Life's Painful Bit

There is nothing in this life that will knock a mother on her butt quite like finding out her kid is a drug addict. "Just stop it," is the first thing that comes to mind, and often out of my mouth. Then your kid desperately tells you, "I can't."

I worked so hard in my kids life, to let them know I don't believe in "can't". I always told them, as so many of us do, that there is nothing they won't accomplish, if they believe in themselves enough to try. But I never smoked oxycontin, either. I never sucked it's awful smoke up a straw straight into my lungs, and into my bloodstream. Direct contact. Flush, relax, zone out of reality. I suppose it is like heroin, only without the needles. No, I don't want to know all the ways one can get that bit of nightmare into ones' body.

My first husband, my children's father, had an addictive personality. He liked the drugs, the way they took him away. As a young girl, yes, I tried some of them with him. But unlike him, I hated being out of control of my head. With coke, I hated the sniffing. I hated the hole it put in my friends septum; I hated the way people cut the stuff, acted like it was gold, and inhaled it. I hated the devious way people were in order to use it. I hated that he liked it so much. I hated the zombie he became, a walking dead man.

It was years later, but he found the newer version of it. He smoked crack, which I assume that he had been smoking some before we separated. I assume that his influence and the way he talked to my middle son about drugs was just enough to make it appealing to the child who idolized his father. I assume, because I can. Richard is dead, of a massive heart attack due to crack cocaine use, and not taking care of himself. That is what happens when you use drugs.

My son is a gem. All mothers of drug addicts say that. He is, though, a remarkable 'young' man. He has been able to get certified in loan officer training, (whatever they are called) he got his real estate certificate, and he got an insurance certificate. If there is anyone out there who thinks that any one of those things is hard, and tedious, and boring, try doing all three. Though he did not graduate high school, none of my children did, he is accomplished. He knows people, and he is above everything else, compassionate. On top of all that, (no, wait! There's more!) he's always had the ability to laugh at himself and has a great sense of humor.

But my son cannot kick oxycontin. That drug that should have been prescribed only for cancer, has been prescribed to him for everything from knee surgery to a broken nose. It must have worked. He went on to getting it for himself and others. He is in the worst shape of his life, and my heart is paper thin. I've not given him money, I can't. I've not done anything but pray and beg him to find ways to get himself and the love of his life clean. Yes, she is addicted too. They are precariously balanced. They teeter over an abyss of death, as they walk the tightrope of life. He needs help, but there is nothing available. I cannot afford to pay for it. She has no insurance.

He has spiraled into a depression so deep, so heart wrenching. He cannot see the top of this hole he is in. All the cliche's come to mind about light, and darkness. Dawn, and day.

It strangles me with fear, this addiction. If anyone tells you it is the kid, and not the parent who suffers, they haven't been here. They haven't worried that his liver will give out, or his kidneys fail, or his heart explodes. They haven't been terrified that to make money he will do something illegal, and I will keep my promise, and not speak to him, I can't say for ever. I love him too much to cut him off completely.

But it is there. It is here. His addiction colors my opinions of everything I took for granted. I understand now, that the world is not black and white, that there is grey, and there should be. I do not judge the parents for the child's addiction, like I did before my babies were adults. It was so easy to make those judgements, but we forget how the universe works, when we do that. Never say never, it is like opening a door to calamity, so that all that nonsense comes into your house, and it is truly, never the same. Ever. Streets are different, darker and full of threats. Poltics is different, and sucking the life out of the middle class, and making sure we have no health insurance, because it benefits them. Your interests are colored by this ache, and your light is dimmer than it was yesterday. Your plans surround the what if's of possibilities, too dark to contemplate.

But it is not up to me. His grabbing this monkey is not my job, not within my grasp. Oh, I would, as every mother of an addict out there would, if we had the ability, because we are strong enough to choke the life out of it.

This is the painful bit. I cannot lift him up and kiss his scraped knee. I cannot yell at the other kids, and threaten to talk to their parents for bullying him. I cannot do anything. I can point him to help, I can direct him to go, but if he can, and I pray like a mad woman that he will, I will be there to help him any way that I can. My heart is broken, and shredded. I know the boy he was, and the man he can be. I know this like I know my name. He is my son. He is an addict.