Topic : 12/04 Heroin Twins: The Intervention, Part 3

Perry did try to own up to his responsibility he invited the twins to live with him. Not his kids, taking full responsibility for them sounds like a stand up guy to me. perry is the only one who tried to help these girls and his offer was refused plain and simple his offer was refused

I feel the father and his wife were slammed.  If I were in the same situation as he and his wife were in, I may very well have walked away too.  Dr. Phi is right parenting is not a job you should ever walk away from.  But his circumstances were such that was the only viable option for him.  The mother could not stand him.  She was in denial when the girls started drinking and doing drugs. Under those circumstances how could he parent these girls?  The mother would have blocked all his attempts to do the right thing.  The only way it would have had a chance of working is if parents worked together.  Both he and his second wife realized that if would have been a no win situation.  Instead of one broken marriage there would be two. 

It is all very well to lay blame on the Dad but those girls made bad choices and no one forced them into doing drugs.  They did it all by themselves.  If they want sobriety bad enough, they will stand up to the plate and do what is necssary and stop blaming someone else for their drug problem.  Like I have heard Dr. Phil say many times "You own it" .  I am sure the dad and his wife left the show feeling terribly guilty and I felt bad for them. 

Ditto.  Although I think that it was a good idea for the girls to confront their father as they obviously have a whole host of issues with abandonment, I'm surprised at the lengths that Dr. Phil went to be sure he felt guilty.  Mom was the one who raised them after dad left and played a far bigger role in the path those girls took.  And to say that they were doing normal teenage things is just passing the buck.  She did not do her job as a parent in recognizing the problem. 

I by no means condone dad leaving the situation.  But that is not why the girls ended up where they did.  In fact, I was almost offended by the blame being put on him.  My biological father and mother abandoned me, although at different times.  I, too, have abondonment issues but I turned out completely different.  I made something of myself and have a successful and happy career, marriage and family.  No thanks to my parents.  I made my own choices.  I chose to rise above what my parents laid out for me.

I'm impressed with the work that Dr. Phil has done with them and I wish them well in their recovery.  Hopefully, at some point, they will realize that they need to "own" their behaviour and stop trying to blame others.

You two might have had tough times, but you had really good coping mechanisms.  Just because you had a lot of hard stuff thrust on you doesn't mean another person has the same strength.  I'm not saying they don't own anything in their decision to get lit.  I can relate to the low self-esteem issues in childhood and how they can make you feel really worthless and suicidal.  I can see how someone could turn to drugs to drown out the pain (like cutting for someone with an anxiety disorder).

OF COURSE, the Stepdad DID have some ownership in this because the girls already had some abandonment issues from the biological father bailing out on them, but once they weren't "cute" anymore he did the same thing to them-jerk.

Just like the dangerous doody-head your daughter thought would be a good dad.  He's got quite a bit of ownership into smacking around innocent children-that really screws people up.  He's got some kind of control issue and its HIS responsibility to admit that and get help-not the kids ownership that their dad abuses them-Last time I checked there was no circumstance that justifies abandoning OR abusing your kids.  THAT's screwed up!

You need to get some help, lady, because sooner or later, whatever's bubbling beneath the surface, the abuse, the arm, whatever- is going to find a way to peek its head out (repression).

It makes me so mad that people blame the victim when they really ARE victims! Unbelievable!  Is it the victims fault when they're stabbed, beat up, shot at?  Heck no!    Go back and take a course in psychology at the community college, because youre really far off base!

The twins' mother, Cindy, seems to need some kind of rehab or therapy herself. I felt that she isn't fully owning her part in this. I'm not saying that it's all her fault that the twins went down the road they did but that she was a contributing factor, just as Perry was. Comments from her like "Did he (Perry) blame me?", "I was intoxicated, not drunk.", "I do drink too much sometimes but I don't have an alcohol problem." and also trash talking her ex and his wife says to me that this woman is highly immature, self-centered and is in denial.

I believe that the trash-talking has been a tool that Cindy uses against Perry to point blame away from herself and I think she's been doing it for years because when the girls first saw Perry they were teary and wanted hugs, yet afterward, when talking to Cindy about the encounter, they seemed to go into an automatic ridicule of him and his wife. They could barely squeeze out a positive thing to say about him in front of their mother and she seemed satisfied with the negative reaction. Her concern was what he said about her.

I suggest that  Dr. Phil offer Cindy some therapy so she can be more self-aware and stop enabling her daughters. Sarah and Tecoa need a stable-minded mother. They don't need her to be their "friend", they need her to act like a responsible parent.

Godspeed those girls and that unborn baby to a healthy and loving life.

Boy I'm am really getting tired of hearing young and old people blaming  others for the choices they make be it good ones or bad. I don't know any one that had a " perfect childhood" I know I sure didn't I was sexually abused by a close relative but I never went to drugs or alcohol no I went on to make hard decisions in my life at 18 I ended up pregnant not married so in the 60's that was a no no so I thought long and hard to give her to a loving family. We are since reunited and only to find out her life was a fairy tale I'd thought she would have Thank God we now have each other and her 5 beautiful children and to the bastard she married he's in " a program" for spousal abuse what a crack that is he hit her and the kids broke her arm 2 months after giving birth to number 5. 2 months after that he stabbed her with a fork and blacken both eyes all with her in a full cast holding a 2 month old baby. As we are dealing with the after affects he's all comfy cozy in his rehab and out in under  10 months demanding his rights to see his kids 1 day a week. He hit them as well but because of deal making his 10 yr. felony was knocked down to 5 months in a country club. My daughter gets 1,000.00 a month from the state her rent for a 2 bedroom condo is 1400.00 guess who has to pick up the rest and only 500.00 in food stamps we live in CA and the cost of living is so high. Between running the kids to counseling and school and to the courts with gas at what it is you can guess what isn't being done for the true victims here. Now on to the drugs GIVE ME A BREAK PLEASE  I had my right arm ground off in a meat grinder in 76 but did I make the choice to sit back and say oh poor me .hell no I got married to a wonderful man helped him raise his 5 children and we were married to Christmas Day 1997 when he died at the foot of our bed in a massive heart attack and even then I never went to drugs or blame.

To this day I am disabled by a nerve disease that is very painful and I do need lots of pain medication to make it possible for me to do the things that need to be done. I should take 6 pills for pain a day but hey I have kids to feed clean up after and watch over so I stay in pain till they go to bed then I take my medication again no blame game things happen get over it I don't see Dr. Phil helping 5 young kids get over seeing their Mom hit many times by their Dad or the fact the the oldest at age 9 has already been kicked out of 1 school we are trying to do the best we can tell them they are loved and they can do anything and that they are special and none of this was there fault. CHOOSE PEOPLE WE HAVE FREE WILL MAKE THE RIGHT CHOSE.......CHOSE YOU CHILDREN CHOSE LOVE NOT BLAME CHOSE YOURSELF

MICHELLE