- Drugs
When I was raising my three little boys, I never imagined what would be in store for us as they hit their late teens. They had a good childhood, although they were products of divorce. There was baseball, camping, fishing and all the good stuff little boys liked.
Life was good, until OxyContin flooded our neighborhood and everyone’s neighborhood. Two of my three boys fell victim to the “prescribed into addiction” epidemic. As a unit of four, we battled this horrendous addiction in our own ways. My oldest son and I went through what non-addicts go through: becoming codependent initially (and to some degree we still are). The two addicts at first enjoyed their highs and thought nothing of what they were doing to themselves or their older brother and me. As time went on, they started to realize this was not the life they wanted to lead.
One made the decision to get help on his own. He got himself into 12-step support groups and works the programs. The other fell into heroin addiction and the legal system. They made the decision for him at first. He has since come around and is starting to see that he can have a life free of drugs, but he still has some lessons to learn.
There have been so many relapses that we have lost count. I’d be hard-pressed to name all the inpatient, outpatient and detox programs we have become familiar with. The craziness of the last seven years is something only people that go through it can understand. The desperation felt by me and my oldest son was debilitating. The four of us suffered together, alone, but through many ups and downs and lessons learned, we are now all healing together, together. We are all starting to see that glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. My oldest son and I still live with the fear of relapse or some kind of trouble, but we are working on ourselves too. Throughout it all even when things were at their darkest, the love for one another was always there, and that is what truly has gotten us through.