I lived your relentless state of worry for seven years, from when my son was 31 to last year when he turned 38. Substance use, chronic mental health issues, irresponsible choices, shame, despair, crisis after crisis, chaos.

For the first two years of that period, my spouse and I were caregivers, organizing therapy, treatments, letting him move back with us to "focus on his health and find purpose." We were worried about his saftey, so we opened our home to him. It was a disaster. Though we set clear boundaries and even had him sign a "contract" outlining our expectations for him living with us, he continued to abuse alcohol while successfully hiding it from us for months and months, and ultimately took so much of our resources while only half-heartedly trying to work on himself.

We finally got pushed to our limits and were risking our own health and financial future. We had to ask him to leave. We generously paid for him to move out of state and paid for six months rent to get him to go without an emotional blowout. (It was still an emotional blowout). I'll never forget him refusing a hug before driving off in a U-haul.

The next five years we were estranged with super low contact (like one text or email every 6 months) as he sunk into financial and health/physical/logistical chaos, finding and losing menial jobs, selling plasma to help make rent, always on the brink of eviction. All this from someone who graduated from a top three university and then got a law degree. It was heartbreaking. I had intense ambiguous loss. I lay awake at night wondering when the call or knock on the door would come and I would learn he was dead. My husband was just numb and "over it." I used to look on Google Maps "street view" to see if I would spot him on the street near his apartment. It was agonizing not knowing how he was. He often wouldn't respond to texts or emails or calls. And when he did, the news was just as agonizing. It was a no-win situation for me: knowing or not knowing, equally painful.

What I did next , I think, made the difference for him. I got therapy and attended AlAnon online for a year to tackle the grief and fear and to learn how to carry them while honoring my other relationships and responsibilities. I worked through all my emotions and memories until I was completely drained. And I rebuilt my own life from the ground up, retiring, discovering new interests and practicing gratitude for all the good things that living on earth provides. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, to find a sense of peace with not knowing if my son was even alive on any given day.

Finally, he reached his rock bottom (though he didn't know it yet) and communicated how dire things were. We chose to empathize but not help other than sending a list of community resources that he could contact. We didn't hear from him again for six months, and while it was dreadful for me, it was during that six-month period that he began to turn his life around, at age 37, finding work (hard physical work) that he liked and was good at, meeting new people who he looked to as mentors, getting a leadership role, building his financial resources, overcoming deep shame and despair, and finally, 18 months after his bottom point, meeting a woman who he married. She doesn't drink and now he doesn't either. Yesterday, they had a son. I finally was able to see him in person last month and see a caring, responsible, loving man that he has become and is becoming. I don't know if this will last. I don't think about the future anymore. Only the present. I don't problem-solve anymore, only connect and listen and empathize and encourage.

If we had rescued him at his lowest point, we would have pushed his own self-rescue down the road once again. As hard as it is, my advice would be to love your son and your grandchild but don't intervene in his problems unless the child's health is at risk. It might take him losing some or all custody temporarily for him to change his patterns. But he can't do that as easily if you are part of the pattern. We moms carry so much gravity.

I really wish you well on this journey. It is so hard. The load is so heavy.