Heartbreaking...when Your Child Is an Addict (eBook)

There was nothing worse than the ride home. You would think it would get easier. Experience had told you what to expect. Logic said, “You know what’s coming, don’t you?” And it had come just as you thought. So why was I blind-sided every time I got back into the car without him? Blinking behind a glaze of new snow on the windshield or driven back by a searing summer dashboard, the sensation was the same. An actual physical pain. Just under the breastbone. An alive, pulsating pain, it absorbed all your thought and feeling. A pain you only read about in books or saw played out in movies, but didn’t believe existed in real life...too dramatic to be a part of everyday existence. A day like any other day. To most people. Nothing can hurt that much and not kill you, I thought. But it does. It doubles you over in your seat, trying to keep a universe of hurt under your chest bones, cowering, you are reflected in the windshield, trying to breathe. That was the part I could never believe. That I kept breathing at all.

It wasn’t like you hadn’t prepared. You had gotten a once-nicely typed and subsequently badly xeroxed list of approved items. A list of the things that you were allowed to bring with you on your family visits to the rehab. Each institution was different. Rules, procedures, visiting days and hours. What you could bring with you was a little different at each, inadvertently revealing the personal and institutional idiosyncrasies of whoever was in charge, or as I learned was more likely, a calculated reaction to a single incident or brilliantly devised loophole no one could have imagined would evolve until it did. They were going to make darn sure that didn’t happen again. Teen addicts being an uncommonly intelligent and cunning group, rules were strict and exemptions nonexistent.

Visiting day had finally come. I packed the enormously anticipated goody bag and prayed I had gotten it right. The tangible disappointment of a small mistake, one that could have been forgiven in day-to-day life, here would deprive him of a rare pleasure or distraction for long weeks, was devastating to witness. And I couldn’t bear the shame of letting him down. My opportunities to mother him, to provide for him, had become so limited that the least I could

do was to excel at the few left.

Some places wouldn’t allow certain hip-hop magazines, (too many F words), but others were ok because there wasn’t as much swearing and more mainstream advertising. Playboy wasn’t allowed but Maxim was all right, less of the essential female parts on display. Sometimes a small batter-operated tape player with radio was acceptable; sometimes it could only be a radio. Sometimes the radio had to be transparent, it’s circuits and wires on vulgar display for all to see. That must have been a bad day for the rule maker. After awhile, I began to wonder if magazine publishers and see-through radio makers had special arrangements with the system, like when Pepsi puts their name on a stadium and you can only get Pepsi at the snack bar. Some of the rules were so absurdly arbitrary that only economics could make any sense of them. But no matter, one thing we all learned quickly was not to complain. Complaining about the rules might bring your son consequences you would not be around to see. Even it was just a judgment that your parents had been found wanting on their ability to understand (respect?) the rules. What if they think defiance of authority runs in the family? With so little under your control, every little thing you could control counted that much more.

So, I had packed and repacked, checked and rechecked, trying to do everything right and hope it all got in through the door. I wanted the powers to be see that I am a good person, a good parent. I’ve dressed well, but not too well. I’ve talked politely to all I’ve met, even to those who ignored me. I’ve managed a bit of pleasant conversation though my heart is aching and I just want to cry. I feel like a contestant in a beauty pageant or a jobseeker at a crucial interview. Did I miss any opportunity to say something, anything that might help?

By the time we arrive at the center, I am already exhausted. But this is the time to get pumped. Now, you are ON. I get to face my son, maybe even touch him for a moment (though extended hugs are not allowed.) I try not to react to his appearance, but try to gauge his health by the pallor of his skin, look for obvious signs or marks of mistreatment and quickly begin to talk... quietly and always optimistically about what will happen when he is finally out of here, which is the only thing he wants to talk about. When this is over. The quiet part is very important. You are supposed to be here, but you are still the parent of a teenager and preferably invisible. At the mall or in the institution, it doesn’t matter. You are still the mom and at your best as a silent walking wallet. You are urgently needed. You are not necessarily wanted.

We find a private place in a run-down sunroom at the back of the unit where we can talk privately. So, I stay alert, watching for the subtle signals and keeping my lips moving. You don’t want any sad, uncomfortable silences sneaking in. Stay engaged. See if you get away with any humor. Avoid sticky subjects, like trust and money, and that most feared specter of all-time. Lost time. Wasted time. The wasted time he now sat in, the wasted time he now realized was behind him. The wasted time he feared was ahead of him. Always, eventually, the frustration comes pouring out of him, as an insult, as a challenge, as a sob. The hours pass so slowly and the awareness of what happened to bring him here continue to sink into his consciousness and there is no escape from the sad reality of it all, except for the few small things you have managed to bring along.

If they’ve allowed two hours for a visit, you’d better stay the whole time. It’s an insult to leave early; though you’re not sure you can keep it together for that long. When it is over and the very last minute has ticked away, you force out your last bit of energy into a false and cheerful goodbye with just the right amount of reluctant overtone, steal a hug so brief no can suspect you of passing contraband, and fill the stale air with promises to return. Then, suddenly, the silence, the dashboard, facing the miles of highway, the indifferent reflection of the windshield, and the reality of our family life.

My child is an alcoholic and an addict. I am afraid he is dying, slowly right in front of my eyes. Over the past decade and a half, since he was 13 years old, he’s been admitted to a dozen treatment centers, from the reclusive and exclusive to the sagging and state run. He’s been assessed. He’s been tested, twelve stepped, psychoanalyzed and medicated. He’s smuggled drugs into recovery centers. He’s gone cold turkey in holding cells. He’s had his stomach pumped and his jaw broken. He’s run away. He’s stolen. He’s lied. And lied. He’s cried. I’ve cried.

When I first realized what was happening to him, I vowed to do anything in my power to change the path he was on. Anything in my power to help him recover. I considered myself a reasonably intelligent and capable person. I vowed to be thorough and persistent. I would leave no stone unturned. No source of help untapped. Along the way I’ve met doctors, counselors, psychiatrists, therapists, bank managers, social workers, police officers, public defenders, probation officers and prosecutors, most trying their very best to understand what I and so many other parents were struggling with. Trying sincerely to help. Trouble is, no one seems to know what real help looks like, what really works.

My child is an addict. And I don’t know how much longer I can bear it. What am I most afraid of? That he will not survive. And if he doesn’t, I will not survive either.

He was my first. And would be my only. With fine features, lively brown eyes and dark curls, he was a happy baby, a happy toddler, and a happy child. But it was more than that. Maybe it was like they say, he had an old soul. Colin was just plain old good company. Even as a kid. He was interested in everything, eager to laugh and rarely complained. He even woke up in a good mood. In the morning, I would stumble into his room bleary-eyed to him hanging onto the rail of his crib with a big smile on his face. From the very beginning, he didn’t seem to need as much sleep as I did. But that wasn’t my only problem.

A few credits shy of graduation, I had left the Midwest University to marry Colin’s father, an unusually attractive, charismatic blue-collar worker I had met on a temp job while still working my way through school. Mark was intelligent, funny, friendly and well respected by his co-workers. He was also an active alcoholic. I allowed myself to drawn deeper and deeper into an eventually abusive relationship that included isolation from my family and friends and an ever-escalating pattern of brutal beatings. Eventually, I escaped to Arizona in an attempt to make a new life for myself. I was both flattered and frightened when he quit his job to follow me down there and convinced me he would change. We soon eloped and were married on a Saturday afternoon by a Salvation Army General with two uniformed female matrons as witnesses.

The marriage was hell and Mark’s alcoholic black outs became a regular occurrence. Unable to recall the intensity of his drunken rages, he resisted my nearly immediate requests to separate. Working quietly in a nearby city, I began...