methadone, xanax, and vivanse

[ineedinfoplease]

Hello to all. I have not posted in a while, but I'm having additional problems with my 32 yr old son. He is on 130mg of methadone and has started taking 2 to 3 bars of xanax daily and when he is awake he is a walking zombie. He went to a psychiatrist a little over a week ago and convinced him he is ADHD and got a prescription for vivanse. The police called me last Tuesday and had him pulled over due to someone calling in on him for his driving. The officer said he gave him a sobriety test and said he didnt really seem intoxicated and had me take him home and had his ride impounded due to no insurance. Well he got his ride out on Thursday and yesterday the police had him again, but let my husband go get his ride, but instead of charging him with a dwi he only got a pi, due to him being at a gas station when they found him and he was not driving. He lives with my mother and my brother and my brother told him he cannot live there any longer and my husband will not let him live here with us. My son says he does not need any rehab help and that he can put the xanax down because he usually pulls about an 8 day zombie state and then usually goes almost 2 weeks pretty sober and then repeats the cycle again. My question is how dangerous is this mix of the 3 drugs? The sherrif duputy told me on Wednesday to prepare for him to be dead in the next 2 weeks if he does not get any help. The only free rehad here does not accept anyone on benzos because they said it takes too long to detox and of the liability. Any feed back would be helpful. Can we force him into rehab? He has a 9 yr old son that he gets every other weekend and this scares me to death. We did not let him get his son yesterday which is a blessing because he got picked up yesterday, but of course because if was only a pi he was realased around 3 this morning. I hope this is not too confusing, i know i'm rambling, i apologize.

[ineedinfoplease]

Thank you for getting back with me. I'll check to see if the rehab facility here has Al-Anon meetings for the public....thanks for that info.

My son has been sober for 2 days now (yesterday & today). Yesterday he paid for a motel room for a week on his own without asking me for any money. Today his pickup died on him and he called to tell me about it and said he would walk to his motel room and when I got off work could I take him back to it to see if it would start. Usually he would have asked me to leave work and take him to where he needed to go....so that was good. On his way to the motel he stopped at a Savers and bought a pair of shoes for $15 and a shirt for $8. He then stopped at the grocery store and bought a few groceries. All of this really surprised me because he usually asks me to buy him some groceries and shoes when he needs them. At least he didnt spend his money on drugs.
This is definately progress and I told him today that I was very proud of him. I'm praying for him constantly as is my mother. I guess its one day at a time. I'm thanking God for baby steps.

Thanks again for taking the time to talk with me and for the support. I'll keep you and atthebeach updated.

Deb

[Jaybay]

I'm really sorry to hear about your Al-anon experience.  I guess I've been lucky.  The meetings I've found are nothing like what you got stuck with.  That's just awful they've turned it into a social club rather than the support group it's intended to be.  I hope the new group will be the real deal for you!  If there is a rehab facility convenient to your location, check it out to see if they have public Al-Anon meetings.  They seem to be much more productive meetings if they're attached to a rehab facility.

Any drug is dangerous if it's abused.  I hear your concern and dread that your son will die from his addiction and  I can't lie to you.  It's certainly a possibility whether he abuses one drug or three or more.  The human body can withstand a whole lot of abuse but at some point it has enough.  I'm no doctor, but with this awful heat (I'm in TX too!) I would think dehydration is a bigger concern for your son than for sober people since opiates like methadone tend to dry out the body anyway.  Just as you can't control his drug use, you can control whether or not he stays hydrated.  Throw your concern out to him and let him do with it what he will.

The fact that your son says he doesn't need help because he can stop taking xanax any time he wants only shows that he isn't ready to accept help yet.  Hopefully he'll realize he does need help before a tragedy happens.  Meanwhile, talk to your husband about what kind of boundaries you can both live with where he's concerned.  It can help to write them down.  Boundaries can be anything you decide whether it's money, living in or visiting your home, driving your vehicles, bailing him out of jail, helping him find a ride somewhere, whatever.  It's about what behavior YOU can tolerate or not.  When you decide on those boundaries, also write down consequences if he crosses them.  That's the easy part.  The hard part is enforcing them.  

Try to remind yourself that you're supporting his eventual recovery by allowing him to find his own bottom.  This is a long-standing problem that he has never really dealt with so you can hardly expect him to decide to be sober one fine day and never use again.  As my shrink recently reminded me, addiction is a relapsing disease.  (sigh)  He didn't take the court-ordered rehab seriously because it was never his decision to begin with.  If he ever decides to work a program under his own steam, then you can start to believe that he's begun to deal with his addiction.  It's terribly hard and heartbreaking to stand aside and watch someone we love make horrible and harmful decisions, but that's the only way addicts (and anyone else for that matter) really learn - from having to deal with the consequences of their own mistakes.

[ineedinfoplease]

Thanks for the post. Yes I have tried a couple of Al-Anon meetings, but I need to try a different meeting. The one I went to was a group of ladies that have been meeting together for years. They welcomed the new comers and then mostly talked about a skit they had done and how well each one had did and then talked and planned some future thing they were planning. One lady finally spoke up and said they should let the 3 new comers speak and each one of us told a little about what was going on in our lives and the meeting was over. It kind of seemed like a bunch of friends having a business meeting. They were very friendly though. I just found some meetings here at the University that I am going to try to attend.

I'm not sure how long he has been taking the xanax, I think about 4 to 5 months. I think he takes about 3 bars a day off and on, meaning he takes them for about a week until he runs out and then goes almost 2 weeks without and gets some more and so the cycle goes. He is on 130 mg of methadone. He has been on methadone for about 11 months. He was up to 220mg of methadone, but kept testing positive for xanax so they dropped him to 120 mg of methadone. He tells me he has a high tolerance to the xanax and he knows how many he can take and its not going to kill him. I'm not so sure.

Thanks again for the post, I do know its time to quit enabling him.
Deb

[ineedinfoplease]

It has not been 2 weeks since his last bout with xanax, only a day and a half. The longest he has gone without them is approx 2 weeks. He has been taking them off and on for about 4 to 5 months that I know of. Some kind of disappointment will happen to him and he will go on a week long zombie state and then say he will never do it again and that he doesnt like how they affect him. Then before 2 weeks is up something happens again and he gets more xanax and here we go again.
He was sober for about 2 weeks and my husband let him drive one of his dump trucks and he had me hold his money and he also has a yard and home improvement type business on the side, so he saved up $1200 and bought a used pickup. This is how he pays for his methadone and he saved up and went to the psychiatrist, but just had his 1st visit 2 weeks ago. The Dr gave him a coupon to get the vyvanse for free.
And no, he wont freeze, but it is 104 today with no relief in sight. Do you know if the heat will affect him while on these drugs?
The question about how many years has he been in active addiction. He started with the pain pills and speed about 14 years ago. The pains pills lead to heroin about 6 years ago? He was placed on probation about 9 yeras ago for pain pills subscription forgery and they ordered him into a state ran locked-up rehab twice, let him go to a christian rehab once, he only stayed a couple of months & talked his probation officer into letting him go into a half way house and he got kicked out of there for dirty ua. He stayed on probation for approx 8 years and kept failing ua's and finally sent to state jail where he stayed for 9 months. He got out last September and was only out for a month and got back on the methadone cos he started using heroin again and knew where that would lead. So he has been on drugs since he was about 18 yrs old, but clean while locked up, once for a year, and twice for 9 months.

[Jaybay]

thanks beach - I think the heat has finally fried my brain.  Pay no attention to that woman behind the curtain!

[atthebeach]

  
jaybay- it is her son.

deb, has he been working? i knew he did the phonebook thing real brief? how many years has he been in active addiction? i know it seems harsh to tell him to leave but many times that is what it takes. it is summer he wont freeze to death.
if he has gone for 2 weeks without  any xanax then he should beable to go into detox. how long has he been taking the xanax?
how does he pay for methadone, xanax , a car, insurance,psychiatrist,vyvanse?