When your adult child texts asking for money, even twenty dollars for petrol with a promise to pay you back on Friday, your stomach can drop before you've finished reading it.

I'm Sandra, a mum who has lived this with my own son, and this week on Journey Beyond the Chaos I stay with that one moment, the message arriving, the few seconds after you read it and the hours after you've answered.

I'm not going to tell you whether to send the money, because with a message like this there often isn't a clear answer and I don't know your child. What I talk about is what happens inside us when it lands, the drop in your stomach that comes before the thinking, the mind running ahead, the pull to answer fast so the feeling stops, and the replay at dinner and in bed.

I share the advice I was given early on, to let my son hit rock bottom, and why I don't believe in tough love or ultimatums. Then I walk through the two layers, the hard thing itself and what our minds add to it, and a simple way to drop anchor in the minute after a message lands, so you have a little more room to decide.

If your child is struggling with addiction and you genuinely don't know what to do anymore, my workshop When You Don't Know What to Do Anymore is one sitting you can watch in your own time, with a workbook that goes with it.

Get the workshop here.