I have an alcoholic son who is draining me financially. I want to get him help, but he doesn't want help. It's making me anxious and depressed.
How can I handle my alcoholic son?
Establish limits on how much money you'll give to him, tell these limits, and as you pointed out, expect him to not care or respect your limits.Try an Al-Anon meeting. These meetings are for family members in similar situations to yours.People who are addicted are not always willing to know themselves, understand their own emotional pain which contributed to their addiction, and then decide to live differently.Additionally, these steps take a long time and there's no good reason for you to put your life in jeopardy in order for your son to take advantage of you.Being a family member of an addict makes seeing the dynamics between you and him, difficult.If some type of group meeting where you can learn from other people who are living in a similar circumstance isn't possible, see if you can find an equivalent of this online.It helps a lot to know how others handles themselves in similar predicaments.