No B.S.

Hey.

I know exactly where you are. I felt like I was going crazy and the anxiety and paranoia were unimaginable. I put my giggling, loving boy to bed one night with a kiss and an ‘I love you’ and in the morning, the light behind his eyes had gone out. It was that fast. He was lying, stealing, blowing off school, and dropping out of sports. The worst part was that I was last to the reality. It had been going on for months, but I didn’t see it. I didn’t want to. I believed his excuses and I trusted his pleas. It was all a manipulation. He lost faith in me and I in him. I was left with a broken heart, racing thoughts, and reoccurring nightmares of his accidental death.

I reached out to professionals and friends and was met with placations and judgement. All of this in the midst of the shocking abandonment of his father, (a 20 year marriage), two weeks after the death of my Dad. Addiction struck my family like the Titanic hitting that damn iceberg and we were lost just as fast. I had to get my shit together. I didn’t have time to wallow or feel sorry for myself. I was going to lose my son. I started writing everything down. All of it, and then I would close the notebook and try to get some sleep.

I remember the moment it changed for my son and me. He had just gotten out of his 4th hospitalization in 6 months. I put him in that one too. He wasn’t mad anymore, just tired, raw, and a little underweight. He asked me for a bunny. He said he wanted something all his own that he could love and take care of. I knew in that moment we were going to be okay, his ability to love and care was intact. I saw the grand picture in that moment, it happened in a split second, I almost missed it. I almost thought to myself, “Is he kidding… he can’t even remember to brush his teeth and he wants to take care of a bunny?” But I saw a faint flicker in his eyes, the light that was lost so many months before. I indulged it without question or hesitation.

I’m not saying to go get a pet. I’m not saying not to. I’m saying that our children need us to look for their light in them. We need to watch for the show of their innocence when it flashes past in a millisecond. We have to notice it and respond with hope. Let the world look upon the parent of the addict as though it’s our fault and we must have done something wrong. Let your friends and partners walk away because they can’t bare the reality that it could happen to them and their child. Let it all go. The reality is that addiction kills. You’re here with me because you are awake enough to know the truth of addiction, courageous enough to put up a fight, and in love enough to never give up. I can’t throw my son out, I wont. I’m fed up with that family picture and the society that’s okay with it.

I wish I could write this and tell you my son was abstinent. Nope he isn’t. I will tell you that he’s doing great in school and has good friends. He laughs all the time and jokes with me, loves his bunny and trusts me with his thoughts, feelings, and mistakes. We’re connecting again. He doesn’t fight me on punishments and likes to go on drives and listen to music with me and his sister. No, he isn’t abstinent but we’re getting there, together. I get to be his Mom. The path of an addict is one of the hardest and scariest roads any human can walk upon, impossible when that human is a child. He will never have to walk it alone or feel unloved or unlovable on the path, I’ve figured out how to walk with him. I can teach you. Together we can change the painful relationship with addiction and keep the promise we made in those first precious moments of their life.

I’ve got a new path for the parent of the young addict and it’s time to P.A.S.S. it on. See you in class.