In the past several weeks I have been contacted by several parents about their child’s drug abuse.
I won’t lie. I have wondered
why they would contact me. After all, my son died from overdose…I’m not exactly
a shining example of what to do to save your child.
Or am I?
What I realized after talking
at length with these struggling moms and dads is that they aren’t reaching out
to me thinking about the fact that my son lost his battle with addiction.
They are reaching out to me
because I survived it.
I had the strength to somehow
differentiate Max from “drug” Max, (because they are two different people) and separate myself from one version of my son while still loving the other.
Sometimes I fear that in
doing that I have done irreversible damage to myself…because my son is gone and
sometimes I don’t miss him.
Perhaps that seems harsh or
cold or completely obscene to you. If it does then I venture to say you have
never loved an addict.
Don’t misunderstand…sometimes
I miss Max so much I find it difficult to even breath. I have to push thoughts
of him out of my mind in order to just get through the day.
It is drug Max that
I don’t miss.
Drug Max consumed my life.
That is the struggle that
parents of an addict face.
Their lives are consumed by
drug addiction.
They aren’t reaching out to
me for answers or advice, they are simply reaching out to me because I
understand what they are living with. I was intimately involved with the same
monster that has taken hold of their children and I know what it is to feel
powerless when that monster comes.
I have sat up too many nights to remember,
wondering if tonight would be the night that I got “the” call.
I have turned my
ringer up all the way to make sure I heard the phone if it rang in the middle
of the night.
I have also turned my ringer off…to make sure I didn’t hear it ring in the middle of
the night.
I have been there. And it is
an ugly place to be.
One mom that called me asked
that I call her son and see what I thought about what he had to say. Her son,
let’s call him John, grew up with my son. They played football together,
went to school dances, fought over the same girl…they were as close as any two
teenage boys could be.
He sleeps with my son’s
photos on his nightstand…
And he has started using again.
Well, she thinks he is using
again…
(Any parent of an addict
knows when their child is using…they just don’t want to believe it. I am here
to tell you that if you think your child is using, then they are using. They
are looking right in your eyes and lying to you…deep down you know the truth.
Trust yourself.)
So I called John. His
rational explanation for the xanax his mom found and the money that he had
“lost” made me feel like I was hearing Max all over again.
I love John. I’m not here to
judge him. I’m not here to save him. I’m just here…and that’s what I told him.
It’s the same thing I told
the daughter of a dad that called me back in November because he thought his
daughter might be using again.
The second I saw her I saw it
in her eyes. She was at work, functioning, happy…and high.
The high never lasts though.
So I told her what I told John. I’m here. I understand. There are people that
love you…and eventually you are going to have to stop and feel everything that you are trying to avoid feeling now.
That was November…today is
April 2nd and today she is 27 days sober.
Here is the irony in these two
stories…the dad of the girl who is 27 days sober is not worried one bit less
about his daughter than John’s mom is worried about John.
Sobriety doesn’t mean you are
cured. Sobriety doesn’t mean everything is good now so go live your life. It
just means that today, in this minute, you are sober.
Addiction is a minute by
minute disease. At any minute it can all change…an addict can stop using and an
addict can start using…this irrefutable fact means that if you love an addict
you are exhausted.
Just tired…both the mom and
dad I mention here said the same thing, they are just plain tired.
They called me because they
know I understand that type of exhaustion. They called me because they knew
Max, they know me, and they know that judgment doesn’t live here.
They called me…
Even though Max lost his
battle, they feel I have won mine. Because somehow in the pain, the exhaustion, and the grief, I continue to move forward, day by day, minute by minute…I move forward.
Max wouldn't want it any other way.
