- Drugs
- Friends & Family
Submitted by: Julie Rogers
I don’t really remember many details from my childhood, but there are two things that I knew I wanted: I wanted to be a mom and a teacher. Both of those goals came to fruition and I was filled with such love, gratitude, and awe when our firstborn son was born in October, 1987.
Tyler was adorable, artistic, articulate, and inquisitive. People were always drawn to him and when he was nearly a teen, the neighborhood children always wanted to come over and play. The local kids always called our place “Tyler’s house”. Tyler was fabulous with children and he aspired to be an art teacher. He loved all living beings and was forever rescuing dogs, helping stranded people on the road, and so on.
He was a loving, caring human being who was incredibly talented. Tyler could draw, sculpt, paint, do computer graphics, photograph, and more. He could have been successful in one of literally hundreds of vocations… except for one thing. Tyler became an addict and it consumed every aspect of his life.
My husband and I were alarmed when Tyler started using marijuana in middle school (especially when he began growing it in the bottom section of his desk). Neither my husband or I had ever used illegal drugs or drank much. We thought that our family was probably exempt from any addiction issues, as we couldn’t see any family history. After all, I worked in education (teacher and then school psychologist from 1985 to the present) and Ron worked in the service industry, helping handicapped adults.
Now I look back and think, why would I ever think I would be exempt from family addiction? Why would anyone?
When Tyler moved to using cocaine his junior year in high school, we started increasing his counseling, doctor visits, and outpatient rehab. Everyone always told us the same thing: “Tyler is so participatory in his sobriety and he has so much to contribute; we think this is just a phase.”
When Tyler was arrested with two grams of cocaine during his junior year, we decided that it went beyond any phase and my anxiety and stress level increased significantly. My husband, Tyler’s brother, and I lived in fear. We feared that Tyler would ingest a drug that would kill or debilitate him, that he would harm someone in an auto accident. We feared that he would get involved with the wrong people that would bring him and/or the rest of us harm, we worried about finances due to the attorney we had to hire, rehab and medical costs, and more.
After a six-week stint in inpatient rehab at the end of eleventh grade, Tyler made up the school credits he lost from being expelled and graduated with his class. Although Ron and I were never at ease regarding Tyler’s sobriety, we thought that his senior year of high school and his freshman year of college at Kent State University went pretty well.
It was such a relief to have him out of the house (although we continually worried) and could focus on Tyler’s younger brother, who was a freshman in high school. But the time without Tyler at home was short, as he failed all of his classes the fall term of his sophomore year at KSU, so he came back home. He worked some entry-level jobs and was happy that his girlfriend transferred back to a college in Columbus, where we lived. They lived together in an apartment in Columbus in 2008-09 and Tyler transferred to Otterbein College.
Our unease increased and continued as there were several signs that things were not “quite right”. One of the main signs was money. Tyler was always needing money for school or living expenses despite having a part-time job and sharing expenses with his girlfriend. He was unable to show me any proof of his college attendance and while I desperately wanted to believe that he was attending college, working, and doing well, I was worried about him. He seemed “off” and eventually lies upon lies were building, until his girlfriend broke up with him, moved to NYC, and would no longer speak to him.
Once again, Tyler moved back home and we found a medical doctor from our prior church (yes, we always went to church and Tyler was involved in youth group, participated in the junior bell choir, and even lit the candles as an acolyte) who was willing to get licensed to dispense suboxone in order to help Tyler. This was the remediation that Tyler was convinced could help him the most.
The next four out of five years, Tyler lived with us. He attended two fake colleges (he told us that he went back to KSU with a second long-term girlfriend and never did attend Otterbein), had numerous fake jobs (sometimes he worked real ones), stole from us, pawned personal and household items (including family jewelry), lost his driver’s license numerous times (it took over a year and at least five court appearances to get back the last time), and was all over the place emotionally.
Tyler had suffered with depression and anxiety since he was 13 and it is my belief that his out-of-control emotions led him to self-medicate. There are hundreds of stories of events, but what is important to me is that there were several good times with Tyler and he and I (despite his lying, stealing, and addiction) remained close and spent a considerable amount of time together. He confided in me about many things (it’s funny how I always thought I wanted to know everything about my kids until I learned that someone pointed a gun at his head in a crack house…) and talked endlessly about the guilt and shame he felt.
He said it was like a loop that played daily in his mind– if he was using, he felt guilty for using. If he wasn’t using, he felt guilty for all the wrongs that he’d committed against his friends and family who loved him. He remained a compassionate, loving, artistic person, but we knew that he still used heroin from time to time, as we found burned spoons and little baggies.
The police and paramedics were at our house numerous times and Tyler was in the hospital a few times, in another inpatient rehab, and so on. We had to go to court with him (to make sure he went and of course, to make payments) in three different counties, and drug dealers were at our house twice that we know of. It was an ominous time and I always referred to Tyler’s addiction and all the things that came along with it, as the “dark world”.
While one is never prepared to lose a child, it wasn’t a shock that Tyler had died and I truly kept pondering the word “release” and its meaning. Life had been especially hard the year prior to Tyler’s death, because the doctor who had so fervently believed in and loved him, the doctor who had gotten licensed to dispense Suboxone in order to help Tyler, died of MRSA. Since that happened, Tyler ran his car off the road and demolished a car (we never found out if this was intentional or not), couldn’t get his anxiety prescription that he had legitimately been prescribed for years, couldn’t access suboxone (because he had dirty toxicology screens sometimes) and couldn’t keep a job. There were some good times within that year, but as a mother and one who was so close to her son, it was excruciatingly difficult to see Tyler self-destruct.
Release Me is the title of my first book, which has 90 scans in it (primarily letters written by Tyler) and is written in letter format. I’ve started my second book, Two Grams of Regret, which is the name of the artwork that Tyler produced.
I still ponder how that word “release” was placed in my head, but then I also have many other signs from Tyler since he died to ponder as well. Some of these signs have come from complete strangers (such as the painter who painted our house before we moved in; I didn’t even realize he spoke much English until he told me after he’d painted our empty house (before one picture or anything had been moved in) that he’d seen a spirit twice. Many other signs have come to us/others in extraordinary ways.
Tyler’s nickname for me was Moo. He always called me his Moo instead of mom/mother. Now my business name is MOO-Mothers Opposing Opioids. I speak to folks at a recovery center on a regular basis and have spoken at a library and at a bookstore. I’ve met with employees in the AZ Governor’s Office of Youth, Family & Faith to discuss the Arizona Angel Initiative and how I might be able to assist, and was featured in Estrella Magazine and West Valley News in August, 2017. I continue to meet pertinent people and make new friends who are working with folks in recovery. I’m turning pain into purpose and in the meantime, keeping Tyler’s legacy alive and meaningful. I am blessed.