Family Meeting Thoughts

This blog's purpose is to help me put together my thoughts in preparation for a family meeting at the residence with Kiku.

1.  Boundaries

These are the boundaries I wish to maintain:

1.  I will not try to fix your problems unless you ask me for some help; then we will discuss which part you can do for yourself.  I will no longer race to rescue you for something you need at the last minute.  You need to plan errands for me ahead of time so that it is mutually convenient, and I am not expected to drop everything.  I realize that I allowed this to happen by not being consistent with my boundaries.  It led to resentment on my part which came out in the form of whining/complaining.  That did no good for anyone.
2.  I will be doing my best to follow the "if your neighbor did this, what would you do" philosophy.  This means I won't be paying any more of your collection bills or your parking/other car involved tickets.  You will have to accept the legal and financial consequences of those actions.  I may also choose to prosecute you if you forge checks/steal from me again as it can only mean you are using.  The Kiku I know would not do those things.
3.  We expect that if you are living at home and working, you will turn over 75% of your paycheck to us for your college fund and towards making restitution to us for the debts we have incurred because of your actions.
4.  I will practice active listening and better observation of your body language, but I also ask that you remain more open about your activities and feelings as you have started to be since you started detox.  I like not having secrets and honest statements of our feelings/necessary information for your safety such as where you are when you leave home and how I can reach you and knowing that you will actually answer my messages = just as I try to be available for you.  There were many times that I honestly thought you were dead, and my anxiety and fear levels were incredibly high and affected everything I did.
5.  You are welcome you and want you back in our house IF you are continuing to work your program daily.  We know you will be spending time healing at least for 3-6 months, but after that we would like to see you seeking a job/working and/or going to school AND making good progress at school/going to your job.  I need to be allowed to see your grades every quarter since I have been financing your education.   Additionally, I expect common courtesy such as showing up for appointments and returning messages in a timely manner, helping with chores around the house, not having items disappear or having to lock up my purse.
6.  I will not buy clothes and make up items that are beyond our budget.  It is not right for our family to go into debt so that you can have things that I can't even afford for myself.  I do not want us to be pushed into bankruptcy or have to survive on government assistance in our old age.
7.  I will do what I feel I can afford to help you if you return to school and do well there, but I think you might need to work for awhile first/try to secure a loan/find your own major source of financing for school as the money set aside for you has mostly been wasted.  You may also need to have a part-time job and attend school part-time to build up funds and/or pay for tuition.  If you do well, you might be able to find some assistance with tuition for grad school as I know that used to be your goal.  I'm not saying it has to be.  You need to find your own goals that work for you.
8.  I need you to keep regular hours as we need our sleep for jobs as do you for going to your own job/studying.
9.  I need to have your extra set of car keys.  You need to agree to surrender your set of keys if you get any more tickets or accidents or I feel that you are using again.  Your car insurance is already super high because of your poor driving record.  We really shouldn't have to pay additional fees.
10.  Be aware that I do need to talk to my own support people about what is happening as I have to process my feelings also.  I don't want you to feel that I am betraying you, but keeping secrets isn't good for me or for any of us.  I share with close friends, family, and Al-Anon.  I will do my best to keep my mouth shut about extra details when we're out in public as I know you and Keisuke find Grandma's and my habit of talking too much rather embarrassing.
11.  We can't keep buying things for you to use in the Residence.  Let's get a list together and be mindful of the expenses.  We need to put caps on all things we buy in order to get ourselves back out of debt and used to the habit of both budgeting and saving rather than instant gratification!  We have spent a lot of money and time on this.  We don't know much about the things you buy so it takes us a long time to find them.  We need to practice some self care also.

My feelings:

Right now the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many.  We are willing to put our lives more or less on hold in order to best support you now that you are working so hard to conquer your addiction.  If for some reason, you relapse but get right back on your program, we will still be standing with you.  If you go back to that lifestyle, we can't support that.  At that time, the needs of the many will take precedence.  We can't go into bankruptcy for you, etc.

I love you so much.  The most pain I had surrounded the fact that you had shut me out of your life.  There was a wall that I didn't know how to get through.  I could hardly bear the thought of never having a relationship with you.  I used to lie on your bed holding your stuffed cat and cry for hours.  That is how I knew I was hitting bottom.  I would not have chosen this path for our family, and it may sound strange, but because of working my Al-Anon program, I am grateful that all this happened because you and I are communicating again at a true relationship level + I am now hopeful that our family can heal. Our family was torn apart by all the things that happened, and we were all spinning out of control.  Most of them time I now feel some peace - as if our higher power is moving us in the right direction.  It won't be easy, but we can make it together.

Before Al-Anon, I spent so much time wishing I could go back to last year and know how to deal effectively with the issue so that we could have stopped this when you first forged checks and I knew there was a serious problem.  Almost a whole year of denial, worry, avoidance, feeling powerless went by.  I approached it the wrong way so instead of getting you to accept treatment, I turned you away.  After that, I just allowed myself to feel powerless until someone finally told me straight up you were a drug addict and that I needed to do an intervention.  At that point, I finally realized that it was time to face the facts and admit that I had no control over this problem and ask for help rather than wallowing in self pity and blame.  I started getting education and support.  I believe that is when we turned the corner into taking back the power from this drug and pushing you in a way that would be effective for you to see that the drug was affecting your life in such a negative way and get you into treatment so that you could begin to have a real life with goals, joys, sorrows, love, and laughter.  I began letting go of the what ifs - the what if she'd never met Dustin, what if she'd never been sick and thinking that you'd have graduated by now.  We all need to let go of those thoughts as we are now on this path and moving forward one day at a time.  You can have a future, and what I would like for that future is for you to be healthy - able to choose positive ways to cope with pain and  content with your choices.  We want you in our lives!