Best approach to help some addicts is to step away

In the past you wrote about grieving and understanding the internal conflict I had when someone I loved committed suicide. Today you wrote about the addiction of someone I love and what is required of those that love the addicted (lvrj.com/view/families-should-overcome-fear-of-forcing-addicts-to-face-reality-155252265.html).

Over 10 years ago, I faced and dealt with the meth addiction of my son when he was in his early 20s. I learned and practiced "detachment with love." He survived and is a productive member of society. His life today is answered prayers. Now he thanks me for "letting him go." We are again father and son.

This week I had to face making the same challenging decision with my addicted adult daughter. There is so much more at stake this time. A husband and two beautiful granddaughters are involved. The husband is an addict, as well. For too long I tried to help her.

My granddaughters were removed and will be taken care of by me and my family. No more assistance for the parents; they are in God's hands, may he and the angels protect them. I'm finally finished with my enabling. The adults are on their own. The babies will be well cared for.

I wanted to let you know that even though you are the voice of a stranger, you helped reassure me that the hard, hard decision I made is the right one and the only one.

I would like to read someday what you say to people when the addiction results in the death of the one you love. My father, my wife, my best friend, my lover ... these and others dear to me have died because of the scourge that plagues our world. Even after I did the right thing. - J.C., Las Vegas

I celebrate for you and your son. I grieve for your daughter.

You say, "even after I did the right thing." Let's examine what the "right thing" is, and then let's be radically honest about our motive for doing the right thing.

Mohandas Gandhi was, of course, not a drug/alcohol counselor. But when the subject turns to addiction and what is required of those who love the addicted, it is Gandhi to whom I first turn.

Gandhi said we have no higher moral duty than to refuse to participate with evil. And if addiction isn't an evil, then it will do until evil gets here.

I did not say addicts are evil. I'm saying that addiction is going to kill you. It wants you dead. It is destructive and self-destructive. And that is the evil I am naming.

If an addict says, "I'm going to need help escaping the lethal gravitational pull of this evil," then I'm willing to mobilize every sensible resource that is mine to offer as help for treatment and recovery. But when an addict says, in effect, "I'm going to need help dodging the unpleasant consequences of my addiction," then what I hear is, "Hey Steven, would you be willing to participate in evil?"

And to that question, my answer is no.

My "no" is not first motivated to help the addict, though sometimes this clear boundary does seem to be the beginning of sobriety and wellness for some addicts. In truth, my "no" is first motivated by self-respect. Put simply: If you insist on destroying yourself, if you force me to weep at your funeral, then I would at least want to preserve for myself the solace of saying I didn't help you die. Not through action or inaction. I did not participate in evil.

So, no, doing the right thing does not always change the course of an addict's terminal self-destruction. In some cases clear boundaries prompt the threat of suicide. And if the threat is made to me, I act in due diligence. I call the police, requesting a welfare check. I petition the addict to mental health care.

But I won't be held hostage. Being a hostage is a participation in evil. And the only way out of being a hostage is to surrender to this truth: I don't have the power to stop anyone from killing themselves. Not ultimately. This is what I say to student therapists in training: "You can't be useful to a suicidal patient until you accept that you don't have the power to keep anyone alive."

What would I say? I can't really improve on the words of my cousin, Beth, who, at our family's third funeral in 18 months to bury an addiction-related suicide, admonished the family gathering: "I want everyone to stop dying!"

The words were at once a powerful intervention and endearingly hapless. Like stepping out in your front yard to shout down a tornado. The pathos of helplessness.

To live well in our grief, we have to forgive ourselves for what was not in our power to do.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Las Vegas Psychiatry and the author of "Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing" (Stephens Press). His columns also appear on Sundays in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Contact him at 227-4165 or skalas@reviewjournal.com.