The Only Life I Could Save

by Katherine Ketcham

“My name is Kathy. I lead a group here every week.”

  “What kind of fucking group?”

  “We talk about alcohol and other drugs.”

  “Fuck drugs,” she says, looking up and down the hallway and pulling against the chain. “Fuck this place. Fucking people lock me up to this fucking wall. Fuck them. Fuck you.”

  She’s so tiny, no more than 80 or 90 pounds, with huge dark circles under her eyes—almost mirrors of the shape of her eyes, but upside down and solid black. Meth mascara, painted on her face by exhaustion and malnutrition.

  “What’s your name?” I ask.

  She looks up at me, surprised. “Colleen,” she mumbles. For just a moment, it’s as if a door opens.

  Then it slams shut.

  “Why the fuck do you care?”

  “What chance do some of these kids have?” I blurt out that night at the dinner table. Robyn and Alison are just back from high school soccer practice, their long hair tied up in messy ponytails, and Ben is still wearing his uniform from the game this afternoon. Pat coaches Ben’s soccer team, the Hornets. I helped pick out the outfits—black-and-yellow striped socks, black nylon shorts, and bright yellow shirts. A buzzing hive of sixth-graders tearing up the soccer field.

  I am never happier than when I watch our children play soccer. Of all the sports they play, it’s my favorite because of the nonstop action, the green grass, the sun shining (most of the time), and the kids looking so healthy and energetic running up and down the field. If I had three soccer games to watch every day, one after another, every day of the year, I’d be in heaven. I wish I’d been able to play soccer as a kid (I think I would have made a formidable defender), but the only sports offered for girls back then were swimming, softball, basketball, and field hockey. And cheerleading, if you consider that a sport.

  “Mom, I think you worry too much about the Juvie kids,” Robyn says. “There’s only so much you can do.”

  “Lots of kids use drugs,” Ali says, taking a bite of salad. Tonight we’re having spaghetti and meatballs with what our friends call “Ketcham salad,” which is just red leaf lettuce with cheddar cheese sprinkled on top and Walla Walla sweet onion and peppercorn dressing from Klickers, the local farm stand.

  “What kind of drugs?” I can’t help myself. Robyn shoots Ali a look, which I interpret as “Don’t get her started.”

  “You know,” Ali says. “Alcohol and marijuana usually. That’s all.”

  I remember what Janelle, age thirteen, had said in the detention group a few weeks back. “People keep asking us why we use drugs. You know, really, it’s kind of a stupid question. We use drugs because they’re there and because they make you feel good, or at least different for a while. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t used drugs.”

  The candles look so pretty on the table. We light candles with every dinner, whether we’re having tuna fish sandwiches or my “famous” (because it is my only fancy meal) lemon chicken with roast potatoes and carrots.

  “But Robyn’s right, Mom,” Ali adds with a concerned look on her face. “You worry too much.”

  “I know I do,” I admit. “It’s just that these kids start so young—eleven, twelve, thirteen years old—and their brains are so vulnerable because they’re still developing.”

  I look at Pat, who is listening patiently. I read his silence as assent to keep talking. “Like today, I talked to a fifteen-year-old who started smoking cigarettes and marijuana when he was eleven, and now he’s deep into cocaine and prescription pills. His probation officer is trying to get him into treatment, but first he has to get an assessment, and there’s a three-week waiting list. They can’t keep him in detention for three more weeks, so they’ll let him out and he’ll use again, and then he’ll get put back in detention, and on and on it goes.”

  Robyn and Alison look uncomfortable, probably because I tend to get emotional when I talk about the problems the youth are facing in Juvie. Ben doesn’t appear to be paying any attention. He holds his fork with all five fingers and lowers his face to his plate rather than lifting the fork to his mouth. One of these days, we’ll have to work on his table manners, but he’s only twelve, plenty of time ahead to worry about proper etiquette. Pat and I are not the least bit formal, but at least we try to follow the rule my father set with his five children: “All I ask is that you keep your feet off the table.”

  I switch the subject, and we talk about school, soccer, weekend plans. I know my family is growing weary of the Juvie stories, but this is my life now, and I want to share parts of it with them. I want them to understand, through the stories, that kids locked up in detention are not so different from them. I think about Eric, a gang member, who has a tattoo that reads, “If You Could Only See Inside Me.” When I asked him why he had those words permanently engraved on his chest, he said, “Because people don’t see the real me—they only see the outside. You got to know me from the inside, too. You know what I mean?”

  I want my family to see what I see on the “inside” of these teenagers—the same hopes, dreams, and fears they have, we all have. I never discuss names or identifying details but talk instead in generalities about the problems the youth are facing: people who judge them because they use drugs, labeling them losers, lost causes, or just plain “bad kids”; the lack of resources in our community for treatment and recovery support; the difficulty finding doctors, mental health practitioners, and other health-care professionals who are educated and knowledgeable about addiction.

  I want to talk about how dramatically things have changed in the adolescent drug world, how young people have access to so many drugs—super strong marijuana (not the marijuana I used in college, which the Juvies laughingly call “brown” or “dirt” weed), over-the-counter drugs, alcohol, inhalants, prescription drugs, cocaine, crack, even heroin. Heroin! Who would ever have thought that twelve- and thirteen-year-olds would get hooked on heroin? It’s cheap—much less expensive than buying prescription drugs on the street, and kids don’t have to inject it because the drug is so pure these days that they can snort it.

  And meth. Shit. Meth.

  Colleen is in group the next week, dressed in an orange jumpsuit. The meth circles have faded a bit as time, rest, and good food begin to drain the toxins from her body. Her eyes are bright blue. She smiles at me.

  “I remember you,” she says.

  I smile back. “I remember you, too.”

  We sit in a circle on hard plastic chairs—four boys, two girls, and me. I ask them to tighten up the circle, explaining that I like my circles “close.” Someone always hangs back a little—usually one of the kids next to me—and I assure them I won’t bite. They think that’s funny. For some reason they trust me. The circles help, but I think there’s another reason. I’m far from perfect: There’s the “old” thing (I’m old enough to be their parent, even their grandparent). And I’m kind of goofy. They laugh at my funny faces and old-fashioned expressions. Yuck! Holy cow. Are you nuts?

  And then there’s my voice. I have a funny voice. When I speak, I sound slightly nervous, somewhat tentative, not completely sure of myself. I think that obvious imperfection makes me human to the kids in Juvie. It levels the playing field. They never ask me about my voice; if they did, I’d tell them about the rare neurological disorder that makes my vocal cords tighten when they should be loosening up. They are polite and don’t want to pry, and so they just conclude that I am old, vulnerable, a little quirky. I make funny faces, I swear sometimes, I don’t talk too much, and I’m a good listener because, as I often remind them, I want to hear their stories. My voice is just part of who I am, and they accept it.

  I can’t say for sure that’s what they are thinking, but for whatever reason, they open up to me.

  “You can sit on the soft chair,” one of the boys says, pointing to a red armless chair pushed up against the wall. Only kids wearing blue or green jumpsuits are allowed to use the soft chairs. Maybe one out of ten kids has earned the privilege, as most are in the orange or y
ellow jumpsuits. Red jumpsuits are “on security” and not allowed to attend the group.

  “No, thanks,” I say. “That wouldn’t make us equals. If you’re sitting in plastic chairs, I’m sitting in a plastic chair.”

  They nod their heads solemnly. Colleen looks at me with her shoulders slightly turned away from the circle, signifying she hasn’t bought into this “equal” stuff.

  I always start the groups by telling them a little about myself. “My name is Kathy. I write books about addiction and recovery. But I’m the student here, and you are the teachers. I’m here to learn from you.”

  “You write books?” a boy with bright red hair and freckles interrupts me. Three small black dots—gang tattoos—adorn the soft fleshy part between his thumb and index finger.

  “Will you write about me? You can use my name. I don’t care.” Probably the youngest person in the group, he looks from side to side, grinning, seeking approval from his older peers.

  “I’d like to write about you,” I say, looking around the group. “But I’m mostly here to listen. I want to hear your stories. I want you to teach me so I can help other people understand what you’re going through, what your struggles are, what you dream about for your lives.”

  We go around the circle and I ask them to tell me their first name, age, and drug of choice. “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” I tell them. “Listening is equally important. The only rule I have is that we listen and don’t interrupt when someone else is talking.”

  “No cross-talk,” says Ryan, age seventeen, obviously proud of his knowledge gleaned from previous experience in groups. He has four tattooed designs on his face—one on his forehead, one on his chin, and one on each cheek. Pointing at the curtained observation window, he adds, “But they can hear us.”

  “This group is confidential,” I assure them. “The detention staff know that if they listen in, I can’t come here anymore.”

  “Why?”

  “Because then you wouldn’t trust me.”

  They nod their heads. Trust is a word they all understand.

  I don’t tell them I’m tired of writing after twenty years, eight books, thousands of hours of research, and more fifteen-hour days than I can count. I’m tired of the deadlines—that word dead always does me in. When I’m in Juvie, I can let go of the whole “expert” thing and just listen. And learn. Because what is going on here, behind these concrete walls, is beyond anything I ever could have imagined.

  It’s as if another door (I think of those thousand-pound doors I have to pass through to enter here) has opened into a terrifying new world. Just months ago, I didn’t know this detention center existed—a low, one-story concrete building in a part of town I rarely visit, not far from the courthouse and the county commissioners’ offices, a few blocks from Kentucky Fried Chicken and several other fast food restaurants. Inside this nondescript building, I listen to stories full of loss, grief, guilt, and shame, and the sheer weight and number of them overwhelm me.

  I had no idea that so many kids, children really, are using so many drugs and progressing so quickly into addiction. The old model of alcohol addiction I wrote about in book after book—a relatively slow progression from early to middle to late stage, with problems usually appearing in the twenties, thirties, or forties—simply does not fit these kids. Most of them start using drugs in middle school, but some start drinking or smoking cigarettes or marijuana in elementary school. As the weeks and months go by and they keep using, marijuana often doesn’t do the trick anymore, because their tolerance has increased. They start experimenting with other drugs, hoping to find that perfect high. If they’re hanging around other kids who are using, the chances are they will be offered “harder” drugs such as cocaine, crack cocaine, and prescription pills. Over-the-counter drugs are popular, too, especially cough and cold medicines containing dextromethorphan, which they gulp down by the bottle or take pills by the handful (the most I’ve heard about is sixty pills at one time). The list goes on and on—inhalants (glue, paint, gasoline, nail polish), “sherm” (embalming fluid), PCP, ecstasy, LSD, mushrooms . . .

  What kills me is how young they are when they first start using. For each group, I keep informal records that I take home and store in a locked file cabinet. The average age of first use is eleven or twelve. By age fourteen, most of the kids are using two, three, four, or more drugs, not always and not all the time, but most use what I call the “regulars”—alcohol and marijuana. Marijuana tends to be the everyday drug, and “waking and baking” is a normal daily activity.

  I bring my mind back to the group. “If it’s okay with you, I’ll take notes, but I’m the only one who ever sees them,” I say. “I want to remember what you have to say because in this group you are the teachers—and my memory isn’t as good as it used to be. But, again, if you don’t want to say anything, that’s fine. You can listen, like me.”

  They all want to talk. “I’ll go first,” says the boy to my right, the one with red hair and gang tattoos. “My name is Chris, I’m thirteen, and weed is my drug of choice. I started using when I was ten. Then I started drinking, taking prescription pills—hydrocodone, oxycodone, morphine—and heroin. Oh yeah, and cigarettes.”

  Matt is seventeen. His drug of choice is weed. He started using when he was eleven; when he was fourteen, he got hooked on meth. “Well, actually,” he corrects himself, “I guess I have two drugs of choice—weed and meth.”

  “Meth is ridiculous; people go crazy on meth,” Ryan says to Matt, who surprises me by nodding his head in agreement. “I stick to weed, alcohol, and prescription painkillers.”

  “Where do you get prescription drugs?” I ask.

  Ryan laughs. “They’re easier to get than alcohol,” he says. “Just look in somebody’s medicine cabinet. Or walk down the street, and in minutes, you’ll find somebody selling hydros or oxys. Or you get on the phone to someone—‘Hey, you got some pills?’”

  It’s Colleen’s turn. “I’m fifteen,” she says. “I started using weed when I was twelve. I also drank alcohol, and then I started stealing pills. When I was thirteen, I started using cocaine. And then crank.

  “Crank is meth,” she says, looking at me, “in case you didn’t know. That’s when I stopped going to school because I was so tweaked out on crank.”

  “I’m fifteen, too,” Holly says in a soft, shy voice. “I love pills. I started with cigarettes and marijuana around twelve, meth about fourteen, and then pills.”

  “What kind of pills?”

  “Oh, anything, really, but I like hydros and oxys best.”

  Last in the circle is Junior, age fourteen: “I started smoking weed when I was seven. I’ve tried lots of other drugs, but mostly I just use weed and alcohol. And cigarettes.”

  “You were seven when you started?” I can’t quite comprehend it—seven years old?

  “Yeah, my brother is a coke addict. And my dad is an alcoholic. We’ve always had lots of drugs in our house.”

  We talk about drugs, but that’s just the beginning. What we really talk about is life. I could stand up and lecture about this drug’s or that drug’s effect on the brain, the signs and symptoms of physical dependence, the risk of overdose and even death, but most of these kids know all those facts, and their eyes turn to glass if I start pontificating. So I don’t lecture; I listen. Sometimes, usually after they admit that drugs are “doing me bad” but insist they can handle them, I stand up and hit my head against the concrete wall (not too hard, because those walls don’t give). I want a visual for their stubborn refusal to see what the drugs are doing to their lives. To their families. To their bodies and their minds.

  And their souls. What I have come to realize is that most of the youth in detention—perhaps most of us, everywhere—are struggling with spiritual dilemmas. Spiritual sounds like such a heavy word, but I think of it this way: Human beings thrive on connection and communication. Drugs cut us off from the people we love, but they also sever the connections to
our values and the deepest yearnings of our soul. Soul is also a bit of a quirky, controversial word, but it makes sense to me when I imagine the soul as the repository of all those intangible realities that give meaning, purpose, and value to our lives—honesty, empathy, kindness, love, awareness, acceptance, courage, trust, forgiveness, and simple human decency. Where else do those values rest and find a home if not in our hearts and our souls?

  I ask questions that guide the discussions to the things that really matter to them. “What’s hurting you?” I ask. Their answers are honest and revealing. I don’t have to draw the connection between the drugs and the loneliness they feel. They know what causes the disconnection.

  “Having everyone I ever get close to leave me eventually.”

  “Being alone most of the time.”

  “Not feeling loved.”

  “Being abandoned.”

  “Knowing that I’m hurting my loved ones.”

  “Not being able to help my family.”

  “Disappointing my parents.”

  “People telling me I’m worthless.”

  “Not being trusted.”

  “People who judge me.”

  When I ask them to tell me what they really want, the answers range from “be off probation” to “get a job” to “I want my Grandma’s cooking.” And, often, they answer with one-word responses: “Peace.” “Happiness.” “Health.” “Forgiveness.” “Respect.” “Education.” “Control.” “Freedom.” “Sobriety.” “Help.”

  Ashley, age seventeen, wrote a long list of the things she wants:

  1.I want all the things people say I will never have.

  2.I want my faith to be strong.

  3.I want to help other people.

  4.I want to be a good role model.

  5.I want a healthy family life.

  6.I want healthy friendships.

  7.I want to be loved.

  8.I want to be trusted.

  9.I want to travel the world.

  10.I want God in my heart.