Interrupted Journeys
One Family’s Struggle with Addiction
My father was an alcoholic. My son is a drug addict. Sandwiched as I am between two generations of substance abusers, it is a wonder I got away “clean and sober”. To be clear, avoiding the downward spiral my father had embraced was a choice. It required a long and painful examination of my childhood and more determination than I thought myself capable of, but as I said, it was a choice.
Living within a tight-knit, tight-lipped family damaged by alcoholism and enablers had the questionable benefit of forcing me into an early maturity. So at 18, I made the most critical decision of my life. I would not follow the path my parents had laid out before me. I would not find my ultimate measure of comfort in a bottle, or succumb to the poisonous cycle of enabling, blaming, hating. I would find a better way, so I ran.
Years later, a girlfriend dragged me kicking and screaming to an Adult Children of Alcoholics meeting. The first meeting was a revelation. It was shocking to hear all these people freely admit to something my family had taken such great pains to hide. The raw honesty of the gatherings gave me a new perspective on myself and my upbringing. They also broadened my understanding of addiction in general. It was knowledge I would badly need much later in life.
Fast forward 30 years during which time I worked like hell, graduated a couple of times from various excellent universities, and found myself married with one son and a couple of dogs. Life was humming along with the normal fits and starts until our son started middle school. His adorable classmates morphed into nasty, text-book tossing bullies. My complaints earned me the right to be bullied and demeaned by the middle school faculty. After his graduation, we picked up and left town, believing that a gentler populace in a different part of the country would give us space to heal. For a time it was very good, and we preened in the knowledge that we had made the right move.
Our son attended a terrific high school in the city. He ran on the track team, acted in school plays, and logged several semesters on the Honor Roll. He was accepted at all the colleges to which he had applied, and was offered a scholarship to one of them. His life seemed to be on a positive trajectory.
The August following his graduation we drove him, teary-eyed, to his new life at a very good college. As many kids do, he found the near total freedom of a bucolic campus too much to handle. He partied, experimented, explored, and failed to study. By the middle of his second term the writing was on the wall. We were advised that he could not return the subsequent year. We all recognized his rebellious act was simply that, and that at a deep level he was painfully humiliated.
Our son returned home to live, attended the local community college, found a part time job, and the trouble began. Before too long we suspected serious problems. We talked; he did not. We found a “life counselor” in the hopes we could circumvent what we feared would follow. Then it all hit the fan.
As I said, my son is a drug addict. Family members, friends, and others who have no experience of addiction, harbor firm opinions of my family’s situation. Each one is convinced that they understand the reasons behind my son’s addiction, and by implication, they also “know” the solution. Addiction results from a weak will. The solution is discipline — failing that, punishment. “A little jail time will do him good.” It is a disease, a disorder of the brain. The solution is rehabilitative treatment — a balm for the wounded psyche, if you will. “I’ve heard of a very good program in Malibu. It is expensive, of course, but you love your son. Right?” The problem was lousy parenting. The wounding, accusatory stares communicated, “You messed up. Glad he’s not my problem.”
The problem of addiction is neither the result of interior weakness nor is it a disease. Addiction does not represent a failure of parenting. It is a perfect storm. It stems from a deep emotional disconnection. It is a failure to be loved, or to trust love when it is offered. It is a refusal to accept the beauty within ourselves; it is a result of being bullied, rejected, violated. It stems from too much sensitivity in a harsh and uncaring world. It comes from flagging resilience. It results from not seeking wise counsel, from abandoning sources of support. It comes when someone is crushed one too many times. These wounds are necessarily accompanied by an opportunity to dull the pain — a pill, a powder, a drink — an escape.
I cannot know exactly how my son felt, but I can offer a few ideas based on my observations of him, and to be honest, of my own life experience. A lack of loving acceptance creates a particular kind of disconnection, and an overriding sense of desperation in the human soul. A total lack of love is a living hell. It is the place, perhaps in our hearts, perhaps in the physical world, where no comfort and no nurturing can exist. Think of solitary confinement, or those horrible vehicles used to smuggle human beings past international borders. A lack of love is a place devoid of joy, laughter, and light; it creates a space that is worse than empty. It is a lightless vacuum. The discomfort of this place makes our hearts ache, and our brains fill with irrational thoughts. A total lack of love can make us fearful, resentful, angry. In these ways, it is a lot like drug use itself.
The step from understanding how this desperate place crosses the line into addiction does not require a huge, imaginative leap. The walk from one cold void into another is easy, even logical. As my son says, he took the drugs because they killed the pain. Drugs are what my son turned to when he came to believe that he had no friends, that he was too different to be accepted by his peers, that he didn’t measure up to his, his school’s, or his parent’s expectations. Drugs are what his fragile psyche turned to when he felt too much pain — when feeling disconnected overcame him. I suppose he could have just as easily said that he used because drugs made him feel accepted, or he could have said they comforted him, perhaps stood in for love.
He didn’t realize that with every use, the chemicals clawed deeper into his mind, telling him how necessary they were for his sense of worth. How they made him powerful, more of a man. How they gave him a measure of superiority over the bullies. I want to believe he resisted the pull. Perhaps he was too worn down to fight any longer, perhaps he did not believe the fight was worth it. I do not believe he considered addiction a possibility for him. It wasn’t denial exactly, rather it seemed to have been the naive idea that it wouldn’t ambush him. But at one point he flung open the gates to his psyche, and let addiction rumble in, dragging along its heavy artillery.
I imagine that the destruction brought about by addiction is much like the destruction of an aerial bombardment. It comes from no easily definable location and arrives with overwhelming force. All parties are caught unawares; no one survives unscathed. Those who live through the initial blows are changed forever. The addict’s future, their physical health, and mental faculties are the first casualties of the onslaught. In my son’s case, his emotional health, such as it was, was ripped to shreds. Party companions, drinking buddies, lovers, and employers walked away.
With his substance abuse came lies, sudden disappearances, threats of physical violence. More than once I dialed 911, drove him to the ER, held his hand as a doctor stitched him, watched helplessly as he rode away in police cars, and cried bitterly as he convulsed on the garage floor, lips blue. We took him to psychiatrists, treatment programs, and a mental hospital. He was alternately belligerent and weepy; angry then pleading. It was a nightmare. No, it was a war against an unseen enemy.
His active addiction lasted several years. There were days when I despaired he was irredeemably lost to his substance abuse. We did not know if he could emerge from the darkness, or if it would ultimately snuff the last light from his eyes. Several months into his fourth or fifth treatment program, he announced during a phone call that the previous programs had not worked because he “wasn’t done yet.” My stomach tightened. In just an instant, overwhelming pain choked out any possibility I might say something useful. What was he really trying to tell me?
As a former colleague explained to me, a drug user does not mature, emotionally, spiritually, or intellectually. When the drugs start, he said, maturing stops. He confided that just because an addict’s age is linked to particular state of life, the addict’s brain is still where he/she left it before the drugs overtook their life. If the user puts their addiction on hold — because, he said, an addict is always an addict — then they can pick up the maturing or the education or whatever, where it was when they left it. If, he laughed, they can find it. It is as though the addict stepped off a long distance bus and let the rest of the passengers continue on their journey. At some point the other passengers arrive at their chosen destinations, but the addict is left standing on the curb. In life, this means a laundry list of opportunities missed, education abandoned, partners lost, and relationships so badly damaged they may never be resuscitated.
My spouse and I attended meetings for those who care for addicts; “Let go or be dragged” we were told. Well-meaning friends urged me to walk away. Although I understand their words were intended to demonstrate some measure of kindness, I found them hurtful. The idea that I could abandon my own child was, and remains, deeply insulting. Those “self-preservation” notions fly in the face of my instincts to nurture, and run dangerously close to a perverse sort of selfishness. Yes, my son’s addiction burned the flush of innocence from his brow, it crushed his youthful promise. It molded the remains into a shattered human being without desires. It broke my heart. Yet my strongest hope continues to be for his healing, and for the restoration of his psyche. I want to see him rebuild genuine connections with his community, and find the ability to love. I want to see him hope again.
The years of my son’s active addiction dealt me experiences I never dreamed of, and lessons I wish I had not had to learn. Addiction taught me something about living with mystery. Who picks which drug user becomes an addict, and which person plucks up the grit and walks away? Why are some very fragile people not drawn to escaping life’s hurts through substances? How do some users see the tipping point coming and others do not? Is it Grace? Fate? I can only close my eyes and wonder.
The last lesson I want to mention — and trust me, there are other hard-earned lessons to be shared — is that there is no one way to gain sobriety. Just as there are many elements leading to drug use and subsequent addiction, there are many contributing factors that can help an addict stay clean and sober. From what I have observed, I think helping the addict find their way into a loving community might be the most important element of recovery. Everyone needs friends. Someone who has isolated themselves through drug abuse needs them more than most. Supporting them as they relocate abandoned goals, or formulate new ones, is valuable. But in the end, the addict has to recognize that a clean life can be a good and beautiful journey, and they need to find the courage to fight for it.
