Things happen so randomly. Life happens so randomly.
Sometimes you spend days and weeks just kind of plodding around doing your thing, living life with its normal ebbs and flows, and then suddenly you’re in the rapids.
The water is rough and your raft has a leak. You only have one paddle and you’ve never navigated rapids before. Yet here you are, paddling madly trying not to sink, not knowing if there is calm water around the bend or a waterfall.
It’s not for the faint of heart.
It’s not really for any heart.
It’s definitely not for my heart.
But we don’t lay down when things get hard.
Still, I might need a rest.
My SonShine Is Starting to Fade
My SonShine has started to fade.
Like in Back to the Future when the timeline gets disrupted and people slowly fade out of photographs. They’re still there, but becoming translucent.
Lately, that’s what it feels like.
I had been hopeful and willing to believe the story that was being presented to me. Within reason.
What I was hearing was that my kid was struggling, but managing. It was hard, but he was doing the work. The rehab program was an uphill battle, but one he was committed to.
He didn’t want to die.
Then out of nowhere I got a request for a phone conversation.
He wanted to release some stress he’d been having. A situation he couldn’t get a handle on. Stress. Sobriety.
“I know you’re not a therapist but I just need to unload.”
ok
This makes me uneasy but I’m committed to coming back to “love him the best I can”.
The ‘best I can’ might be uncomfortable sometimes but I can sacrifice my comfort to help my child keep his balance while he’s struggling to stay sober.
I know this is likely to push my boundaries.
Love him the best I can.
I answered the phone.
Mom
As they often do, the call started out okay.
He presented his stress. Issues with a neighbour. Not feeling comfortable in his home. Problems he couldn’t get away from.
The gist was that sobriety could be on the line.
I’m not a therapist.
I’m not an addictions counsellor.
I’m not an AA sponsor.
but I am Mom.
And when he’s feeling weakened, I want to lend him my strength. Whatever I have, I want to give him.
What I want is to take his pain away.
I want to take on the struggle myself so he won’t have to.
It’s no different than when his first love was lost and his heart broke, or when he fractured his collarbone.
In all the “grow yourself” books I’ve read, I’ve never heard anyone say it’s possible to see your child suffer and not want to take away their pain.
As the conversation went on, it became more erratic.
Too familiar.
That he’s itching for a confrontation feeling.
I navigated through it pretty well I think, letting things engage but then shifting the subject if it got too intense.
Then out came the greatest hits.
- Canadian politics.
- Alcohol policy.
- Politically correct language versus personal freedom.
- Relationship issues.
- Attempts to lure me into conflicts that weren’t mine.
- The intensity of sobriety.
- Triggers.
- Trauma.
The whole familiar collection of fire starters. The places he knows to go when he wants to emote. Because in those conversations there are strong opinions at every turn.
He can’t ‘just’ be emotional.
He has to trigger every possible emotion.
To conjure the emotional fire storm at the end. And there it was.
Then silence.
He was having a seizure on his front porch.
That Helpless Feeling
I texted his girlfriend, who was inside.
She confirmed it.
He was out on the porch.
He was waking up.
He was talking.
He was okay.
He was going to lie down.
Brené Brown talks about feeling alone in a crowd. Her family calls it “the lonely feeling.” I’ve been there.
This is somewhat different.
That helpless feeling.
You can be surrounded by people. Good people. People you love and respect. People that have been in your shoes. People that have experience with loving someone struggling with addiction.
And still feel completely alone.
That’s probably a me thing.
I know several of my people get it.
I just haven’t quite gotten to where I can feel it.
When the Gaslight Went Out
Later, the gaslight was abruptly turned off.
I got a text from his girlfriend.
She’d called 911.
He’d had four seizures.
And then she crumbled.
He’s had over twenty seizures in the last three weeks.
The seizures are from drinking.
He’s lying about that.
He drank six-ish times, she thinks, since his last intubation in the ICU.
He didn’t drink today.
But he did yesterday.
And the day before.
He’s not doing well at all.
She spilled it all.
All the things I knew but couldn’t prove.
All the things that were silently screaming in my head were real.
I wasn’t neurotic.
I wasn’t psychotic.
I wasn’t even wrong.
It’s a relief in a way, to realize that you actually knew your kid and had not lost touch with reality.
But I would rather have been wrong.
It Is Not His Fault
Six hours after returning from the hospital, with two more seizures under his belt, he asked for money to buy alcohol.
Before I continue, I have to say this.
This is not his fault.
He drank with his friends as a teenager.
He drank with his friends at bars.
He drank with his friends at parties.
The same as most young adults do.
They didn’t become addicted.
He did.
It runs in his DNA. There is hardly a branch in his family tree that hasn’t been touched by addiction.
And who even knows when it turned from acceptable, expected social drinking into addiction?
I don’t think there’s a way to truly know.
There are usually signs.
But often the first undeniable sign is withdrawal.
Then you know.
I’m going to quote Laura McKowen from her book Push Off From Here.
- It is not your fault.
- It is your responsibility.
- It is unfair that this is your thing.
- This is your thing.
- This will never stop being your thing until you face it.
- You cannot do it alone.
- Only you can do it.
- You are loved.
- We will never stop reminding you of these things.
It’s a great book.
I wish my son would read it.
Or listen to it.
Or attend the sessions I bought a membership for.
But I think he’s got numbers one through five down pretty well.
The next level is facing it.
He hasn’t done that.
#7. Only you can do it.
Only he can do it.
I Let My Composure Have a Time-Out
After his girlfriend told me he wanted to drink only six hours after leaving the hospital, I let my composure have a time-out.
Being calm, measured, unwaveringly supportive over the past three years had not gotten him to sobriety.
I didn’t really think it would.
But I did think it was giving him the easiest, most supportive road possible to walk on.
Something broke in me.
(I am becoming a human Kintsugi)
Not my love for him.
Not my hope.
Just my willingness to pretend everything was okay.
If being calm hadn’t changed anything, what possible difference would it make for me to lose my shit?
So I did.
Not completely.
Still measured.
Still intentional.
But I swept the eggshells aside and solidly tore a strip off him that had been crushing me for months.
If he was going to die, he wasn’t going to do it without me telling him how pissed I was about it.
I knew exactly what I was saying.
I would have been astonished if it changed his trajectory.
It didn’t.
The Vile That Addiction Speaks
I was not astonished by the unleashing of vile that came back.
Highlights included:
- I don’t respect his disease because I hate my father.
- Don’t turn his sister or brother against him because when I’m gone they’ll still be here.
- Maybe a storm of messages isn’t great for someone trying to hold on.
- I’m so toxic that I’ve turned his girlfriend into his roommate.
And finally, the pièce de résistance:
“When I bloe my fucking brains out I’ll make sure my BAC is 0 so you can’t stand in your fucking high horse.” (sic)
This is what it is to love someone in the throes of addiction.
The disease doesn’t just hurt the person carrying it.
It lashes out at everyone standing nearby.
The Porch Light Is On
My response was simple.
I didn’t do this.
I’m blocking you now because I don’t think me being here as an outlet for your rage is good for anyone.
I love you. I always will.
The porch light is on for when you’re ready to come back to yourself.
Back home. Back to your heart.
Stay strong.
Love is waiting.
You don’t have to be 370 days sober to reach out.
But you have to be in control of yourself and your reality.
And then I blocked him.
This is what it is to love yourself enough to back away.
Standing on the Riverbank
He is in active addiction.
He does have life-threatening seizures when he withdraws.
And despite everything, I still believe he wants to get well.
Beneath the anger.
The blame.
The lies.
The fear.
I believe he’s fighting for his life.
But this is the part addiction never tells the people who love you.
Nobody can fight that battle for you.
We can stand on the shore.
We can keep the porch light on.
We can cheer.
We can pray.
We can grieve.
But eventually there comes a point where the paddle has to be in your own hands.
And that helpless feeling?
Maybe that’s what it really is.
Standing on the riverbank, watching someone you love disappear into the rapids.
Knowing you would give absolutely anything to save them.
And knowing you can’t.