Heartbreak and gratitude

For a large part of the past two days, I have spent reading a mother's blog.  Not just any mother's blog, this mother is grieving for her son, who died earlier this year (actually on my birthday).  I was transfixed, I could not stop reading.  At times, I could barely see through my tears to read,   She is eloquent, honest and she exhibits a serenity and grace that I would find impossible to achieve.  Her son, Henry, was only 18 and apparently had been struggling with addiction for several years.  My own son, R, battled addiction during his teenage years, I stood by him, encouraged him, prayed for him and lived with a very real fear that it might kill him.  As morbid and pessimistic as it sounds, I often had thoughts of how I might deal with his death.  I also thought about not losing him to death, but losing him to the addiction.  Those thoughts haunted me during that dark time in his life.

My son won that battle.  I have watched him grow and mature into a wonderful and caring young man.  He has broken free from the prison the drugs made for him.  Even during those difficult days, he was loving and sensitive.  The biggest part of that struggle was the fact that he knew his actions and addiction hurt the people that loved him.  The guilt he felt over that confirmed to him what a failure he was.  He felt worthless.  I learned that the addiction is an illness and you need to look hard and see the person behind the addiction.

Reading her words took me back to that time.  I remembered the fear and the anger I felt.  Sometimes I was angry at him, but mostly I was angry towards the illness, the addiction that gripped him and pulled him away from me.  It is a horribly helpless feeling to see your child hurting and dying before your eyes.  For a period of time I was oblivious, I used to wonder if I could have stopped it if I knew from the beginning.  After he was in treatment, I learned that he began experimenting with drugs when he was 12.  I watched him try and fail, time and time again, from the first time he was arrested until he finally completed a program, and more than that, he overcame the death grip of the drugs.  Even more than relating to her account of Henry's addiction and her grief, I saw so much of R in her descriptions of Henry.  They both were handsome, smart, athletic boys, involved in sports and other activities.  They were both musically talented, both very sensitive, both very loving.

R was 15 when he was arrested, although he was a teenager he was far from being grown.  He was still my baby, my child.  I cried all night the first night he spent in jail.  The only thing consoling me was that I knew where he was and he was safe.  It was just the beginning.  I found out my insurance, despite what my policy said, did not pay for any kind of substance abuse treatment.  He started two different programs and failed at both of them.  I discovered he was stealing and dealing drugs to support his habit.  I also found he was being threatened by a 34 year old drug dealer who was using him and several other young boys to distribute drugs for him and operate a theft ring.  The police refused to help me, even after this man called numerous times a day and came to our home.  They even knew who he was and he was on parole at the time, they asked if my son could give them information on him or anyone else.  He didn't know anything of value to them, they told me if he "could think of anything else" to let them know and they would see what they could do.  I began to gather information on him and confronted him on the phone and on the street in our neighborhood.  I threatened him, he laughed at me, but I told him I had a gun and if he came to our house again, I would kill him.   I also told him that I knew people who would make him very sorry that he ever messed with us.  He might have laughed, but he also left us alone after that.  People who prey on children are usually cowards.  I found another treatment program, still outpatient (I could not afford any kind of residential program), which was intensive (4 days out of the week) and incorporated several counseling techniques.  I took out a sizable loan (which I am still paying on) and gave my son the option of participating or being in jail.  I also participated in the program, one night in a parent group and one night with him.  In the beginning he was sullen and resistant, he continued to fail drug tests.  After he spent another weekend in jail for failing a drug test, he started trying a little more.  By the end of the treatment he was involved, committed, clean and proud of himself. 

to be continued...