“It’s a material thing and will be fixed in two or three weeks; don’t worry about it,” I said, trying to reassure him. “All that matters is that you didn’t get hurt.”
“But it happens over and over to me,” he said. “I’m just tired of nothing ever going right.”
“I love you, son, your family loves you, and you have made huge progress from where you were,” I said. “You shouldn’t give up, just like we will never give up on you. You have so much life ahead of you; you’re a talented artist and an extremely smart and funny person. You’ve just got to figure out how to handle setbacks or something bad happening to you without going back to the drugs.”
We went on to discuss earlier situations and how it seemed to always be a setback of some sort—such as the breakup with a girlfriend, getting into trouble, or an accident involving a skateboard, scooter, or car—that triggered each relapse. He seemed to agree that he needed to recognize this trigger and not go down the dark road whenever something went bad and that he needed better coping mechanisms.
Although we were making progress in our relationship, it didn’t stop his deep and complex need to escape through opioids. Within weeks, this need created the worst nightmare either of our youngest two children had ever witnessed, and something children should never have to see.
19
Dangerous Demons Return
A few days after the hospital blackout episode, Mary and I were at dinner with another couple and had just ordered appetizers and a bottle of wine when Barry and Jessie began blowing up our phones with calls and texts, which we missed at first because the ringers had been silenced.
“Answer your damn phones!” read the first text I saw from my youngest son, uncharacteristically frantic and a signal that something was terribly wrong. We bolted for home.
We were greeted by a horrific scene and our worst nightmare when it came to our daughter and her favorite brother. Jessie had come home from a play rehearsal to find Tommy passed out in his room. He was slumped with his back against the headboard, head to the side, blood on the bottom of his arm, and a needle on the bed next to him. At first it wasn’t clear if he was dead or alive.
Things could have been even worse except for the opportune timing of Barry and his girlfriend, Katy, being present in the house at the time. Barry had come home a day earlier for a visit from college. When Jessie collapsed on the living room sofa, sobbing uncontrollably after seeing what she thought was her brother dead from an overdose, Katy was there to console her. Having stayed with Jessie several times while we were away, she was like a big sister to our daughter. Her presence allowed Barry to tend to the dark task at hand.
He was able to awaken Tommy by shaking him and gently slapping his face, but it was apparent how out of it he was. It was clear to all of us that our new approach had failed. Unlike his previous dozen or so relapses, this time we witnessed the ugly moment of truth firsthand. Worst of all, so did our daughter and son.
The familiar clock began ticking as we scrambled to figure out next steps. Tommy was now awake, and we began systematically searching his room for drugs and needles. In an excruciating process given that our doped-out son was babbling incoherently and present throughout, we went through every drawer, every shoebox, the inside of every trophy, every shirt and pants pocket, and essentially every nook and cranny of his room. He eventually showed us all his hiding places, which included inside the puppet hand pouch in his favorite stuffed animal, a dolphin he had never been far from as a young child. Dolphins were his favorite, and he had carried Flipper with him wherever he went. Now he reached inside to pull out a baggie containing a few small vials of powder. Concealed inside a zipper pocket in his art portfolio case, which was filled with paintings and sketches, was a package of hypodermic needles. The inside band of a baseball hat stored several varieties of pills. I easily found his jar of weed in a dresser drawer.
Well-versed in the futility of trying to use logic or reason with an addict under the influence, we all let Tommy know how much we loved him and told him we’d talk in the morning. We made it clear that this would be his last night in his room, and he seemed to accept this. But then again, it was impossible to know what he really was thinking in his haywired junkie mind.
The next morning turned out nearly as bad. The plan was to take him to the only detox option we felt would work, the same hospital where he’d first gone six years earlier. As I was getting dressed and mentally preparing for the journey, one of the many catchphrases I’d learned through Nar-Anon popped up in my head: The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results.
“Rick, can I see you?” I heard Mary call from across the house.
Now what, I thought, hoping for something minor but anticipating something worse. Before I could get there I heard the yelling.
“What do you have?” she shrieked.
“Nothing!” Tommy yelled back.
“What is in your hand?” she screamed, her shriek a combination of anger and terror.
“Leave me alone,” he pleaded.
“Rick,” she cried out, “he’s got something.”
Entering the standoff, I demanded that Tommy show us what he now clutched in his closed fist. He was desperate that we not see it, and he began to run through the bathroom into his brother’s room. I was able to catch him before he bolted from the house. He screamed and cried as we wrestled, trying with almost superhuman strength to keep me from prying open his balled-up fist to see what he was hiding. After finally prying his hand open, but not before being punctured, I found he had a needle.
He was so deep in the clutches of opiates again that even on the morning he was heading to detox, less than twenty-four hours after traumatizing his sister and family, he was hoping to shoot up one more time. What fools we have been, I thought, by thinking that things could be different.
He was hysterical, hyperventilating, and begging me to just let him go. It was the most emotionally devastating conversation I had with him, and there had been many by now.
“Dad, pleeease, just let me go,” he said, sobbing. “You don’t deserve this; everyone would be better off if I just went my own way.”
“That’s not true, son; you have a problem but we’re never going to give up on you,” I said.
“But I’m a worthless piece of crap,” he said, the tears pouring down his cheeks. “I just keep messing up over and over. I just can’t get it. It’s not fair to you guys.”
“Tommy, you’ve got to stop thinking this way,” I replied. “You are part of this family, every one of us loves you. The most selfish and unfair thing you could ever do to us would be to hurt yourself. You can do this, but you’ve got to realize that you have to commit to it and work hard at it.”
“Please, Dad, just let me take some things and go,” he pleaded. “I’ll travel and camp and go out west.”
“No, son, let’s go,” I said firmly. “I love you and that’s why we have to go now.”
We hugged and shed a lot of tears at the conclusion of this terrible morning battle. By the time we were in the car and rolling toward the hospital, he had accepted that he needed help and no longer resisted.
We signed in at the hospital’s emergency room desk. Having sat in this same room for the same reason for hours on two previous trips, I was relieved that it was relatively empty on this particular Sunday morning. Now hypersensitive to his every move after having experienced every escape and con imaginable, I began to worry when he didn’t come out of the hospital bathroom right away. I nervously watched the door for nearly ten minutes before breaking down and knocking on it.
“Tommy, are you okay in there?”
“Yeah,” he responded, emerging less than a minute later.
I’d forgotten that he was still under the influence, nowhere near as incoherent as he was the previous night but still pretty loopy. I’d not taken into account how slow he was in this state, taking forever to complete the most mundane tasks.
After about an hour, we were called and taken back to a room. Less than thirty minutes later came the bad news that the hospital no longer accepted detoxification patients.
“And you couldn’t tell us that at the beginning?” I asked, exasperated. “So I wasted two hours when my son needs a place to go so you could make sure to charge me for the emergency room exam?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” was the nurse’s robotic reply.
Back in the car with my son, we discussed options.
“The place in Umatilla was really good,” Tommy said. “The people were nice, and I did well until my insurance ran out. What about going there?”
Unfortunately, the same problem that had led to having two cars and unknown amounts of money taken from him by drug dealers made the free, public detox places in the area run by groups such as the Salvation Army too dangerous an option. He was certain he’d be spotted by someone there and reported to drug dealers he owed money to. Exhausted, we agreed that Umatilla was still the best and closest option, and we began the long, arduous process of trying to get him processed and admitted on a Sunday. First they interviewed him about his usage, and he stepped out of the car so I couldn’t hear the full laundry list of everything he’d resumed using. His drug inventory was something he was clearly ashamed of, particularly when it came to his parents knowing all the gory details.
At first the person handling weekend admissions said it would be impossible to get him in until Monday. There’s no way either of us could have made it that long.
“Listen, this can’t wait until Monday; it’s an acute crisis now,” I explained. “I have to get him somewhere today.”
“Okay, I’ll try to reach the director and will call you back but can’t promise anything,” he said.
Recognizing that the sooner we got out of Orlando the better, we began heading north. We found a decent looking restaurant in an old building and stopped for lunch to kill time. Many customers were there for the Sunday brunch buffet, located adjacent to where we were seated. A few returning to the trough to refill their plates for a second or third time shot disapproving glances at my raggedy-looking, tattooed son. I restrained myself from the nasty comments I was tempted to throw out; instead I just stared each one down with the most menacing scowl I could muster.
It’s interesting how much the difficult realities of addiction can remind you what really matters in life and what doesn’t. When my friend Bob buried his only child unexpectedly, the experience made me rethink my priorities and career, leading to changes in both. When I first grappled with the reality of Tommy’s addiction, I was embarrassed to share it with all but the closest friends and family members. Now I no longer cared what anyone thought, least of all some ignorant, judgmental crackers chowing down at a buffet.
From the time we left the hospital emergency room and throughout our lunch, we engaged in some amazing conversation and even found ourselves sharing several chuckles. The two of us had been down this road many times by now, and the day that had begun with such emotional chaos became relaxed. Even though he had relapsed, the ease with which we were now communicating was far different. At least we have bonded over the last few months, I thought, and could talk openly with each other.
Finally we got the phone call we needed. They were ready to admit him at the center. It was a good thing too because the cramps and nausea caused by opiate withdrawal were beginning to kick in. After buying him the requisite packs of cigarettes he wanted for detox, I essentially walked him in, gave them his duffel bag, hugged him good-bye, and left.
Tommy completed his detox and, as usual, did well during the first two weeks in recovery. He told me that it was the same stuff he’d been through many times before, and that one counselor said he knew so much he should be teaching the program. Everything seemed rosy, as it had in honeymoon periods past. But then they wanted to extend his program, and he balked.
We’d gotten a call from the team assigned to Tommy with the strong recommendation that he needed a program much longer than thirty days. Our son was convinced that all such programs were first and foremost about the money, a feeling I came to share over time. He felt that it would be a complete waste of money to sit in groups and cover the same ground again. My brother agreed.
“He’s got a head full of NA and has all the tools already,” Ron said. “He just needs to decide to do it. More rehab would be a waste of money and time.”
Mary and I were also skeptical that beyond thirty days, there would not be much value. But it was his call and his choice on a path forward, something that Mary apparently forgot when she fielded a call one morning from a center employee.
“Your son is threatening to leave, and we don’t think it’s a good idea,” the caller told Mary. “We think he needs at least another thirty to sixty days, but he’s asking for his phone and wallet back to leave. Here, let me put him on the phone.”
“Are you crazy?” I heard her ask him. “After all we’ve done for you!”
“But Mom, they’re trying to push me into a long-term program, and I’ve done my time here,” he said. “It’s all about the money. I have a ride to Orlando and need to get back to work.”
“You can’t stay here,” she reminded him. “Where are you going to stay, have you thought about that?”
“Mom, I’ve gotta go,” he said, hanging up. Within a couple hours, he was back in Orlando.
Tommy exited the recovery center with a new girl he’d met there and caught a ride back with her mother, and was now flopping at the mother’s house. From the second he had woken up in the hospital several days earlier, and throughout his latest halfhearted recovery attempt, only one thing remained on Tommy’s mind: how not to lose his restaurant job.
Despite reassuring him that I had been in regular contact with his manager via text, and that they would welcome him back once he was ready, Tommy loved the job and obsessed about getting back as soon as possible. It led him to pull out all his monitoring wires at the hospital, get dressed, and try to walk out before security guards stopped him. It made him decide to walk out of another recovery center to get back to work after just a few days. But he had a dilemma: no transportation. I’d recovered his scooter in the parking space where he’d left it the night he blacked out. It had been untouched, his valuable bomber jacket lying across the seat. Remarkably, nothing was stolen during the twenty-four hours it sat there. We had parked the scooter in our garage while considering whether to sell it.
My phone soon rang.
“Dad, I need my money,” Tommy said.
“How are you going to get back up to the recovery center to get your phone and wallet?” I asked.
“Her mom said she’ll give us a ride tomorrow.”
Completely disgusted with this misguided change in plans, Mary and I deepened in our resolve not to have him in the house and changed our alarm codes again. I met him at a McDonald’s parking lot the next day to give him the cash he’d earned from his job that I’d stashed for safekeeping. That’s it, I thought like far too many times before. I probably won’t see him again for a long time, if ever.
Less than two days later Tommy called me, clearly paranoid and terrified. He was hiding in the bushes of a stranger’s home, whom he’d somehow convinced to let him use his phone.
“Please come get me as soon as you can,” he whispered. “I have to get out of here now.”
“Whoa, slow down, I don’t even know where you are,” I said. “What’s happening?”
“It’s Six Pack, he’s back,” he said. “He wants to kill me. Please hurry!”
After jumping in the truck for the thirty-minute drive to his location, I called Tommy back. He proceeded to babble incoherently about Six Pack, a ruthless drug dealer who, according to local news reports, had previously fled to the Dominican Republic to evade capture after killing two people in Orlando. The night before, Tommy had run across the man in a seedy, drug-ridden neighborhood where he had gone with a girl he’d met at the recovery center at which he’d
lasted only a week.
The previous day Tommy’s new friend convinced her uncle to drive the pair downtown so Tommy could sit down with his restaurant manager to negotiate a return to work. They never made it. The uncle sped down the interstate and while weaving through traffic clipped another car, sending his vehicle careening across three lanes of traffic and causing a four-car wreck. His niece, riding shotgun, suffered a broken nose and cuts from the airbag. The uncle’s hand smashed through the windshield, breaking and badly cutting it. Tommy, riding behind the passenger seat and not wearing a seatbelt, was thrown into the seat back and door. He got lucky, suffering mostly from bruised knees and arms. The dark cloud had returned.
That night, frustrated over the accident and hurting from their injuries, Tommy and his friend decided to use Oxys to ease their pain. They climbed in her mother’s car and drove off. The neighborhood she drove into made the hair on Tommy’s neck stand up, he later told me. It was a territory known to be controlled by the dreaded drug dealer Six Pack, an area Tommy had sworn never to set foot in again. Things got worse.
The woman asked Tommy to wait in the car for her at a convenience store. Tommy was shocked to see her get into another car with a middle-aged man and drive off. It turned out she was turning tricks for drug money, something he says he didn’t see coming. Since they’d met in a drug treatment facility just a few days earlier, it’s doubtful he knew anything about her. Bored and anxious while awaiting her return, Tommy went into the store to get a bottle of water and some candy. To his horror he heard a familiar voice as the little bells on the store’s door announced some new customers entering. It was Six Pack and a couple members of his posse. Tommy ducked down in the aisle and managed to sneak out of the store without Six Pack spotting him. Now terrified but with nothing left to do but wait, he stayed slumped down in the car until the girl returned.
On Pills and Needles Page 16