Tough Love

A Letter to the parents of addicts.

I know it’s hard watching your child throw their lives away to addiction, you keep praying that they will wake up and clean up. You try to not notice their addictive behavior, I get it, I was ‘that child’ to my parents and they watched me destroying myself nite after nite, week after week. They saw me bouncing in and out of jail, they watched me stealing their stuff, they watched me leave the house every time they gave me money. Speaking for all children that are addicts…you can pray for us to change but we won’t. YOU HAVE TO CHANGE! Yes you parents. Every time you give us money, or pay our bills, you are risking our death from overdose. We need tough love. Period. Don’t give us money, don’t let us act out without putting your foot down. You can’t tolerate our behavior. Tough love works. Even if we kick and scream all the way, you would be saving our lives. Keep catering to our addiction and risk losing us forever or do the right thing and stand up to us. If we get uncomfortable then we may take a step towards sobering up.


Moms and Dads, you have to understand that addiction is destroying us, if you love us you will cut us off. Don’t pay our phone bills, don’t pay our car payments or insurance, take our keys and phones away, otherwise you will get that dreaded phone call someday to come identify the body of your child. Addiction is a progressive disease, it only gets worse from this point forward.

Tough love. It works.

JR Weaver

Published by jrweaver0

I'm the guy that lost everything...again. My addiction owned me, I didn't sleep, I didn't eat, I just didn't care about my life. My addiction had pushed me to the very edge of the abyss and was screaming inside my head to just 'let go.' But I learned something that day about me, that 'other' voice that was in the way back of my mind, you know the one that always managed to materialize at the worst moments to mess with our buzz? It was planting seeds in our mind's, it was trying to save us. Well that 'other' voice saved me. At my lowest moment I listened and realized the truth, I'm better than this. I applied to Charleston Drug Court, something that I didn't believe I could graduate, but guess what happened? I graduated in about 15 months with no sanctions. I learned that my past had made me stronger, my addiction couldn't continually use the same manipulation to control me anymore. I have found that Recovery has opened closed doors, I got my life back and have found peace, and I want to help the world find that same beautiful peace. That's the mission of recovery-revolution.org, to help addicts find their way back. We Do Recover, I'm living proof.

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