On Pills and Needles

by Rick Van Warner

  He again signed a new behavioral contract spelling out the conditions that would allow him to live under our roof. Within a few days he began ignoring these rules.

  Near our home we found a teen support group run by a no-nonsense New Yorker, a recovering addict herself. Very few if any of the teens attending were there by choice, with some there by court order and others as minors forced into the group by their parents. During our first family group session, Mary and I were reminded yet again how widespread the problem of teen drug abuse really is.

  By now the media was beginning to shine a light on the pill-mill industry, but very little was being done to address it. In the absence of prescription monitoring technology, blocked in Florida by the drug lobby despite its successful introduction in several other states, Oxy enthusiasts were able to fill a single doctor’s script from a pain clinic as many times as they’d like by visiting multiple chain or independent drug stores in an area.

  With years of easy access thanks to pill mills and no monitoring, trafficking networks had been established from Florida into many other states. Dealers brought Florida Oxys north up I-75 into Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia, where it became known as “hillbilly heroin.” It traveled across I-10 through the Panhandle into Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and other points west. It flowed up I-95 into the Carolinas and northward.

  Though we had no idea at the time, we found ourselves at the epicenter of the escalating opioid epidemic during the exact same time period that our highly sensitive and unsure teenager was coming of age.

  Initially, we felt a small sense of relief when attending support group meetings. There was some measure of comfort in finding we were not alone in the agony of dealing with an addicted child. But as our son’s many rehabs and relapses continued, such meetings became a source of frustration.

  “How come our son is the one that never seems to get it?” Mary asked on the ride home from a meeting.

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s his lack of spiritual acceptance; it seems to be an important step. But I know what you mean. After all we’ve been through it gets hard to listen about how great everyone else’s kid is doing.”

  Later when we understood that most “successes” were very short-lived, we softened on this stance and sought to help others instead of feeling sorry for ourselves. We witnessed an all-too-familiar pattern of pain, heartache, and despair at each gathering of anxious parents and spouses. While the situations and stories differed, the essence was the same—drugs arresting the emotional development of children, or adults, and turning them into expert manipulators, liars, and thieves.

  Supplementing the costly outpatient program Tommy now attended were regular NA or AA meetings we would drive him to on weekends and during the week. He soon developed an interest in a girl who would accompany her mother to some of the groups, a destructive pattern that would repeat itself again and again. Ron had previously warned us about Tommy’s tendency to gravitate toward the people in a group who were least serious about getting clean; it was as if he could immediately sniff them out. The fact that Tommy had yet to find a sponsor since returning to Florida was another signal that he was going through the motions and appeasing us by pretending to be serious about recovery. Like several other members of his teen group, Tommy was telling counselors what they wanted to hear, beating the drug tests with his medicine-dropper-filled-with-Clorox trick, then secretly using again on the sly.

  For my brother, clean and sober for more than twenty years and a veteran of trying to help teen users, the clearest sign that Tommy was faking it came at a Narcotics Anonymous convention session where a recovering addict shared his story. While many audience members were tearing up at the devastatingly familiar tale, Tommy sat emotionless, stone-faced, my brother reported.

  The descent from obvious pot smoking back into pill abuse was rapid. We soon found ourselves in the hellish and familiar pattern of waiting for the phone to ring in the middle of the night when he didn’t come home. Other nights of exasperation I’d stupidly burn more gas by driving all over the city searching for him.

  The return of his defiance brought things to a head, and it was clear something had to change. On the early Sunday evening before his second stint in a hospital detox unit, I sensed he was about to leave for good. In retrospect, we probably should have just let him walk out. Instead, we pushed the panic button when I found his backpack full of clothes on the grass under his bedroom window behind our house. Mary called the police while I tried to keep him from leaving.

  The situation turned chaotic when he tried to run. Again desperate to save this person I loved deeply but no longer knew, I put my arms around him and restrained him, refusing to let him leave. Going berserk, he began screaming how much he hated us, and we fell to the living room floor. It became an ugly, shameful scene with my daughter crying, wife screaming, and youngest son entering the fray. My son pulled me off Tommy and convinced Tommy to speak quietly with him in his room until the cops arrived.

  Playing the good cop, bad cop approach perfectly, the two officers who responded convinced Tommy that getting help was his best option.

  “Do you want to be arrested? Look at how much privilege you have here. I’m thinking you need a good long stay in jail to wake you up,” the one policeman said sternly. “Your parents don’t deserve this; you need to get a grip.”

  While the policeman walked into another room to speak with Mary, the “good cop” began talking to Tommy. I could still hear my daughter sobbing down the hall.

  “What are you using?” he asked.

  “Just pot,” Tommy lied, his eyes nervously darting across the room at me.

  “Look, I know this is hard and you’re going through a tough time,” the cop said. “Since we’ve been here I’ve seen you scratching yourself, and I’m pretty sure you’re using pills. Just be honest with me. Are you using pills?”

  Both policemen had noted the constant head scratching, darting eyes, and general irritability associated with opioid abuse.

  “Yeah,” Tommy said quietly, his eyes now looking at the floor.

  “Which pills?”

  “Mainly Oxys.”

  “Look, you have good parents, a great home, and a family that loves you. Will you let them get you help?”

  “Okay. I need help.”

  Within minutes we were in the car and heading for the emergency room of the same hospital we’d taken him to many months ago after coaxing him out of the abandoned building following his first disappearance. I knew that he was only here because he’d been forced into it and had no choice. As I sat in the emergency room again, waiting several hours for the process of evaluation and admittance to play out, a hurricane of emotions wracked my soul. Disbelief that here we were again, heartache for the low self-esteem that must have led my son to pills, anger over my stupidity for not seeing the signs, sadness over his lost childhood. I prayed for answers, yet began to question my faith, much like a survivor of a loved one who has been taken at far too young an age. What purpose could God have in mind for continuing to test us and ravage our family in this way? There was also, as became typical after future relapses, a sense of relief that he was getting help and would soon be out of our home. At least for a few days there might be some peace.

  Driving through the empty 4:00 a.m. streets on the way home, I convinced myself that this would be the time that Tommy would get it and move forward with a productive and happy life. This sliver of hope would always appear during the first five years of our family ordeal. I could not fathom then how much worse the situation would eventually become.

  13

  Planning the Funeral

  It took eight days from the time I dropped Tommy off in South Florida the first time until the “experts” deemed him completely detoxed and ready for the next step in his recovery. He was transferred to an allied recovery center and was thrown out after two weeks for not following rules and arguing with counselors. After a long weekend sleeping on benches an
d scrounging for food, he showed back up at the recovery center on Monday, and they gave him a second chance.

  Was this rehab attempt number six or seven? I wondered at the time. Tommy had been homeless and living on the streets at least twice before that we were aware of, and he certainly knew how miserable an existence that was. But to an addict, the craving for drugs is far more powerful than all other considerations.

  At first Tommy seemed to be making the most of his second chance, and over the next three or four weeks we received glowing reports from his counselors on how he had turned the corner and was working the twelve-step program. He had even landed a job working in a local coffee shop where owners embraced his quirky style of dress. We were delighted to hear this, yet our enthusiasm was tempered by past disappointments. We made plans to visit him with his siblings on the following weekend since it was our only chance to get together as a family that Christmas season.

  When we arrived in Delray, we went to pick him up at the coffee shop. He was behind the cash register wearing bright green plastic sunglasses without the lenses, a baseball cap on backward, and a colorful shirt that matched the hippy vibe of the place. Most encouraging was the fact that he was smiling, something we had not seen from him in a long time, and bantering with customers in a friendly manner. He seemed happy.

  Less than twenty-four hours after the most optimistic, enthusiastic conversation we’d ever had with one of Tommy’s counselors, the phone rang and the bottom dropped out again. The same counselor, speaking in a low tone as though he was about to inform us our son had died, told us that Tommy had been kicked out of the center for good and was on the streets. They’d found drug paraphernalia in his duffel bag, and the word on the street was that he had shacked up with a girl he met in the program and was using hard drugs again.

  His quick spiral back into self-worthlessness and abandonment of recovery apparently began after an accident that wasn’t his fault. While skateboarding back to the recovery center from his job, he was hit by a car that ran a stop sign. He was thrown over the hood and broke his arm. Worried this would prevent him from being able to work at the coffee shop and that he’d lose his job, he immediately became depressed and within days had turned back to drugs for solace.

  Fragile. It’s the word that best sums up Tommy’s condition during the years of his struggle and the only word that explains why he would so quickly plunge back into the abyss after any setback. So low was his opinion of himself that he would immediately throw in the towel rather than fight through a challenge or moment of adversity. Every one of his thirteen relapses was triggered by either a painful event or his eventual lack of stamina in a challenging job. Neither his parents, counselors, siblings, nor doctors ever really understood the depth of the pain, insecurity, and hypersensitivity to others and the world in general that shaped Tommy as a person. He was always somewhat fragile. The escape through drugs made him even easier to break.

  This time it was the skateboard accident that caused him to give up.

  By the time the all-too-familiar call came in from the recovery center, we were already relatively numb, despite having let slight hope shine in just a day earlier at the coffee shop. The most important thing we’ve learned over the past eight years, something that parental love makes nearly impossible to abide by, is the concept of never getting too high or too low on the inevitable roller-coaster ride of having a child who is an addict. As disheartening as it was, when we hung up the phone our reaction was different than it had ever been before.

  “That’s it, we’re done,” Mary said.

  “It’s over,” I agreed.

  For the first time we were united in our decision and firm in our resolve. We were not going to lift a finger to help him, and in no way would we allow him to again destroy our family or home. We had other children to care for and our own health to be concerned about.

  Mary had been through two cancer surgeries and another major surgery during the time that the struggles with Tommy had been going on. I’d been through an ankle surgery and found that my blood pressure had been climbing to dangerous levels. I’d also gained a lot of weight and was drowning my pain by drinking too much. The stress related to our son’s disease had taken its toll on all of us, and we could not allow this to continue.

  About a week later Tommy called and we both got on the phone.

  “I’m homeless, I’ve got nowhere to go,” he pleaded, sounding like he was crying. “Please send me money for a bus ticket home.”

  “Whose fault is that?” we responded. “No.”

  “I’m probably going to die then,” he whined, pulling out all the tricks that had manipulated our emotions and decisions in the past. “So you don’t care?”

  “We love you, Tommy, but will not help you unless you commit to being sober,” we said, hanging tough.

  “I hope you find me dead,” he said, hanging up the phone.

  What a great way to kick off the weekend, receiving a phone call from your homeless addict son saying that he’ll soon be dead if you don’t help him. But we were prepared and had reached the point of separation necessary both for him to have a chance and for us to keep our sanity.

  Reflecting on those several weeks, from when he relapsed prior to leaving for South Florida through him resurfacing in Orlando, we essentially mourned the loss of our son. It was as if he was already dead. When thoughts of him would enter my head, on an airplane, while driving, sitting at my desk, I’d be swept with grief and sadness, frequently crying, my heart constantly aching. I would pray for God to awaken his spirit, to save him from the drugs that had abducted his life, but I struggled to truly believe that my prayers would be answered. I sought for reassurance, but down deep had lost faith and therefore found none. Our love for Tommy never wavered, but to cope we had to mourn him and move forward. Mary later confessed to me that she’d lie awake in the middle of the night and plan his funeral arrangements in her head. We both had lost hope.

  Over time, we realized we had reached what the professionals call detachment. Largely through the efforts of a great therapist who has become my friend, I learned to acknowledge my emotions when thoughts of Tommy entered my mind. Instead of simply burying them in shallow graves where they’d eventually surface in fits of anger or self-destructive behavior, I learned to acknowledge them and then shove them aside.

  We learned through the insidious grapevine known as Facebook that Tommy had returned to Orlando and was staying with various friends. He claimed to only be drinking and smoking pot. He didn’t try to come home and would not have been allowed inside had he tried.

  One night I was about to drive past a McDonald’s a few miles from our house when I saw a familiar silhouette slinking toward the side door. I wheeled into the parking lot and saw my son shuffling toward the bathroom inside. In the car two spots down were two completely wasted-looking male teenagers and one female. After a few minutes Tommy walked out of the restaurant like a zombie, eyes completely glassed over, hat on sideways, earrings dangling, and wearing a black-and-white checkered jacket accessorized with lime green sneakers. He had clearly used the bathroom to shoot up.

  “Hey, Tommy,” I called through my open window. In a daze, he shuffled over to the side of my car and muttered, “Hi, Dad. Hey, I’ve got to go.”

  “Come with me,” I pleaded, desperately wanting to take him for coffee or at least have a few minutes to connect.

  “Sorry, Dad, gotta go.”

  The others all eyed me suspiciously as Tommy climbed back into the beat-up car, and they drove off. It was clear he was back on the hard stuff, the path that leads only to prison or death. We had resolved not to allow him near our home, but we did cave in and order him a few pizzas during the time he spent with friends. But that too soon came to an end when his lying, stealing ways caught up with him. Before long he was homeless again and living on the streets.

  14

  Fleas, Fiends, and Fractures

  The shift in the tone of Mary’s voice in the
kitchen told me something was terribly wrong. We were about to shuttle some of our friends to the airport after the surprise birthday bash weekend that my wife had staged for me, including a great party featuring my friend’s band.

  “What! Oh my God!” she shrieked, the blood draining out of her face.

  Well, at least his overdose didn’t ruin our great weekend, I morbidly thought, immediately feeling guilty and selfish.

  “Tommy’s in the hospital and has been since Saturday,” she said after hanging up the phone.

  By now Tommy was sharing a flea-and-cockroach-infested trailer in an unincorporated rural slum east of Orlando with his relatively long-term girlfriend and an older man she called her uncle, but who wasn’t. In the poor judgment typical of drug abusers, Tommy and his girlfriend had decided on a dark Saturday night to drive an old scooter, capable of top speeds in the thirty to thirty-five miles per hour range, on a major four-lane road into Orlando. He later claimed to have been trying to attend my surprise birthday party. Whether the back taillight of the scooter was working remains a mystery. What is known is that a large car traveling sixty to sixty-five miles per hour ran the scooter down from behind, launching both passengers, neither wearing a helmet, many yards through the air. Somehow both survived, landing in grassy areas rather than the pavement. They woke up in separate hospital rooms the next morning, neither remembering how they got there.

  Self-esteem is a complex recipe stirred by experience, circumstance, brain chemistry, and many other factors. In my case the lack of acceptance from a detached father, coupled with a medical side effect that left my teeth somewhat gray and without enamel throughout my grade school years, made me insecure and desperate for acceptance by the time I reached my teen years. For my son, never finding his tribe and feeling like the odd man out in his own family led to feelings of worthlessness, social anxiety, and over time drug abuse.

  Perhaps it is my own low opinion of myself as a kid that has made me so keenly empathize with the pain my son wrestles with. The daily school bus ride during my early years was a terrifying experience. Some of the single-cell teenage miscreants that rode my bus full of kids ranging from kindergarten to twelfth grade took great pleasure at picking on the younger kids, particularly anyone with an obvious physical weakness. “Black teeth” was the name they abused me with, sometimes several of them chanting this in unison. By the time I was nine or ten years old, my tears had turned to rage, and sometimes I’d try to fight back. These were futile attempts that only turned the verbal abuse physical, and more than once I got off the bus bruised and bloodied.