again and again and again

[fevredream]

You can read the whole saga down below but this is the main reason I am writing this. I have always tried to help her. Once I realized that any money I gave her went straight to substances, I started supporting her in other ways like paying her bills because I thought that was helping. I have kept thinking that she turns to substances because of stress and me paying her bills can help take stress off of her. but it doesn't. I thought that by doing things for her, I was showing her through my actions that I love her and want the best for her. but she doesn't see that. I thought that by still being there for her through everything she would finally realize she was worth something. but it hasn't worked. I have to do the hardest thing in the world and just stop helping. entirely. completely. I can't 'help' her out with a bill. I can't give her $10 to get 'food' or 'female products'. I can't give her advice on finances or navigating car loans and insurance. she gets out in two weeks and she will call me and be sweet and ask for just a little thing, just a little help until she gets her first paycheck. Or she will come and see me and be crying and seem so broken and I won't be able to help her. I don't think she realizes how broken I am from all of this. I have literal years of posts like these. about how hurt I am and how I can't keep doing this. and then there is a glimmer of hope, she keeps a job for a while, she seems happy and I start to soften up. I start to 'help' her in little ways and then the cycle starts again. but every year, I help a little less and I get a little harder. I can recognize the cycle now. I know autumn is a hard time for her. Her birthday, her bio-dad's death, her child's birth and death, her bio-aunt's death all fall within 2 months. so, she gets depressed. tends to get arrested or into some kind of problem in late winter. jail or probation in spring. seems to get back on track in the summer and then it all goes downhill, right around this time.

my last post on this issue... back in april... TL:DR sister is going to 90 day court rehab tomorrow and wants me to drive her to the place. And also pay her car payment for the past two months and the next 3 months. but she won't ask me outright, she just tells me how rough things are and expects me to fix it.

My (I am 50 F) sister (25) is an addict. mostly weed with some pills and meth thrown into the mix. She has also been diagnosed variously with bipolar disorder, anxiety and borderline personality disorder but I don't know which is the one that sticks.  She never stays with any doctor long enough to find out. I have recently come to the realization that I have never helped her in the ways I thought I was helping. I thought by paying her bills she would not stress so much. I thought that by giving her money for food, she would have the energy to get a job she enjoyed. Instead, I 'helped' her to remain an addict. A couple of months ago, I paid her to take care of my dogs while I took my son out of town as a birthday present. She did not take care of my dogs. She asked my brother to feed them and did not even make sure he had gotten the message. I was so stressed and hurt on what was supposed to be a fun time for my son on his birthday. I realized then that I mean nothing to her. My son, her only nephew, means nothing to her. She didn't even speak to him to wish him a happy birthday. I guess I just had a moment of clarity about how little everything I have done for her over her whole life means absolutely nothing to her. So I have detached myself from her.

She missed going to her probation for something that happened last year. She failed a drug test at the same time. They sent her to a 30 day rehab last week. Somehow, my sister thought it was not mandatory so she left after 3 days. The court has gotten her into another rehab program that is 90 days this time. She is supposed to go in tomorrow. She has asked me multiple times to pay her car payment. I think she is 2 payments behind. I don't want her to stress and worry about having a car when she gets out. Where we live (rural southern USA), you have to have a car to do anything or get anywhere. But I also don't want to give my hard boundary of not paying for any thing for her anymore. I paid her car payment for 4 months before I found out she was not sober or not just smoking weed.

I have told her to call her lender, call the place that sold her the car. I do not know if she has. She texted me today and asked me to drive her the 1 hour to the new rehab place. and to please pay her car note so she can have a car when she gets out. but if I pay her car payment and get her caught up, then I still would need to pay it for the next 3 months. I DO NOT WANT TO DO THIS!!! I am so tired of dealing with her stuff. I just want her to handle her stuff without me. Lately, the only time she even texts me is to ask me in a round about way to pay her bills. if I call her out on it in person, she will scream at me. or maybe just look like she is going to cry. either way, it makes me feel sick and I cry.

please help me know what to do. I want to help her in her recovery but I don't think she wants to recover. she is just doing this because she has to and it is a good way to manipulate me into paying her bills again.

August...you can probably guess what happened. I paid her car note, her phone bill and boarding for her dogs. I also got her insurance on her car and new tires. She had a place to live and a job set up and I thought she would make it this time. She got out of the 90 day program and within less than a week, she started destroying her life again. she drank with her girlfriend from the shelter and failed her first drug test from the courts (alcohol). She spent 48 hours in jail. She started missing work and was finally told, after just a month, that she needed to move out of the place she was living (the people who employed her had given her a camper to live in on their property so work and living space were tied together). She failed another drug test by drinking too much water. she did admit to her counselor that she had alcohol and a 'pain pill'. On the day before she had to be out entirely, she wrecked her car. it is totaled. she did not have gap insurance. I brought her and her stuff back to our hometown and paid for her and her dogs to stay in a motel for the weekend because she didn't have anywhere to go. She passed a drug test that Friday. I had to go out of town on Saturday for the next week. I didn't hear from her at all so I was suspicious of what she had done over the weekend. She called me that Monday to tell me she had failed another drug test and that she would be going to another rehab/shelter place for 30 days. The story she told me was that she was sitting outside and some random guy came and gave her an unopened bottle of vodka or something. I found out from her best friend that she had her ex-boyfriend/meth user over to the motel room. and that she was still in touch with her baby dad who is awaiting federal drug trafficking charges and is probably the one who got her hooked on all this stuff. She also told her friend that he, her baby-daddy, had always been there for her. I can't explain the pain that sentence gives me. He got her pregnant but I am the one who took her to all her doctor visits, paid her bills when she was put on bed rest and held her hand while she had a c-section at 34 weeks. I am the one who drove her to two hours round trip to see her baby in the NICU for almost two weeks, daily. He showed up once. I am the one who talked to the funeral home when her baby died. She went back to her place with him on the day the baby died and then called me crying because he left her there alone to go to a party.

I just keep on and keep on. Our dad has been in the hospital since Aug 7 and in a nursing home since Aug. 25. I left him on the day they were moving him from hospital to nursing home to help her move her things. I paid her phone bill just before she went into the new rehab. I have been paying for her dogs to be in boarding again and I will be setting up a place for them to live. I will also be the one who cares for them daily. She will be in a halfway house when she gets out of rehab and she can't have her dogs but she says she will be able to come and feed them and visit them. but I don't see that happening. I have sort of stayed out of the car thing. I didn't go and get all her stuff out of the car after they towed it more than an hour away. I have not contacted the bank she has her loan through. She asked me to pay her phone bill as a birthday present. I was able to tell her I would think about it. I don't think I will though.

Today...she called today and told me about the birthday she had at the rehab place.  It sounded nice.  Then she asked me to pay her phone bill and I told her that I would not.  She got quiet and then she said she had to have a phone when she got out.  I told her the case worker could probably help her with that.  She said it was going to be so hard without a car and a phone.  I agreed and said it really sucks that you got yourself into this.  I could hear her crying.  I told her I was sorry and that I loved her.  and now I am at working all messed up and posting here

[Big Bear]

fevredream,

This all sounds so difficult.  I imagine it must be very challenging. 

Please remember the three Cs:

I didn't Cause this, I can't Cure this, I can't Control this.

This ongoing tragedy is not your fault and it is not your job to fix.  Please take care of yourself.  Please distance yourself from all of this.  Please focus on your healing and your recovery.

You are not alone, we are here for you.

Big Bear

[Leonor]

Hi Fevre,

I'm so sorry you are going through this terrible and terrifying time with your sister.

Your post is a very honest, heartbreaking mini-memoir of living with and loving someone very deep in her addiction.

One thing that helped me was reframing my interactions with the addicted person as me interacting with the addiction. It's the addiction that is driving this person to steal, or lie, or betray themselves, or beg for money, or avoid treatment.

And if I engage with those behaviors, I'm engaging with the addiction. I'm participating in it.

I used to watch "Intervention" a lot. I liked the bald guy. And he used to coach families to say something like, "There's nothing I won't do to help you get better, but I won't do anything to keep you sick." I'm not getting it right, but that's the idea.

If you know your sister will spend money on feeding the addiction, don't give her money. If you know she will drive under the influence, don't give her the keys to your car. If you know she will use in your bathroom, don't host her in your home. If you know these things, why do you continue to do them?

Because you are addicted, too. You're a junkie, Fevredream.

When you buy into the addiction (otherwise she can't afford food / how else will she get to treatment / but it's really cold outside) you are participating in the addiction. You are lying, stealing, and betraying both of you, too.

Your healing challenge will be to face your powerlessness to save your sister, to control the addiction, to change the relationship. To allow and really feel your feelings about that. Al Anon is amazing. Check out Al Anon.

And then you'll grapple with the truth about yourself, your very own addiction. It's a tough one. It's harder to break than heroin. It's a sneaky, awful, sick thing. It's your addiction to being the Good Kid. To rescuing. To heroism. It's your addiction to control.

Ouch. That doesn't sound very noble. It's ok to think of ourselves as codependent when we frame it as just being the Healthy One. The Helper. We're healthy! We're just helping! And "codependent" sounds like "just a little" dependent. Just loving, but maybe not in an effective way. Loving in a misguided way. Maybe we just have to love a little harder! Give one more chance. Offer one more month's rent. Make one more late night pickup.

That is your addiction talking. It mimics your sister's addiction: blackmail ("If you really loved me, you would ..." "I do really love her, so I will ..."); lies ("This time I'll spend it on food ..." "Maybe this time she'll spend it on food ...") and makes fake promises ("I'll go to rehab tomorrow!" "I'll drive her to rehab tomorrow!")

It's hard to see when you're the one with clean clothes and a job. But it's very similar to gambling addiction. You know the house always wins. But you keep dropping quarters into the slot machine and watching the little fruit go round and round for the Big Payout that you know will never come. So what's the payoff right now? What's the payoff for dropping in that quarter?
 
The payoff is being able to make the little fruit go round and round. To be in control.

Where did that come from? What will happen if you allow yourself to know that you are not in control? What is so scary? What is so sad? Where are the people who should have created that sense of safety and comfort for you? Why is it up to you? Why has it always been up to you?

There is a little girl you know who is crying out for your attention, your help, your support, your love. She's you.

[moglow]

This is so sad and I can understand your wanting to get her over that latest hump, to help her see true daylight and her way forward. Unfortunately I'm not sure another can do that for her. She may well and truly have to hit that rock bottom with no one left to bail her out, to truly face the consequences of her choices. And even then it's going to be a haul trying to build a better life for herself.

I'm a little confused on the timeline and where she is now, but I do agree it IS hard without a car and a phone. But you know what? She also needs to find herself a home at some point in time, build herself a decent future. Jobs and steady dependable income help immeasurably with those things. Until she accepts responsibility for herself and her well being, chooses to take a hard step away from the drugs and the people who provide them, I can't see this not continuing. She has to learn responsibility and stop with the tears and sweetness only to trample over the help she's just been given. And I bet she's so sick of hearing that basic fact of life, thinking it doesn't apply to her!

It's great that others can and have usually been willing to step in but for her to repeatedly throw that away... She's not grasped her own responsibility for her life yet. All I know to tell you is to hold firm as best you can and remember as mentioned above: you didn't cause this, you can't control this, you can't cure it. She HAS to step up hard for herself, as do each of us, you included. It may be you're willing and able to do *this one thing* [a roof over her head, see that she eats food that actually nourishes and sustains her, whatever you decide] and beyond that it's on her.

Please take care of yourself first! Take a few deep breaths and draw on your inner strength. Decide what you can and will do [or not!] and make it clear that you're also running on empty. You have to get that oxygen mask on yourself first, and if that means cutting communication for a time that's what you have to do.

[fevredream]

the quick breakdown of this years time line is...January, I told her she had until 2/1 that I would pay her bills and after that she was cut off.  she got a job but wasn't getting many hours by the end of February.  I paid her bills for the month in return for her to watch my dogs for 4 days.  March she got arrested for things she did in 2022 and missing probation.  beginning of april she went to 30 day program but walked out after 3 days.  mid april she went to 90 day program, finished in mid-July. 1st week out he failed a drug test and had to spend 48 hours in jail. got kicked out of her place by late August, failed 2 of 3 drug tests (two for drinking to much water aka trying to falisify the results). last week of august, another 30 day rehab.  all of these are through the courts by the way.  she 'graduated' a week early from the most recent rehab and came home a week ago today.  well, she is living in a sober house.  it has taken a long time but I am doing better at saying no to her.  she has asked me for a ride to her first therapy appt. today.  I can do that. I have realized over this past year that no matter how much I hope these things change her, she will not change until she is ready.  her bio-mom is just a couple of years younger than me and she is in a rehab/sober house at the moment as well.  but nothing had stopped her up to this point.  and if she could lose both her kids and keep using, then I don't know that anything will change her.  and I don't hold out much hope now that anything will change my sister.  the only thing I can change is my self and my response to the world.

[fevredream]

And then you'll grapple with the truth about yourself, your very own addiction. It's a tough one. It's harder to break than heroin. It's a sneaky, awful, sick thing. It's your addiction to being the Good Kid. To rescuing. To heroism. It's your addiction to control.

this is true.  I am a 'rescuer' to my core.  I feed that most of the time by volunteering at the dog shelter.  but dogs are just so happy to be fed and have a safe place to sleep.  my sister has not yet learned how hard those things are to come by.  Sadly, I have to let her find out.  she is 25 now.  the older she gets, the harder it is to get people to take care of you, especially when you don't appreciate it.  I am working on finding ways to help her in a reasonable way that don't involve money or trying to 'save' or 'fix' her.  I can give her a ride to therapy today because it does not interfere with anything in my life.  Today.

[Leonor]

Hi Fevre,

I know it's hard.

But no addict "graduates early" from a rehab program.

And no codependent gets to skip looking at their own addiction.

I am working on finding ways to help her in a reasonable way that don't involve money or trying to 'save' or 'fix' her.

This is not the work you are called to do. This is keeping you in the loop: "can I do this? I should do this! What if she needs this? How can I explain this? I'll just do this ... But totally not that ... I think ..."

Your thought process is a whirlpool revolving around her addiction. Her addiction is feeding your addiction. You said it yourself: you try to keep your own compulsion at bay through rescuing animals instead of people.

Let's face it, feeding a shelter puppy, no matter how cute, does not give you the same physiological rush as riding the rollercoaster with your addicted sister.

This is because you're addicted to her addiction. It relieves survivor guilt. It gives you a purpose. It makes you look good. It proves them wrong. It bonds you to her. It keeps you distracted from your own heartache.
 
The work you are called to do is driving your own self to a therapist or an Al Anon meeting and back again. The work you are called to do is educating yourself on addiction and codependency. The work you are called to do is to get sober yourself.

[Cat of the Canals]

Your healing challenge will be to face your powerlessness to save your sister, to control the addiction, to change the relationship. To allow and really feel your feelings about that. Al Anon is amazing. Check out Al Anon.

This this this. Codependence with an addict is such a hard cycle to break, and I know so many people who have been helped by Al Anon.

[lkdrymom]

Please-please-please stop trying to help/fix her life.  For her to truly be fixed she has to do it for herself.  You are just enabling her to continue on as she always has.  Just stop. Stop taking her phone calls, stop giving her rides, STOP paying for anything for her, stop running to her aid.

[discarded]

One of the most frustrating things about addiction, is you'd think they'd get beyond it; If you just helped them that one time they would be able to pay it back and show some gratitude.

Whatever her core issue is, addiction is an incredibly selfish disease. They fail out of the most basic obligations to feed their addiction, and the pattern repeats. You can't help this person if they don't try to help themselves. It sounds cliche but it's the truth. They have to make the effort to help themselves.

I had occasional friendships and relationships with people with addiction issues. They blamed me for not making them more comfortable, or for not just tolerating their issues; they would never adjust their behavior to be respectful of the way I live my life.