Two perspectives on addiction

S ARAMY>> My wife and I are in our early 70s. We are blessed with sound retirement wealth and good health, but no mental peace.

Our only son is a recovering alcohol and drug (cannabis) addict. He is married and has two infant sons.

Every few months, he relapses. Then his wife gets very upset and writes us lengthy letters asking us to intervene and to give her support.

In earlier days, her letters insinuated that his addictions were our fault, and that we did not give our son enough support in the rehabilitation process.

We did everything in our capacity. But now nothing is in our control. We try to give advice to our son, but he does not listen to us anymore, and he lies — as addicts do. We do not have the courage to tell our daughter-in-law to stop writing us these letters out of fear of alienating her and losing our contact with the grandsons.

She does not understand that the situation is beyond our control and it terribly upsets us and ruins our mental peace for days after she contacts us.

What can we do? — Distraught Grandparents

S AR SISTRAUGHT >>

If your only child has an addiction disorder, total peace and tranquility are probably not in the cards for you. Your son’s disease affects everyone around him. As parents, you need to continue to do the work of detaching from his addiction — or any particular outcome related to it — while still loving him and his family as well as you can.

You DO have wisdom to share with your daughterin-law, and when she beseeches you for support, perhaps you should offer it!

You could tell her how sorry you are that she is coping with this, remind her to do her very best to take good care of herself and to keep the children safe, and offer her ideas and resources where SHE can get help.

She may use blame and shame as a way to share her pain with you, but you don’t need to accept responsibility for your son’s relapses.

Do not ask your daughter-in-law to stop contacting you. Let her know that her and the boys’ safety and well-being are extremely important to you.

I highly recommend a “friends and family” support group (like Al-anon) for all of you.

S ARAMY>> I was so offended by your response to “Bewildered,” regarding disclosing DNA test results to siblings.

I do NOT want to know about any possible half-siblings, and have told my siblings that if they choose to have their DNA tested, they need to keep the results to themselves!

— Offended

S AR Oyy NS S >> Ididnot advise “Bewildered” to disclose the fact that she had discovered half-siblings. I did suggest that she tell siblings that she’d had DNA testing done and the results were “surprising,” giving them the option of learning more.

You have given your siblings a “heads up.” Good for you!