My Junkie Child

I didn’t know how bad it had gotten until last year.

I knew that he popped pills every so often, but I didn’t know how that had gone from full time, to occasional, to full time, from pills, to heroin, and then on to meth.

I didn’t know that in less than a year, I’d be staring at a shell of the child I loved and had been so proud of.

Watching him waste away with his junkie girlfriend was not only sad in a way I will never be able to describe, it was scary.

Trying to talk to him.  Looking in his eyes and knowing that he didn’t see me, that he didn’t hear me, was terrifying.

There’s a song that he actually showed me later on, and the words say

“You look like yourself but you’re somebody else, only it ain’t on the surface. You talk like yourself but I hear someone else and now you’re making me nervous”

and I can tell you how, as a mother, I felt every word of that song.

Trying to reason with him, trying to get him to see me, trying to get him to pay attention to ANYTHING that was important.. well that was all out the window.

There came a point where I knew he didn’t want help, and I would kill myself trying to help him, or trying to pretend that the addiction didn’t exist.

Nothing would work.

I gave up, I had to cut ties.

I hoped that when he hit rock bottom, he would come home.

The last words he said to me were “you’re a fucking bitch mom, and I better not ever see you again.  Fuck you. I hate you”

I had already put a life insurance policy on him at that point.

I had accepted that addiction would kill him, and at least I could give him a nice funeral.

He was wasting away before my very eyes, and I couldn’t watch anymore.

He had been beautiful.  Tall, blonde, beautiful blue/green eyes, intelligent, and so funny that he could have me laughing until my sides hurt.

He was only 25 and had his whole life ahead of him.

But that son was gone, and this ghost of an addict was all that stood before me now.

About six weeks after he told me he hated me and never wanted to see me again, he showed up.

A lot of bad things had gone down in a few short days, and he hit rock bottom and bounced right back up to my door.

It was time to get clean and start actually living life.

This will be a story of the past and present.

Of wins and failures.

But together, we will overcome it all.