RGG-
I am wishing you some peace for 2014.
It is a very, very difficult thing to watch this self destruct path that your son has taken. Been there, done that. Somehow, we got very, very lucky with my BPDSD22 (also an addict) and events moved us in the direction of rehab. My husband struggled as you describe with being a weenie, not wanting confrontation, (we call that enabling... .
) until SD got caught (by us) drinking and driving, we took away her car, she couldn't get to her drug dealer and she went into Xanax withdrawal and had a grand mal seizure in front of her Dad.
Then another magical event happened... .her IOP councilor confronted her Dad and told him,
"If you daughter keeps living with you she will never get clean."
We gave her the choice of sober living or NOT sober living. What her Dad said to her was something like this,
"You are not welcome in this home until you are living a life of recovery and if you don't chose to go to sober living this won't change. If you die from addiction, please know how much I love you and will always love you but I won't watch you kill yourself. "
Our outcome has been overall positive. She is clean. She still has her issues but drug abuse doesn't cloud them anymore. AA has given her a place to fit in and she has, in some ways, traded her drug addiction for AA addiction. Pretty good trade, not going to a meeting doesn't give her a grand mal!
RGG- here is what I am hearing in your post.
FEAR.
What we are doing is watching him die slowly from cigs and food.
With him under your roof there seems to be no chance for him. After all, if sleeping on your couch was helpful, would he be dying slowly from cigs and food?
Not being allowed on your couch, he will either do exactly what he is doing now OR he might make a change.
Advice- tell him no more couch. Let him find out if you are serious- you might be surprised that he will get himself some help this time but he definitely won't unless he is forced to, will he. I encourage you to offer him an alternative to homelessness or couch surfing that includes rehab (or an IOP) and sober living. These options will help him find a way out of the trap he has built for himself (and for your wife and for you). It will be expensive. Sorry to report this. The result if you spend nothing will cost you so much more though.
More advice- Watch a few episodes of Addicted on Netflix.
Your son needs you to stop letting him kill himself. Until he finds a way out, this is exactly what he will continue doing. So long as you continue letting him continue he will NEVER find a way out.
Or, maybe, tomorrow you will wake up in happy fantasy land and he will be fine. Probably though, he will be just a little bit worse. And so on and so on.
Thursday