You must turn to a support group and confide in people you trust, Mariella Frostrup tells the mother of a young man struggling with addiction
The dilemma I’m 54, single, with two sons and am a carer to my parents. For 10 years my younger son, who is 26, has sporadically stolen from my father and me. Whenever he was caught, he was full of regret and would promise not to do it again. He has also smoked cannabis since the age of 17 and I’m sure he’s started taking pills. Things came to a head when he borrowed my car – I haven’t seen it since – and I discovered he’d stolen a ridiculous amount of money from my parents and me. I threatened him with an injunction and he left home. Since then he has come to the house twice. The first time he took my bank card and emptied my account. The second time he found my father’s card. I need to change the locks, but I have no money to do this. It’ll take months of extra shifts at work before I can make things right. I’ve only told my oldest friend – she said I need to call the police. I cannot bear the thought of telling my siblings and I would never ask them for money. I need to be seen as strong and capable of looking after our parents and I don’t want them to hate my son. Is there any way I can get through this without police involvement? I feel scared and vulnerable – every solution either involves having him arrested, or costs money that I simply do not have.
Mariella replies My heart is broken for you. Addiction is as cruel as dementia when it comes to the degree of living loss we endure for a person we love. A drug addict’s whole emotional range is highjacked by a powerful, seductive force that obliterates any sense of loyalty, morality or duty to those who care for them. Your boy is at present as lost to you as my grandmother was to me in the final days of her untethered dementia.
This is not your guilty secret, but a modern dilemma – one that holding close to your heart won’t solve or expunge
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