Another Nightmare Began Part 2

This time it was my youngest daughter that started using Heroin.

So both of my daughters would go out together and use!

My youngest daughter actually started drinking at age 13. It’s in the post “A Mother Gave 13 Year Olds Alcohol”. Then she started smoking pot. And  she took pills and drank and then started snorting Heroin. Which of course, led to shooting it up.

I felt like the worst parent in the world when both of my daughters were using. I have 5 children all together. They are the only ones that turned to drugs. Although my other kids did have some depression problems.

Anyway, this is about 9 years ago. So we’ve been living with this for a long time.

My youngest got in with some really bad people when we moved here to GA. She was hanging out with drug dealers. We found out later, she was bringing them here to our house! They would come during the middle of the night and hang out in our basement. So we didn’t even realize what all was going on at first. That’s why the Swat Team came and searched our house!

At first we were enabling her by giving her money and letting her use our car. Back then I had no idea what we should be doing. I’ve learned so much along the way. Being in Alanon and addicts moms groups is the answer. Along with doing research and reading books.

So when we started telling her no more money, or car, things got really bad here at home. She would come here when her dad was at work and threaten me. She said she wanted to beat me up for not giving her the keys. She did some bad things to her dad. One time she spit in his face. He was just devastated. She regrets all this now of course.

She got arrested a few times here. We bailed her out most of the time. Then we decided we would leave her in jail so she would be safe. That’s when one of her friends went and bailed her out! I couldn’t believe it when she came home and told us that! We were just furious!

So she left and just went back to using of course. It’s such a worry when they leave and you know what they’re doing. Every time the phone rang I got this turning in my stomach. I was scared to death something would happen to her! It became a normal thing when the police would call and tell us she had been arrested.

I never dreampt any of my kids would ever get arrested! They were so good and sweet when they were little. It never even entered my mind something like this would happen.

My youngest is 16 now, so he’s been through all of this.  I’ve talked to him about this and he’s confident he won’t do any drugs. I pray he doesn’t.  He has seen what it does to us parents.

Well then my youngest daughter got arrested for possession. This time we made sure she didn’t get bailed out. Our lawyer went to court with her and they said she’d be in jail for around 6 months and then get sent to jail rehab (RSAT).  Otherwise she would be in prison for 3 years. She ended up being in jail for 9 months and now she’s in RSAT. That is for 6-9 months.

RSAT is  like Boot Camp so she has a lot of rules to live by there, which is a good thing. And they have meetings and classes every day. They get up at 4:30 a.m. and are busy all day. So she’s learning self-discipline.

She’s been reading Recovery books and the Bible. She seems like she’s really ready to quit. I pray for her every day, along with the other people that are addicted.

The stigma attached to addiction is that the people are to blame. But it really is a disease. Some states are finally changing things. Instead of jail, they are sending addicts to rehab. I hope that happens in every state! They don’t learn one thing in jail! They have to be in rehab.

When she gets done there, in 9 months, she needs to go to a Sober Living house. They drug test them every week and make sure they have a job. They need rules when they first get out. And of course they have to go to NA and/or AA meetings and have a sponsor.

As parents we all want to fix our kids but we can’t when they’re addicted. It’s up to them!

I hope all states start sending these young people to rehab instead of prison! They get drugs in prison! Which is just unbelievable!

If you want to ask me anything, please feel free! There’s a lot of addiction posts at the top of this page with more of my story and some info.

The Beginning Of My Nightmare Part 1 is here.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful day!