My son’s addiction has caused so much devastation to our family!

My son has been a heroin addict for 18 yrs we have tried everything to help him stop but he always returns to it.

Six yrs ago his girlfriend got pregnant she is also a heroin addict. When the baby was born social services was going to place her in care so we stepped in after they begged us to help them we said ok. If u promise to get off drugs so they came to live with us for several months and stayed clean for just over 2 yrs.

We were so proud of them and gave them a lot of support and encouragement. Prior to this his girlfriend had 2 other children taken away from her because of her addiction and they are now fostered by her x partners mother.

They were crying when they confessed that they had returned to drugs and said they felt terrible for letting us down. I said u have let your daughter down the most u should get help to get off it asap.

It’s now 2 yrs on and they say they are coming down on their methodone. But i know they still take something.

I did contact social services a year ago to say that i was concerned for my granddaughter’s welfare but they took 4 wks before they saw them then they didn’t get back to me to let me know what they thought.

I did ring up to complain and found out the social worker was on maternity leave. I complained to manager she looked at the case and said the social worker didn’t find anything to worry about. That they were reducing their methadone so that was the end of that.

We love her (our granddaughter) so much we go to visit but we don’t stay at their house anymore. She keeps asking us to sleep at her house which i feel so bad about. But it’s so hard i said unless they sort themselves out we will just keep in contact for our granddaughter’s sake.

They live far away from us so we go every couple of months. I don’t trust his girlfriend at all as i had asked her so many times before they confessed they were back on drugs if they were. I can tell through so many yrs experience.

I don’t know if i should contact social services again as it’s now another yr on and i worry about my granddaughter. I know she doesn’t have a healthy diet because they never have money they are both so thin and look ill to me. I keep asking them to go to detox but they say no they want to reduce until they are on about 10 mls of methadone.

Life is so hard at times my husband even had a heart attack 2 yrs ago my son has caused so much heartache to us both.

When he was in his 20’s we detoxed twice at home he has detoxed in hospital on a 5 day detox programme we took him to a special centre yrs ago because he had detoxed and they help people who were drug addicts they test them everyday he was only there a day so they brought him back to us we were devastated.

Does anyone have any advice for me please!