Sister has a drug problem

[sprout]

@sprout you do remember that teenagers can moan and rebel against anything at all? Were they all a totally happy bunch before your sister returned home?

Their perspectives of what is happening at home may be a bit skewed. Remember they are teenagers and most likely have made an art form out of vocalising displeasure.

Could you assist your sister in finding accommodation elsewhere... if she wants to?

She can't find accommodation at the moment because she won't find a steady job. She does uber part-time but all that money mysteriously disappears despite her paying 0 bills and even using my mom's debit card to buy food and necessities ?

I know this response is because you don't have background information so let me fill you in: My mom has the habit of parentifying her children. She creates an environment where we, the kids, end up parenting her. If we vocalize anything, even something small, she will react in a way where we end up comforting her. Therefore, we all (all except 2 siblings) have learned to just keep quiet and accept things the way they are. My younger siblings almost NEVER complain to my mom because she just ends up crying and they have to apologize and take care of her. so they're really not being dramatic.

Just as an example, I think it was last December my family except for the sister with a problem went out of town for a couple of days. They ended up having to come back a day early and when they got home my sister had a bunch of random people over. They were all shooting up in my youngest sister's room and had left needles laying around on the bed and floor and my parents and the older sister got into a huge fight over it. They were yelling at each other, my sister was throwing things, and saying that she was going to "run away." She got some of her things and said she was going to leave and kill herself to "get back at them" for kicking her friends out and that they'd never see her again. She literally pulled my teenage sister aside and told her she was going to kill herself and that it's all of their's, her included, fault. These incidents don't happen every day but they happen semi frequently. That is NO place for a child to grow up. It's completely unacceptable.

May I ask what are you basing that observation on, that she has a drug problem, let alone specific type of drugs?

Did she ever deal with something like it before, are there way more changes in her behavior & attitude toward anything, what all changed?
.

I've witnessed her using before and I saw her room about a week ago. There were tar stains on a pillow. They might've been old but idk. It's definitely more complicated, though. She has other mental health issues that are honestly more pressing I think

 

[EveHarrington]

It seems to me like you’re more interested in saving the drug addict sister than your minor siblings.

 

[sprout]

And supporting someone through recovery from drug addiction? You’re going to need to be in a really good space - you can’t bring your own issues to the table on this one, because your sister already has more than she can deal with.

Yeah that's exactly the drug I mean.
This right here is the hardest part. I'm still learning to deal with my own childhood abuse and it's hard to take care of and mediate my whole family when I'm still at the early stages of my own recovery.

It seems to me like you’re more interested in saving the drug addict sister than your minor siblings.

No, they all concern me but I'm most worried about the teenagers. I don't know how to help them without helping her though. My parents won't confront her or even bring up the idea of her moving and I can't support them myself so I don't really know where to go with all this. I text and call the younger ones frequently and listen to them and let them know I'm there for them but I don't really know how else to help. I feel really helpless about all of it.

 

[Sideways]

I'm still learning to deal with my own childhood abuse and it's hard to take care of and mediate my whole family when I'm still at the early stages of my own recovery.

Prioritise your own recovery. There are no easy solutions to your sister’s situation, and unless she decides to commit to a recovery program, assume that as much as you love her, you aren’t the right person to solve this problem. We can love our broken siblings, but we can’t fix them. Especially not with problems like this one.

 

[EveHarrington]

Call Dr Phil?

 

[sprout]

Call Dr Phil?

I don’t know if this is sarcastic or not but it’s definitely not helpful

Prioritise your own recovery. There are no easy solutions to your sister’s situation, and unless she decides to commit to a recovery program, assume that as much as you love her, you aren’t the right person to solve this problem. We can love our broken siblings, but we can’t fix them. Especially not with problems like this one.

I know this is ultimately the right answer. I just want to do more for my kid siblings and I feel so helpless and stuck. It also brings back a lot of issues from my childhood.
I think this post was mostly to just talk about it with people. It’s one of those things I can’t talk about with too many people. Thanks for being so understanding and helpful everyone

 

[EveHarrington]

It was said seriously.

Dr Phil helps many people. He gets people into rehab.

I’m not sure why you take offense to my reply.

No need to be snarky and complain that my advice was not helpful.

Next time I won’t bother to try and help you because you only want “perfect” advice.

Remember, beggars can’t be choosers.

You need something on the level of an intervention given the behaviors of your family. You can’t do it alone.

You rejected my child services suggestion, too. I’m out. I can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.

And again, you’re letting your siblings grow up around drugs. I think that inaction is a big sister fail given that there are so many resources out there. It takes a simple phone call. And if you refuse to make a simple phone call, I think it’s a reflection of how much you actually care about your siblings. Love is an action. Not just sitting around worrying about them.

 

[sprout]

It was said seriously.

Dr Phil helps many people. He gets people into rehab.

I’m not sure why you take offense to my reply.

No need to be snarky and complain that my advice was not helpful.

Next time I won’t bother to try and help you because you only want “perfect” advice.

Remember, beggars can’t be choosers.

You need something on the level of an intervention given the behaviors of your family. You can’t do it alone.

You rejected my child services suggestion, too. I’m out. I can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.

And again, you’re letting your siblings grow up around drugs. I think that inaction is a big sister fail given that there are so many resources out there. It takes a simple phone call. And if you refuse to make a simple phone call, I think it’s a reflection of how much you actually care about your siblings. Love is an action. Not just sitting around worrying about them.

1. Going on a tv show isn't a realistic option. Public shaming like that doesn't help anyone.
2. If child services got involved I know the family members that would try to get involved and I'm not going into the reasons but that would be so much worse.
3. I've tried several times to get my sister into a treatment center. And I call my parents constantly to try and reason with them. It's not as simple as collecting resources. You need the people involved to cooperate. If drug addiction could be solved by a google search I'm sure it'd be less of a problem.
I haven't put every aspect of my life in this thread. You really don't know the details. But I'm not going to argue with you. So thanks for your suggestions!

 

[EveHarrington]

1. Going on a tv show isn't a realistic option. Public shaming like that doesn't help anyone.

Free rehab?

Sounds like a fair trade off to me.

Why do you think half of those people go on the show?

Free treatment!

You’re just giving a lot of excuses as to why you can’t do anything.

I’m sure that when your little sister is 21 and drug addicted, too, she’ll thank you for doing nothing.

My “job” in life is never to fix someone, but I will do everything in my power to get them to the people who can help. I figure if I can’t even do this for my friends and loved ones, I’m pretty useless as a friend or family member. I probably have this view because my loved ones always got me to the help I needed. It’s the least I can do for anyone else I care about.

 

[Friday]

It seems to me like you’re more interested in saving the drug addict sister than your minor siblings.

And again, you’re letting your siblings grow up around drugs.

There’s an extremely limited number of ways someone can affect change in a minor’s life, without parental approval. To be frank, there are only 2 - the courts & kidnapping.

Looking at the court route? Even if Sprout’s sister was leaving drugs and kit around, and the other children were od’ing? The courts would be extremely unlikely to remove any of the minor children from the home for at least 2 years (the avg length of time it takes for parents to fail every milepost set for them) and even if they did nearly always return them within 60-90 days, and then it’s another 2 year process. In short, by the time the courts were able to place the children in foster care or kinship care? The youngest would be 18 and aged out. And that’s assuming a situation infinitely worse than Sprouts siblings are currently in. The situation they’re in wouldn’t even rate a social work visit, much less the courts intervening.

Let’s not even look at the logistics of kidnapping teenagers as a realistic option.

So, in order to affect any kind of real and serious change in their lives, Sprout is going to need parental approval

- Simply talking to them (parents and older sister) hasn’t worked.
- Allowing older sister to move in hasn’t worked
- Taking on the care of younger sisters is problematic on several fronts (being able to afford their basic needs of food and housing, much less provide a better life, and deal with the raising of them on top of that, not the least of the concerns; even IF Sprout could get parents and younger siblings to agree.)

So it’s a matter of working within a less than ideal situation. Which means looking at what the problems are (nearly all with the older depressed & drug addicted sister) in order to affect change. AND getting everyone on board with that. Both the parents and the siblings.

Focusing on where the problems stem from? (The older sister’s mental health problems spilling all over everyone) Doesn’t mean Sprout is ignoring the younger siblings. The opposite. Nor that they have the power to “let” them grow up around drugs.

@sprout in the interim, how are younger sister’s activity calendars? Sports, camps, etc. to get them out of the house as much as possible, and in a healthy environment that will help lay foundations for their futures awar from home?

 

[EveHarrington]

Wow, really?

I think it’s disgusting to let a minor cry for help and do nothing.

I hope you all can sleep at night.

Then again I’m seriously doubting the existence of your humanity.

“The system sucks” is no excuse to not help a minor crying out for help.

I hope you all don’t have kids. God help their souls.

 

[Sideways]

I think that it’s really okay to keep this particular ‘cry for help’ in context.

Yes, it would be awesome to see the situation resolved.

But, we’re talking about a teenager who is (reasonably) shitted off because they no longer have their own private bedroom...because another member of the family is really not well right now and needs help...and the 2 of them aren’t getting along (makes sense).

The sky isn’t falling in. Kids don’t always get their own bedroom, and mostly they survive that terrible injustice pretty well. Particularly when it’s temporary.

@sprout actually has no authority to swoop in and start telling everyone what needs to happen. And in fact, has more than their share of shit on their own plate to deal with.

No one has lost their humanity here. It’s a shitty situation, but solving our own problems does sometimes take priority over fixing everyone else’s. The fact that the OP gives a shit at all is ample evidence of their humanity.