Powerless ... CHECK!

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Son#3 made some very poor choices today. In fact, yesterday I kept feeling like something was off with him and just couldn't quite put my finger on it. But, when he walked in the front door after work and ran straight up to his room, I knew he had been acting out again.

I lost my focus and snapped myself to CrAZyTowN in an instant. I made him turn out his pockets and there was a receipt showing he emptied all the cash out of his bank account. Up the stairs I flew to see what he had hidden in his room. There were the magazines beneath the mattress. There was the phone beside his bed. The history on the phone indicated that he'd been calling the sex lines yet again. There was also a local number at the end of the history that he'd been corresponding with one hour before he walked in the door. The money, the local unknown number, the time span when he should have been at work ... I knew what he had done. I searched his room a bit before I caught myself.

I don't want to be this crazy person. I can dig up all the evidence that I want but it doesn't change anything.

I left his room with the magazines in hand. I wasn't leaving them behind for future use or for discovery by his brothers. They have no place in my home. I sat down Son#3 and told him I found the magazines and the phone log. I told him I knew there was more. He admitted that he had hired another prostitute.

Mister hit the roof. He is angry. He cannot deal with this. Mister wants Son#3 out of the house. I look at him and find myself in disbelief that he has felt so deserving of so many chances, literally years and even decades of wallowing in his own addiction, but has zero tolerance for our son. I send Mister out of the room. He is in his own corner of crazytown and I can't cope with both of them at once.

I asked Son#3 if he thought he had a problem. He said that he did ... and I want to believe him, but I think he was just trying to end the conversation. Sigh.

I don't know what to do. I'm not sure what the appropriate boundaries are but I hate it when my home no longer feels like a safe place. And I hate it that I can't protect him from himself. I so want to fix this for him. But I cannot.

"Step One: Come to understand and accept that we are powerless over the addiction of a loved one and recognize that our lives have become unmanageable." (Healing Through Christ Workbook)

Got it. I have no power over the addiction and my own choices in response are making my own life unmanageable. In this moment, I am giving myself permission to just breathe and let the feelings wash over me. I feel sad, even heartbroken. I feel angry. I feel frustrated. And I feel powerless.

Yet, I have hope. I know that while I do not have any power in this situation, the Lord does. He has the power to help and to heal. I have to release this to Him. I put my faith in Him and trust that somehow we will get through this ... one step at a time.