Never mind that we have a "zero tolerance" for drugs. The message is that using them is ALWAYS wrong. But with sex, well, we can fudge on that one, giving an equivocal abstinence message on one hand while handing out condoms with the other.

Rabbi Daniel Lapin has put his finger on the real problem we face. "We usually ask, 'What has caused our lives to become so much more squalid, expensive and dangerous?' Instead, we should be asking, 'What did we used to do that kept society so stable, safe and prosperous?'" The answers are simple if we have the courage to face them. Parents need to be parents. Children must be taught by example what is right and wrong. Those who disobey the accepted moral/social virtues shall meet with proportionate public punishment. And we must give up the inane notion that we are powerless to stop the slide into the abyss. Instead of throwing up our hands, we must roll up our sleeves and go about the business of getting our own families in order. Now. Before it's too late.

Raydawg, you've done more than you needed and certainly more than you should.  FRIENDS don't subject their FRIENDS to this chit!  Move on and remember, you have a wife and child, which are your FIRST priority.  Until your "friends" can accept the simple fact, their daughter is lost and probably lost forever, nothing will change.

Death and incarceration are not ways to scare a person straight. Scare tactics don't work. It's a shame so many people think it will.


*edit* By the way, I am an addict. The only thing that helped me was when I realized how disgusted I was with myself to let a substance control my life.

Dawg, it's their business and problem - don't get involved any more than you have already.   If you call the police or PO you will be blamed for making things go from bad to worse (and yes, if she hasn't hit bottom, things will).   You will probably lose your friends in the process.

Versy is right, nobody can help her until she is ready; the cure is internal, not external.   And that means going against every parental instinct by totally shunning her.  Anything else is enabling her behavior, and making things worse, even tho that's so hard for a parent to accept.  I suspect her parents are probably doing that now.   The parents need to understand that it's NOT their fault!   She will milk any sympathy for that as long as she can, until they can't take anymore and fully detach.   So it's better they do that sooner rather than later, after so much damage to everyone.   She needs to understand that if she wants the drugs that much, they come at a price.  So she must also accept the lifestyle that goes with it; being dirty, smelly, hooking, diseases, and no motivation, other than chasing the dragon toward the inevitable.

As far as reasoning with her...  the daughter they think they are dealing with is no longer there.   She has been replaced by an insane irrational slave to a chemical, that can take on the facade of being their daughter to gain favor.   The drive to get the chemical has completely overshadowed any normal human feelings of love, friendship, and compassion.   I know this sounds harsh, but unless you are experienced dealing with this (most parents aren't), things can be very deceiving, and THAT is the nature of the beast.

Cavi Mike wrote on 11/23/12 at 15:48:20:


Each case is different, people are all different with individual needs and issues. Certain treatments and exposures work for some and not for others, there is no one answer to helping or "curing" any type of addict.  The only constant is that they can't truely be helped until they themselves come to the rationalization that they need help.

Ray you and your wife have tried to be there for your friends and their daughter, but until they come to terms with what/who she is I don't think it's healthy for you to be involved. Keep trying to get them to see the light and be supportive, but be leary of getting involved directly. I fear until they reolize just how bad things are with her your relationship will be strained.

I just wanted to add a little to what I sent via the PM.
Encourage your friends that they did not just through their daughter away, but that through faith in God they have put her into HIS hands, and what better place can she be ?  He loves her more than they do and if she will respond to Him at all then He will take care of what she needs....a relationship with Hom.  HE IS THE SOURCE OF ALL HEALING.
HE IS EXACTLY WHAT SHE IS SEARCHING FOR but just does not realizes it yet.

I don't want to step on toes here, but this is starting to spill over into an area best suited to Politics and Religion.   Please don't start any flames, but read the guidelines for The Cafe.

360k+ wrote on 11/25/12 at 09:52:33:

Really? Asking for a prayer, or giving a prayer might put a thread in Politics and Religion? There is no debate involved here!
What about all the prayers offered for Skat??