Accept, yes. Support, no

Dear Amy: My daughter announced her engagement to her boyfriend, “Clay.”

Both are heavy pot users. Clay is a convicted felon (for selling drugs) and college dropout with psychiatric and physical health issues.

He picks up occasional work but cannot and does not support her. He can barely support himself. He has terrible hygiene. Worse, he seems to be incredibly reckless. He has totaled three cars in three years.

My husband and our other kids insist that I must support my daughter’s life choices, but I cannot bring myself to. I see only pain and poverty in her future.

We raised our daughter in an upper-middle-class family; we sent her to private college and on European trips. We supported her 100% over the past year while she successfully undertook and excelled in a prerequisite program to start a three-year (online, part-time) master’s degree toward a new career.

She recently got a minimally paying job and wants us to continue to help support her while she moves on with grad school and Clay.

Her siblings have said that if I don’t support her choices, I will lose contact with all of them.

I feel like I’m being blackmailed. My heart is broken. If I cut off my daughter financially, she’ll hate me. If I don’t support her relationship with her boyfriend, they’ll all hate me.

My husband, who wants to retire soon, wants me to at least support her relationship, and is willing to tell my daughter to take loans and support herself.

Could you weigh in? Heartbroken Mom

Dear Heartbroken: Iseea distinction between “support” and “accept.” Yes, you should accept your daughter’s choice because she is an adult and she has the right to make terrible choices.

If you accept her, must you also support her? Absolutely not.

She may need to experience the reality of living a marginal life — far from her upper-middle class privilege — in order to make a choice.

If you can afford it, you might choose to pay only her school bills (directly to the school). If she completes each semester successfully, you can choose to pay for the next. This would be extremely generous. She and Clay then will have to work to support their living expenses, as countless adult couples are expected to do.

Include them in family events, and you may be forced to tolerate your disappointment in your pot-using daughter and her choice in partner. But until she is forced to face her choices and disappointments, she’ll never be inspired to perhaps choose differently.

Dear Amy: I have an alcoholic friend who is trying to quit drinking. We go out once in a while to have lunch or dinner and I’m wondering — would it be wise to have only one alcoholic beverage?

I would think tapering off alcohol slowly and supervised would be better for him than stopping completely.

I want to be helpful. Concerned Friend

Dear Concerned: If you are an addiction specialist, then by all means try to coach your friend through tapering off of alcohol and supervise his consumption. Otherwise, I believe it’s best for you to avoid alcohol when you are with him.

Support your friend’s recovery by pointing him to inor outpatient rehab, attending 12-step meetings and reckoning with your powerlessness over his disease.