They wish we would not take him back. They believe he needs to hit "rock bottom" and perhaps they are correct. No one can say how they will handle a situation until they are placed in that situation.
Unfortunately for you, your other kids are right.
Right now you are enabling him to keep his addiction.
He really and truly needs to hit bottom.
For my father, I will never forget the day he hit bottom. It was at a family party where he was using all day and got drunk at the party. He had no recollection of the night. He became abusive and I had to physically haul him out of the party and into my car where I took him to the VA hospital. I intended to leave him there, but they wouldn't take him that night because of the alcohol. "Bring him back tomorrow," they said.
He was in and out of treatment programs for years, including VA, but nothing took until the moment of bottom.
I drove him home and left him there. I went to his house the next morning and was amazed at the place where I grew up. It was a death house. Filthy, smelly, dark. My mother had already moved out months before. He was there alone, his mother would bring him food once in a while. He borrowed $20 to get his suit from the cleaners for the party.
That morning we sat together on the bed and I gave him a choice. "Dad, I'm leaving in 15 minutes. You can either come with me and get help, or stay here and die."
He managed to come with me and I told him that he wasn't living with me at my house. I arranged for a welfare apartment, and managed to get him into the rehab clinic. St. Joseph's in Saranac Lake, NY.
Nearly 20 years later, he's still clean. And he's helped countless other addicts deal with it. Most stayed clean, others didn't. It's an incredibly destructive disease. It doesn't start out that way - you're right. At first it's cool, experimentation, a cheap high. But the right genetic code, coupled with some unfilled needs and before you know it, you're hooked.
There is a new drug going around the high schools and middle schools now called Cheese - heroin mixed with tylenol PM. Killing kids left and right. Apparently it only takes three hits to become addicted.
But as you say, you can't do it for him, but you can't continue to enable him either. When he runs out of safe harbors, there is only one place to go - help. Read Dante's Inferno.
For all our discussions of God's tough love towards his creation, it could be time to show some of your own.
At the "confrontation circle" we also had to state clearly what we would do if the person started drinking/drugging again. Most of the people said that their door would be locked and the person can sleep on the street, or go back to jail.
If drugs indeed are Satan's Communion, why let that into your house? Your son is under the control of sinister forces. NOT BY CHOICE.
I'm not qualified to say that I would do it or could do it. It's certainly different doing it to my father than it would be doing it to my son. But I was very clear with my sn that if he ever got arrested for drugs, he would indeed spend the time in jail. No bail. Suffer the consequences.
But if helps you deal with the pain of giving tough love, just remember the pain Jesus felt on the cross for you. You say you follow Jesus - it's time to put that faith to the test.
Unfortunately your other children are correct. It's incredibly, incredibly, incredibly difficult to do what needs to be done.
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