1) You give her no money. Ever. Make other areangements to get her to meetings, buy groceries yourself.
2) If you are formally divorced you have no legal obligation to let her live with you, correct? If aspects of your divorce are not finalized, figure out how to do so.
3) Why didn’t she go directly into a 30 day inpatient rehab program? She needs one badly, and it would get her out of your house.
4) She probably needs to be evaluated by a psychiatrist for co-morbid psychiatric illness. I had a boyfriend who had a serious history of drug abuse but had been sober for a few years when we met. He seemed really serious about his sobriety so I gave him a chance (he was very involved in twelve step programs). Eventually he fell off the wagon in a spectacular way, was on and off the streets for several months until it became apparent that his underlying problem is (and always has been) bipolar disorder. Everybody was so focused on the drug use that they missed the fact that manic episodes preceded his relapses. It became apparent one day when he called me after a week long binge, asking for help. I told him to go to the ER and I would meet him there, but first go check out of the motel room he was in (so charges wouldn’t accumulate).
Well, he went to check out of his room but decided to smoke up all the meth he had first. When he arrived at the ER he was high as a kite, as high as I’d ever seen him. BUT because the manic episode had stopped, he could make sense, express remorse, talk about the next steps, in a way that he couldn’t when he was manic.
We’re not together now and his mania hasn’t been perfectly controlled but he’s doing better with a mixture of psych meds and holistic treatments.
There are other medical conditions that can trigger addictive behaviors - depression, gastric bypass, Parkinson’s drugs, brain tumors, trauma, PTSD. Her behavior is so impulsive and extreme that I’d consider bipolar on the list. But if she’s this sick and unwilling to go into inpatient treatment you may need to kick her out and let her hit rock bottom. (I’m not a huge fan of that approach but you can’t have this around your kids. )
