“I don’t know, just let me go!”
“Tommy!” I said in as stern a voice as possible without losing a compassionate tone. “I’ll be there in an hour, and we can talk about this in person. Okay?”
After a slight pause he answered. “Okay.”
“Hang tight, try to eat something. I’ll be there as fast as possible. We love you!”
A little over an hour later, Tommy and I were in my truck and heading back to Orlando to a new treatment center that Mary had found. This one combined a full psychological assessment with the drug recovery program, and seemed to take a more clinical approach than any recovery and rehab centers we’d encountered. Still panning for a golden nugget that might save our son, we reasoned that maybe his inability to stay clean was rooted in psychiatric imbalance, not just physical dependency.
By the time Tommy’s relapses had hit double digits, I’d concluded that brain chemistry and underlying mental imbalances had to be major ingredients in the complex stew that leads to addiction. Why do some in the same family with similar genetic predispositions toward substance abuse become addicts while others don’t? Why are some addicts able to overcome and have clean, productive lives while others can’t? How can some folks simply stop smoking, drinking, or drugging cold turkey and never touch their crutch again without any programs, meetings, or outside help? Brain chemistry is a powerful piece of the mix. Everyone is different, and in considering the struggles faced by my son, brother, and late father—coupled with the countless stories I’ve digested about other addicts over the past several years—I’m convinced that our individual wiring is a leading factor in addiction to drugs, food, sex, or any excess. The brain is the last frontier for modern medicine, yet we’re essentially in the Stone Age when it comes to truly understanding it.
In Tommy’s case, psychological testing had been conducted a year or two earlier, diagnosing him with social anxiety disorder and mild depression. It was impossible to decipher whether these conditions were preexistent or related to the rewiring of brain circuits that five years of hard drug use had caused. The dilemma is even greater when considering potential treatment using medicine. How can you prescribe pills to a pill abuser? What if we were just giving him something more to abuse or something that would kill him by interacting with the Oxys he was injecting?
The chemical-imbalance issue combined with his drug abuse thrust Tommy into no-man’s-land when it came to finding a doctor to help us sort things out. Most psychiatrists refuse to even see a patient with a history of drug dependency, not to mention that getting an appointment for a new patient can often take months. The demand far outstrips the supply of doctors, something that was exasperated by repercussions from the pill-mill problem and Big Pharma’s prowess at peddling pills for every ailment imaginable.
The long-term vexing problem of how and whether to treat Tommy’s social anxiety and depression had now resurfaced. On our drive back to Orlando, he agreed that it might be time to try medicine, although because he was still coming down off opiates, there wasn’t much coherent thought coming out of him that day. Instead of traveling to Barry’s campus for a planned weekend visit, I found myself sitting in the waiting room of another facility discovered in our latest foraging for a panacea.
Within the first thirty minutes of our arrival, I sensed this was a mistake. On the ten or so previous occasions when I’d checked Tommy into a detox facility, the process was the same—private interview with the patient, payment terms arranged, and then the patient taken to a bed inside fifteen to twenty minutes maximum. This time we found ourselves still waiting to see someone after three hours! The center apparently had no clue how to deal with individuals coming down from heroin or pills.
The first sign that we should have left shortly after arrival was the thirty-something woman who appeared more like fifty who was pacing the room and swearing at any staff person who came in or out of the locked doors.
“How much longer?” she cackled. “I’ve been here for two hours!”
Clearly also coming down and, like my son, beginning to experience nausea, cramps, and extreme irritability, the woman was fit to be tied. Except for stepping outside a couple times to bum and smoke a cigarette, she became louder and more belligerent as the clock kept ticking. Eventually, she was kicking furniture around, cussing, and threatening to leave. The tension she added to the waiting room impacted Tommy almost immediately, especially given his condition and acute sensitivity to the environment and those around him.
“Dad, this is BS, let’s just leave,” he said several times.
“No, son, we have to stick it out,” I insisted.
I went back to the check-in window several times to complain and explain that you can’t expect someone coming off opiates to sit in a waiting room for hours. I demanded to speak to a doctor or anyone in charge. The college student working the front desk was kind and tried to get someone to come up front, but no one did. Adding further insult to our experience, a pair of uniformed first responders entered escorting a teenage boy who was absorbed with a game on his cell phone. Within five minutes, a nurse came out to take him inside, and the two men left. So if I had him arrested or brought in by ambulance, he would be seen right away? I thought, more frustrated than angry. After what seemed like an eternity, at least they took the other woman back, and we didn’t have to listen to her rants anymore.
But before long a worse agitator entered the picture, a hard-looking man that sat two seats down from us. I heard him offer Tommy the worst possible information, given that by now Tommy was itching constantly, sweating, and beginning to suffer from cramps.
“If you haven’t been here before, it’s Friday, so the doctors have left for the weekend,” he said. “They won’t be giving you any real meds for the withdrawals.”
Hearing this, Tommy predictably decided we must leave and said that if I didn’t take him out, he’d walk out and find his own ride.
Again I marched up to the window and asked to speak with a supervisor, and again no one came out. I convinced Tommy to give it a little longer.
Nearly three hours from the time we arrived, a very young attendant, likely an intern or medical student and moving the speed of a snail, shuffled over to let us know we could not have the evaluation-for-admittance interview until Tommy filled out about thirty pages of medical history, questionnaires, and related paperwork.
I couldn’t help myself. “Are you kidding me; we’ve been sitting here three hours and now you give us all this paperwork that we could have completed long ago? Does anyone here have the first clue about opioid withdrawal?”
The woman did not apologize; she simply stared vacantly at me, the type of “I don’t give a damn” stare that Tommy had when on opioids, a look that drives me nuts. Then she slowly plodded away and disappeared, the buzz and slam of the heavy security door sounding her exit. Despite his protests, I insisted he complete the reams of paperwork, and Tommy angrily scribbled on the pages, practically breaking the point of the pen as he slammed it against each new page on the clipboard.
About twenty minutes later, the same woman returned and decided she could not accept some of the pages left blank or containing illegible scribbles.
“All questionnaires and paperwork must be filled out completely before you can be screened,” she said.
I tried to hand her the papers and explained the torture they were putting an addict through who was in severe pain from withdrawal, and she again gave me the blank stare as if to say, “I couldn’t care less about your son or you” before slinking away.
About forty-five minutes later, having wasted nearly four hours in that useless place without seeing a doctor, I agreed with Tommy that enough was enough and we left. I peeled out of the parking lot and Tommy said, “Dad, calm down, you’re going to kill us driving like that.”
How ironic, I thought.
For the second time we would detox our son in the comfort of the home he grew up in. Hours earlier I’d insisted that Mary dr
ive the two hours north to be with Barry for the weekend as planned, as much for his sake as my own. The communication channels Tommy and I had opened nearly a year earlier had remained open except for the three-week period between Sarah’s death and now. Having just the two of us home during his first day of detox seemed like a blessing.
“Son, what do you need?” I asked as we drove home. “You’ve been through this enough times now that you know what will get you through.”
“I need cigarettes,” he said. “Also, some Gatorade to help me stay hydrated.”
“Anything else?”
“Well, there is one more thing, but I’m afraid you’ll get mad.”
“What?”
“A little bit of weed. It’s the only way my mind will shut down long enough to help me sleep.”
“What about withdrawal medicine, like they give you in detox centers?”
“That would be good, but it’s not essential.”
With that I swung by a convenience store to pick up cigarettes and Gatorade. I called Mary to let her know I would not be coming and to fill her in. A neighbor friend of Tommy’s swung by and left a pipe and small amount of marijuana behind a chair on our porch. Fortunately, my daughter Jessie was out with a friend, and we arrived to a dark and quiet house.
I set Tommy up on a couch in our rec room where he would have a television and easy access to an outside area where he could smoke as needed. I got him a vomit bucket, pillow, and blanket. As he lay down, our dog, Mo, immediately jumped up on the couch and curled up next to him. If any combination of our six family members is together with Tommy present, Mo will always be found next to him. If left outside Tommy’s door, he will cry to be let into his room and refuse to leave his side in the morning. It’s as if the small dog senses the innate kindness in Tommy’s soul. They are inseparable, and Tommy regularly tries to convince his mother to let him take Mo to live with him, but she refuses.
When Jessie arrived home late after seeing a movie, I gave her an honest account of the situation. At first she reacted in anger.
“Why, Dad? What the heck!” she said. “Why is he here? He’ll only steal from us or hurt us again!”
“Jessie, calm down, you have to understand.”
“Understand what?” she replied, becoming sarcastic. “Help me understand.”
I explained that the only hope he had was the love and support of his family and that no matter what he was our family, and we could not turn our backs on him. She began to cry, then ran toward the room where Tommy was resting.
“Jessie, no,” I called. “You’ll wake him.”
There was no stopping her, and as I turned the corner I saw her sitting on the couch embraced in a hug with her favorite brother.
“I love you, Tommy,” she said between sobs. “Don’t die!”
She then headed to her room and collapsed on her bed, still crying. I tried to reason with her, distraught over her continued sobbing.
“C’mon, Jessie, take it easy.”
“Shut up, Dad, leave me alone!”
Irritated, I foolishly responded with an ill-timed teaching moment. It had been a long day.
“This isn’t about you, Jessie, it’s about Tommy,” I said. “Don’t go putting something up on social media or telling all your friends. It will not help him to get a bunch of phone calls or have some of his drug friends find out he’s back in Orlando.”
“Oh, so you want me to cover it up,” she snapped. “Don’t worry, I won’t embarrass the family.”
“That’s not my point.”
“Then what is your point, Dad, that I’m too immature or stupid to not blab?”
“Jessie, why are you making this a fight between us?”
“Look in the mirror.”
“That’s not fair. This is tough on all of us. All I’m asking is that you respect his privacy. He needs our love and understanding most of all.”
“I understand. I’m sorry.”
Both of us calmed down. I hugged her, told her I loved her, and urged her to try to get some sleep. She had an important standardized ACT test early the next morning.
I walked to the other end of the house to check on Tommy. He was lying on the couch, Mo curled up next to his chest, and resting peacefully. For the first time since I’d picked him up that day, his mind seemed calm. His demeanor was totally opposite from the nasty, on-edge temperament I’d experienced during hours in the waiting room. It struck me how much better this arrangement was than further isolating him by pushing him into a hospital with strangers for a week. That would have been another short-term way to kick the can down the road and pay $5,000 for the privilege!
About seven years after the stressful rescue of our son from an abandoned building, I finally understood that there was no combination of meetings, medicines, doctors, therapists, or programs that were ever going to save our son. Only unconditional love and acceptance from his family would have a chance of succeeding. A major bridge had been crossed in my mind. Now I had to figure out how to help Mary and my kids see the light.
21
Collect Memories, Not Stuff
When we arrived at the small house in a gritty section of the Gulf Coast city, we could see Tommy’s hooded jacket draped over the railing on the front porch. There was only one problem. A menacing pit bull terrier patrolled the chain link fence in the front yard.
As the dog barked and snarled at us, a burly tattooed neighbor came walking across the street with a warning. “I wouldn’t go in there. She’s mean.”
Tommy agreed, not knowing the dog well enough and not willing to fetch his jacket with her loose in the yard. Stubbornly, I decided to get the jacket myself, just one more in a long series of hotheaded decisions made in the relentless madness of my son’s addiction. I sized up the dog, made myself as tall and menacing as possible, opened the fence gate, and stepped into the yard. The dog took a couple steps toward me barking and showing her teeth.
“Get back,” I yelled, advancing slowly toward the porch. I sensed a small measure of fear in the dog’s eyes, and as I continued moving slowly toward the porch, she backed up rather than charge me. After what seemed to be a lot longer than it really was, I was able to grab the jacket and began to slowly back away, now trying to calm the agitated dog by saying, “Good girl, good girl.”
As I backed out of the yard and closed the gate, the charge finally came. The dog launched herself against the closed gate barking and snapping her jaws wildly. But we were safely on the outside and soon on our way.
In retrospect, one of the stupidest things Mary and I stressed over each time one of our son’s recovery attempts failed was his stuff. Many times we bought him new clothes to replace what he’d lost, but each time we channeled some of our frustration and anger into usually futile attempts to recover his belongings, often resulting in heated confrontations with halfway house or pawnshop owners.
While recovery centers generally did a decent job of safeguarding what few things he was allowed to bring, halfway houses were a different story; they were dens of thieves. Day after day unknown housemates would steal clothes, cheap electronic devices, and anything else they could find. Our son’s frustration with this situation would grow with each stolen item. On this particular day, I’d risked being bitten by a protective dog to retrieve a hoodie that Mary insisted we must recover. I had hounded Tommy, and it had taken him several attempts to reach the friend at whose house he’d left it. The friend, naturally, wasn’t home.
Both Mary and I grew up in working middle-class households shattered by divorce, and even though my parents grew up during the Great Depression and Mary’s mother was born at the end of it, their mindsets were the same: everything had more than one use, and nothing was ever to be thrown away. Going out to a restaurant, a staple in our children’s lives, was a rare luxury for Mary and me in our childhoods. Instead of going to Hampton Inns with free breakfasts, Mary recalls her childhood vacations as camping and sleeping in tents. I can remember having to wear t
he same clothes for a long time, even when slacks became “high-waders” as I grew taller. We didn’t feel poor, but we both were acutely aware of how hard our parents worked for very little money. We were taught to appreciate and hang on to what we had worked hard to earn.
Tommy’s mindset couldn’t be more opposite. The ease with which he simply let material items drift away without a care went far beyond his trading them for drug money. Whether he lost an article of clothing or an automobile, his attitude was the same.
“That’s the problem with the world, Dad,” he told me. “It used to be we just used what we needed, and people weren’t as caught up with material things. It’s too bad we can’t get back to that and share what we have with those who are in need.”
His losses infuriated us; he simply never cared.
I was mulling this over while pulling into the airport to pick up my friend Mike who had flown in from Connecticut for the outdoor music festival our family and friends have been attending for several years in northern Florida.
“Mike, I have some bad news. I’ve got a little bit of a curveball I need to deal with today.”
“Tommy?” he asked.
“How’d you know?”
“I figured. I saw something on Paul’s Facebook.”
“Listen, today is a search and rescue mission,” I explained. “I’ve got to go to the beach with Tommy to buy back his stuff from pawnshops. He’s very depressed. He had stayed clean nearly a year this time. You can hang out at the house or come with us, whatever you want to do.”
“I’m in!”
“Okay, Sgt. Slaughter, a search and rescue mission it is!”
By the time we were halfway to the beach, a dejected Tommy in the backseat, I could see through the rearview mirror that he was beginning to relax. He even cracked a brief smile at one of Mike’s crazy comments. Big Mike was just the tonic our son needed to lighten the painful process of repurchasing the most valuable items he had pawned during his relapse after Sarah’s death. Mike’s smile and loud laugh were larger than life, like Jackie Gleason in The Honeymooners when he thought one of his get-rich schemes was working. Mike’s positive energy is contagious, and it was the perfect icebreaker on what was a very tough day.
On Pills and Needles Page 18