•Relapse history: reports that after approximately 18 months of being clean and sober (after last MIP) he realized he wasn’t going to get a UA so began using again.
The next part of the report is “Diagnostic Impression,” which contains lots of mumbo jumbo about Axis I, II, III, IV, and V. I read through this section quickly, looking for useful nuggets of information and then skip ahead to the counselor’s summary:
Based upon the clinical interview/evaluation, and the diagnostic testing that was administered, it is my professional opinion that Ben meets the criteria for Cannabis dependence, moderate stage; Alcohol dependence, mild stage.
So, there it is in black and white. Ben is “moderately” dependent on cannabis and “mildly” dependent on alcohol. I feel vindicated reading this report written by a chemical dependency professional—I knew it; I knew it. While “dependence” is not technically the same as addiction, the terms are often used interchangeably; furthermore, I know from conversations with treatment experts that counselors and health-care professionals often use the term dependence to reduce the stigma and soften the blow of a diagnosis of “addiction.” Somehow it may seem kinder or safer in the sense of not jumping to conclusions to diagnose someone as “dependent” rather than “addicted,” because nobody in their right mind would want to carry that addicted label around for life. And addicted individuals are well known for switching from one physician or therapist to another if they are advised to stop or cut down on their drinking or using.
But addiction is for life. A diagnosis of addiction is based on tolerance, the need to use more of the drug to experience the same effects, and withdrawal symptoms, which vary from drug to drug but always involve some level of physical and psychological anguish. Addiction is evident when someone gradually loses control over drug use; continues using despite obvious physical, emotional, or mental harm to oneself and others; and experiences increasingly severe cravings and compulsion to use, sometimes after months or even years of sobriety. People with active addictions don’t just want the drug, they need it, which is why they fight back with teeth bared (the demon emerging) when someone threatens their continued use. When want becomes need—that is, when there is a physical demand to get the drug into the body to relieve the progressively painful and distressing withdrawal symptoms—the disease is obvious and undeniable.
The only piece of that addiction/dependence puzzle that I can’t know for sure is whether Ben experiences uncontrollable cravings. If he does, I’m sure he won’t admit it to anyone, most of all to his parents. “I can control it!” he keeps telling us. I’m convinced that this insistent, repetitive claim of control (“I can quit anytime I want,” often followed by the predictable, “I just don’t want to”) is actually a red flag signaling possible loss of control. Every addicted person can control their drug use to some extent until the final stages of the disease, when they lose control. Loss of control—that’s the image we carry in our heads of an alcoholic or drug addict, epitomized by the Skid Row drunk lying under a park bench clutching a brown bag or the heroin addict nodding off in the corner of a seedy motel room.
Crap. Here I am again, spouting my knowledge to myself, finding some kind of comfort in the distance that creates, as if I can step outside myself and calmly, clinically sort out the problem. This is my son—my son!—who is under the microscope, being analyzed and dissected. And at age eighteen, he is addicted—I’m not afraid to say the word—to two drugs and, who knows, maybe more. Addiction is a bad disease. Addiction is for life. Addiction can be, and often is, deadly. Addiction is misunderstood, stigmatized, thought to be caused, in part at least, by personal or moral weakness. Addicted individuals are labeled “abusers,” as if they choose to destroy their own lives and the health and well-being of the people they love. The people who love them and try to help them are called “enablers,” as if we somehow allow this disease to happen. As if we consent to it. As if we smooth its progress, aid and assist it, support and facilitate it, agree to its demands.
Does anyone realize how much these words hurt, how they add to our guilt and shame and make us hide in fear and self-loathing from the very people who might be able to help us? I want to erase the words abuse, abuser, enable, and enabler from the addiction vocabulary. And we might as well toss out codependence too, with all its hurtful, harmful connotations of weak (or rigid) boundaries, people pleasing, obsessive fantasies, problems with intimacy, and perfectionism. Throw the labels away and find the human being inside, struggling to find his or her way.
I hate addiction and all the misery, ignorance, and fault finding that accompany it everywhere it goes. But if Ben has this disease, I will fight for him to get the help he so desperately needs without having to hide his head in shame.
The chemical dependency professional concludes her report with these comments:
“Ben is resistant to the idea of needing treatment at this time.”
“Because most of Ben’s friends also use, he is at higher risk of relapse.”
“While he has good family support, friends will potentially be a concern. He does state that he does not feel that remaining clean during high school will be a problem. He does not want to have any more problems or create difficulty in getting into college.”
Friends will potentially be a concern. I see the faces and hear the voices of Ben’s friends, all universally considered “good” kids from apparently happy families, all dedicated or at least decent students, active in theater or sports, popular with their classmates and teachers, polite and considerate to their friends’ parents (most of Ben’s buddies give me a big hug when they stop by). Pat confides, however, that a few of Ben’s friends remind him of fawning Eddie Haskell from the old TV show Leave It to Beaver, who mercilessly picks on Beaver (“Hey, Beaver, you gnaw down any trees today?”) but shows an entirely different face to his parents (“Gee, Mrs. Cleaver, your hair looks real pretty today”). We laugh, which feels good, but we’re both wondering how we keep Ben away from his friends when “most” of them, according to the report, also use drugs.
I sigh and keep reading. Recommendations for treatment include “total” abstinence from alcohol and other drugs, outpatient treatment, self-help recovery groups, and chemical dependency counseling. Ben starts attending Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings, but because he has a summer job, working with his tennis coach to lead summer camps for elementary and middle-school children, he asks if he can schedule regular private counseling sessions rather than attend outpatient treatment. The counselor agrees.
His apology letter arrives in the mail.
Dear Mom and Dad . . .
I feel horrible about what I did mostly because of how it has affected you two, Robyn, Alison, and me. Believe me, if I could take my actions back, I would, but I can’t, and that is what troubles me. That it is not just me in trouble, but it also affects you. It’s weird how an experience like this can teach you so much about how your actions affect those around you.
The consequences I have received are most definitely not to my liking, but I think, on the positive side of things, that at least they will keep me busy and out of trouble. I’m pretty surprised that I didn’t learn the first time around, but after a while, in adolescence, you begin to think that you are invincible.
I love you guys and I thank you for how you have been there with me through this whole experience, however painful it was. I love you and I am happy that you are my parents.
Hmmm. I can’t help wondering if he would still feel “horrible” if he hadn’t been caught.
Finally, the diversion program requires that all participants with alcohol or other drug-related issues read my just-published book, Teens Under the Influence, and write a book report. “When I was initially given the assignment of reading my mother’s book, I was a little skeptical,” Ben writes.
I had never given thought to reading one of her books, because of the fact that it would be awkward reading something and knowing the person very well who wrote it.
However, I was extremely surprised. I guess the thing that intrigued me most about this book is the stories and the commentary about different drugs.
For the most part, I was under control of my actions when I drank or smoked weed. I was known as a nice guy, and the only thing that would trigger me to do something stupid like fighting was if my friends or family members or other people I cared about were threatened, and I was rarely put in that position.
I will be the first to admit that drugs are extremely fun. You can have the times of your life, and doing normally boring things can be intensified by drug use. But drugs are like gambling. Reading this book has made me wonder if having that much fun is really worth the risk of being busted by the police and going through diversion, treatment, or whatever else is in store. I’m starting to think it’s not.
Reading Ben’s words, I’m skeptical, too—sounds to me like he’s shining us on. I wonder how much of the book he read, especially since he never mentions the fact that I quoted him in two places. First, on page 103, when he talks about the time he got stoned with his friends and watched the movie Half Baked (“I laughed so hard I could hardly breathe, it was like laughing myself clean”) and again on page 241, in the section on the importance of listening to your children (“My mother is a good listener, but then she always ends up giving me advice. Sometimes I just want her to listen and not say anything. Just listen. Can parents do that?”).
On August 22, a week before Ben starts his senior year in high school, I write him another letter. We just had a blowout argument over the stupidest thing in the whole wide world. I had asked Ben and his friend David—an adorable, sweet boy whom Ben has known since his preschool days—to help me move a large, heavy rug in the TV room. David leaned down and started to pull on the rug, while Ben stood next to him, laughing, telling him what a great job he was doing. I asked Ben to help. I even said “please.” Ben crossed his arms against his chest, laughed again, and said David was strong enough to move the rug by himself.
David looked embarrassed. I was sure I could read his mind—I would never treat my mother like that—and my emotions just boiled up and over.
“Ben, stop being lazy and help your friend,” I said.
“Lazy?” he turned around to face me, his face flushed with anger. “Is that what you think of me? You think I’m lazy? What is it with you? Everything has to be done on your timeline. You can’t give us five minutes to move your fucking rug? You need this. You need that—it’s always about you. I hate this fucking place. I can’t wait to get the hell out of here.” And with that he walked out of the house with David, eyes glued to the floor, following close behind.
I was wildly pissed off—my heart pounding against my chest wall, muscle against bone. I’m fighting myself, bloody flesh hammering against an unyielding skeleton. I can’t crack those ribs, and my heart muscle is bleeding and bruised, tired and old, thumpingly, achingly exhausted.
But within minutes—seconds?—I’m “shoulding” all over myself. I “should” have been patient. I “should” have given him two minutes or five minutes (why not ten?) to finish what he was doing. I “should” have removed myself from the situation, gone upstairs to my office, or walked outside to talk to my roses. I “shouldn’t” have called him lazy. Should should should. Shit shit shit.
I felt the familiar, debilitating rush of shame—shame about my inability to stay calm, shame because I never know the right thing to say at the right moment, shame because I am incapable of talking to Ben face to face, shame because I fear his anger, shame because my own son hates his home, shame because he can’t bear to be with me. What kind of mother am I to have instilled such loathing in her own child?
So, I write another letter.
Dear Ben:
I really don’t know how to start this letter to you. I even wonder if anything I say makes any difference to you. I feel that we have grown apart in so many ways, and that causes me great sadness.
We still have 10–12 months together. What can we do to make this time productive, constructive, happy, fulfilling for you, for me, for our family? I ask you to think about that question. 10 months is a long time. 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, I come up with something like 438,000 minutes. Most of those minutes you will not spend with us, but there will be a few thousand that you do.
Our love for you has helped us through all the tears and struggles. Love is healing; hatred and anger are poison. I cannot tell you what to do with your anger, but I hope you will find a way to turn it into something positive and constructive.
You have many gifts. My hope is that you will see them and feel gratitude for them and smile more and love more and give more of yourself to others.
Life is too short. Thank you.
Mom
I file a copy of the letter with my other letters, emails, and notes. Tucked in between the pieces of paper, I notice a colorful birthday card Ben had given to me a few months earlier. He made the card out of green and blue construction paper, pasting orange and green stripes on the front with a drawing of a birthday cake and five candles. Five candles—maybe five for the number of people in our family? Or five for my fifty-fifth birthday? I open the card to find a picture he drew of himself, smiling with slightly crooked teeth, his eyes big and round with enlarged pupils, his hair long and scraggly. He looks happy in the drawing. He drew himself happy.
Happy Birthday Mom! I hope that it was great and what you expected. This next year is going to be great for Me, you & Dad (our last before I go to college). Your the best mom.
Love, Ben
I read the card again. I look at the picture, and it reminds me of something he might have created in elementary school. I imagine him now, just turned eighteen years old, stoned out of his mind, cutting strips of paper and gluing them to the page, engrossed in a repetitive childlike task. I read the words again and again. “This year is going to be great.” “Your the best mom.”
I start to cry, and then I am on the floor, sobbing, holding that green and blue card to my chest, hugging the goofy drawing, reading and rereading the words “Your the best mom,” wanting him back, wanting the son I once had who loved me but who now seems to despise me. That’s how it’s been these past few years—love, then hate, then love, then hate. I feel so bruised and battered and bloodied that my tears burn my cheeks because I am starting to feel the hate. It is in me, too—the hate and the love, the love and the hate. I do not know which way to turn, which path to take, whether to go by way of anger and resentment or compassion and forgiveness, tossed and turned and set upside down, not knowing how to right myself or twist myself back into shape.
I want to lie down and sleep. I want to wake up somewhere else, on an island or a lake or a mountaintop—somewhere, anywhere that is quiet, peaceful, removed from real life.
Part of me wants to go to sleep and never wake up.
8
lost
2004–2005
It’s Ben’s senior year. He meets with the chemical dependency counselor twice a week and has random urinalyses (UAs) to test his urine for the presence of drugs. He passes all of them. He can’t drive because this is his second offense and his license has been revoked, but if he completes all the requirements of the diversion program, he’ll be eligible for early reinstatement after one year. He fulfills the requirement of twenty hours of community service by volunteering at the Rising Sun Clubhouse, a nonprofit, grassroots organization with the mission of providing “daily activities, job skill-building, and camaraderie to those with mental illness.”
The clubhouse board president writes a letter to the Juvenile Justice Center, praising Ben’s service.
Ben was helpful and such an interesting, kind, young man—I wanted to let you know what a pleasure it was to have him at the food drive. Ben also volunteered additional hours at the clubhouse and helped put up a lot of Christmas decorations, served lunch, and even cooked! He was genuinely friendly and interested in the Clubhouse members and spent time with e
ach member.
I read this note over and over again, my mind hovering over the words helpful, interesting, kind, genuinely friendly. This is the Ben we used to know. The note fills me with hope that he is coming back to us, breaking free of the darkness, the demon, that has held him prisoner for all these months. Maybe this is all it takes, a few months free of the drugs to clear his mind so he can see what he was like when he was using and decide that being his authentic self, his sober self, is the pathway he wants to take in life. I’m so deeply, inordinately, unbelievably (I can’t find the right adjective) grateful to the legal system—the police officer who handcuffed him, the detention staff who detained and questioned him, the diversion program that required the chemical dependency evaluation, the random UAs, community service, weekly counseling, and Twelve Step meetings—they are all holding his feet to the fire.
This entire chain of events is what I call the “velvet hammer” we need to get through to him and hold him accountable in this fragile early stage of staying clean and sober. “What if” is once again the question that haunts me. What if he hadn’t been caught at age seventeen, before he turned eighteen, when he would have been processed and tried as an adult? What if he kept using all summer? What if he got drunk or high and drove his car, filled with his friends, into a tree? I think about my old boss Bill Asbury—his blackouts, DUIs, and the thin line between life and death—and I shudder with gratitude. Oh, thank you, thank you, whoever you are, whatever you are, wherever you are—whether you are—thank you for helping us keep him safe and sound.
The Only Life I Could Save Page 11
