heroin

Surrender

~ heroin heroine ~ Leave a comment

Twelve years. It’s taken me twelve long years to move the word “surrender” from the abstract idea column to the action column. Surrender has become an action, rather than the absence of action. It has moved columns because I have learned it is, by far, the hardest thing to do.

I have had some success with raising the white flag. I no longer have any preconceived notion of catching a thrown ball or successfully geolocating my way home from, basically, anywhere. But surrendering to the fact that I can not stop my own child from illegal drug use – that is heart-smashingly difficult. But reality keeps reminding me. I can not stop her from calling her drug dealer when she is overly anxious. I can not stop her from spending all of her savings, and neglecting car payments, rent, insurance and credit card bills – leaving her penniless (and sometimes homeless) time and time again. I can’t stop her from choosing to smoke crack because her sublocade shot prevents an opiate high. I can’t stop her from laying in bed for days on end after buying designer benzodiazepines from dark web shopping malls. I can not stop her from slowly – or quickly – killing herself. I want to stop her. There is nothing more that I want to stop.

Surrendering is not a new concept in the world of addiction. It’s literally step one of the Big Book. To move forward an addict must admit they are “powerless over drugs and alcohol.” This sort of surrendering is not just word play. It requires deeply accepting the insanity of their situation: admitting years wasted trying to manage, control, deny or ignore the disease. It’s the hardest, most essential, step.

Well it appears that us loved ones have to do it too. Not just pretend to do it. Or half-heartedly do it. I have to admit I can not will her to sobriety. I can not find the perfect rehab. Or a psychiatrist with a magic wand. I can not make her use her “recovery tool box.” I am helpless. Twelve long years have taught me this. Step one of the Al-Anon Big Book requires “admitting we are powerless.” Powerless meaning letting go of any misconception of control. And then actually stopping the manic, obsessive searching for the Holy Grail. So many of us admit we can’t solve it, but then spend endless hours actively trying to solve it! The stakes are so high: it’s hard to stop oneself. But after a certain amount of time we must. And, most worrisome, we must stop any future projection of everlasting wellness for our loved one. We must accept what is. It is not up to us – no matter how much we want it, work on it or wish for it.

We must surrender.
Not “sort of” surrender.

Here’s the difference though: They must let go to live.
We must let go of wanting them to live.

And that’s a very big difference.

We Begin Again Too.

~ heroin heroine ~ 3 Comments

When a family member relapses waking moments are not fully your own. Work seems less important. Socializing seems trivial. Food loses its flavor. Affection is harder to feel because sorrow has taken up residence in your breastbone and your heart can no longer radiate. You feel unjustifiably tired. Tears hang out right behind your eyeballs. It takes a lot of effort to keep them there.

This is the time when I lecture myself to “pony up” because the disease is worse for those with SUD than it is for me. At least that is how I have always looked at it. But lately I have begun to second guess myself. When someone is fully in their disease they aren’t experiencing crippling worry (unless it’s how to secure their next fix). And once they get high, they certainly aren’t thinking about you. The only person who can think about you is you.

Someone once reminded me, “as they begin again, so do we.”

But this “beginning” occurs on separate paths. Thinking about this makes me sad. As much as we may want to prop each other up, addiction for families is not a team sport. It may be called a “family disease” but there is little togetherness. Addiction is the opposite of together. Even in the closest of families it does it’s best to destroy connection. The problem with this is that as a parent you believe it is your duty to move everyone forward; like a sheepdog gathering it’s herd. For twelve long years that is what I tried to do. I now know that the only way toward peace and clarity is to strike out on my own.

Last week as I sat on my patio feeling the warm sun on my face, I began to ugly cry. Immediately I tried to shut that pity parade down. As I tried to suppress my feelings I considered how I would counsel a friend. I knew I would tell them that what they were going through was definitely sad and that crying is a natural response. So I stopped holding my breath and allowed myself to cry. And it felt honest. Which is a small victory because honesty is something addicts, and their loved ones, are terribly afraid of.

I considered what “beginning again” had meant to me in the past. It had meant getting my loved one back on track. Finding beds in detoxes, rehabs and sober homes, double-checking insurances, packing up apartments, handling transitions, medications, cigarette runs, money, clothing deliveries, speaking with counselors, attending family meetings, researching new therapies. For me it’s always meant this laundry list of things. These things are hard and getting through them requires an amnesiac version of auto pilot. But the truth is this time around the amnesia is leaving me. Clarity has finally rung its little bell and left a little dent in my shiny armor.

I know I should be completely satisfied that my loved one is beginning again. I am aware that my despondence over being at the starting point again is not helpful. I know that relapse is part of recovery. I know that I am not qualified to solve this problem. I know that they are doing their very best. I know that love doesn’t solve all things. And I know that where there is life there is hope.

I know all these things. I suspect I need a new path to walk. A road with a new signpost. Maybe it will say “let it be” or “hello me.”

Group Ghost Buster

~ heroin heroine ~ 8 Comments

Groups exist: running clubs and bird watching clubs, weight watcher groups and book groups. People join because of a common interest or to encourage each other in a common pursuit. But did you know that some people willingly join groups they do not want to belong to?! My husband and I belong to one. We joined a support group for those who have a family member suffering from the disease of addiction. We joined because “life had become unmanageable” and changing the behavior of our child was not possible. Instead we learned that we, like the others, are powerless. The common thread that binds us is pain.

Most Sundays a new face appears. We sit in a circle and each member gives an update on their addict; they are “doing well or back at rehab, homeless or paying rent.” We also share personally; we are “questioning our decisions, learning to not overreact, tired but hopeful.”

Why do we do this? There are therapists, on-line forums and self help books. There is also denial. Why meet to discuss the difficult?

I am not sure. But people tend to join when they are in crisis. The first step in the door is often a desperate one. They come for advice on what to do about a “missing family member high on alcohol and cocaine” or a loved ones positive tox screen for “benzos, fentanyl, crack and amphetamines.” We listen. We nod. There is a lot of nodding. There are no solutions. Instead we offer gentle suggestions or a new way of looking at the problem. It is strangely comforting to realize our ugly experience may be helpful to another – at a minimum by making them feel less alienated. A magical sort of alchemy happens when both hurt parties end up feeling a bit better.

When it is my turn I get to speak aloud the fears that have been echoing endlessly in my head all week. I liken this to opening up my closet door and calling out the ghost. Group Ghost Buster! My three-day headache dissolved after I shared one week. Why did the ibuprofen not work? I do not know.

You know what else helps? Getting lost in looking at my fellow group members.* I like looking at their shoes, their hands, their eyes, their hat choices. One wore pajamas two weeks ago! Some bring dogs. Some bring knitting. Others sit confidently. Some curl up a bit. I find it comforting to get lost in the visuals of our collectivity. Who knew this would be our reality? It’s akin to being dropped onto a strange new planet and having to assess your new mates. My husband’s verdict is that “he has never been in a room with more kindness and empathy.” I think he may be right. One member recently checked in with me via email. He signed off “you are loved.” (I cried then, and I am crying now.)

Ultimately, being in a group like this makes small talk impossible. Instead you must reach down to a deeper level to share the stuff that keeps us all afloat. I guess I should have nicknamed us Group Soul Buster. I encourage you to join one if you are in need.

*We now meet virtually. But I look forward to our in-person gatherings: for the shoes…and the hugs.

Paper Airplanes of Love.

~ heroin heroine ~ 3 Comments

Everything is a love poem.

Someone said this recently.
I think they were joking because their tone was a bit flippant.
But after he said it he let a long pause hang in the air.
And the pause felt like a challenge.

I guess I would like to believe that everything is a love poem.
I admit I embarrass myself. Am I just a silly girl?

Yet there is a whole lot of love tucked into nearly every day: A smile from a stranger, the cat that follows you down the driveway, the extra cheese someone put on your sandwich, the feel of the wind on your cheek, an evening swim, a pink sky, music on the radio, cold ice in a drink, the feel of a warm embrace. Right now my big old red dog is laying down under a tree and sniffing the air. If he catches me looking at him he will feel the need to come stand by me, and in doing so he will have to move his arthritic hips. I look quickly away so he will not struggle. Love, love, and more love.

Of course we can’t dismiss the broken hearts, the divorces, the deaths.
Yet these hurt because they showcase another side of love: the loss of it, the memory of it, the importance of it.

Then there is self love. Contrary to what our media feed may tell us self love is not a day at the spa or a healthy meal delivery from an internet box service. True self love depends upon unconditional love.

The first time I considered the meaning of “unconditional love” was after a text from our family therapist. She implied that I might have been lacking it. She sent it upon the aftermath of my umpteenth midnight run to pick up my screaming daughter from a police lock up. The therapist was wrong. Nothing my child did or said could have made me love her less. I was just not willing to equate loving her with letting her go. I was not willing to “live and let live.”

Sometimes I criticize myself for all the time spent “loving” her – often at the expense of the other members of my family, and my own. (If you think you are hard on yourself ask a mother of an addict how she feels deep down inside.)

I had a fabulous therapist for a year who asked the most ridiculous questions: what kind of wild animal did you see today? what is your love language? But she was also spot on. She brought me back to the love that was all around me (that old dog under the tree, that cheese on my sandwich, that pink sky).

Unconditional self love, however, is a strange concept. We misinterpret it. We think a self improvement regimen is as an act of self love. Or we recite our strengths to feel worthy of it. But self love requires something completely different. It requires accepting that mountain of other, quieter, stuff; our operating quirks, our bias, our mistakes. That mountain grows as we get older. Maybe that is why so many of us address it later in life.

My New Year’s resolution is to take time to sit quietly.   To sit quietly atop my mountain of stuff.  And I am going to write some love poems.  And I am going to let them fly.

God Moments?

~ heroin heroine ~ 2 Comments

 

Someone in recovery described a story of mine as a “God moment.” They didn’t mean God, per se. They meant those moments when the universe just seems to be there for you. One of those rare times when the “dots get connected” when you least expect them to.

The moment I had been sharing was hardly ‘heavenly.’ It was about the time when my seventeen-year old daughter had prematurely left drug treatment and gone missing. A tip on her location had landed me in court to have her arrested and involuntarily committed for treatment. The judge issued a warrant that was due to expire at the end of that very day. As I sat on the court bench and waited for her arrival I had a distressing front row seat to a slow parade of sadness, ugliness, and desperation. What I did not witness was the arrival of my daughter. (A year prior police escorted her in both hand and leg cuffs. There is nothing more shocking than seeing your child shackled this way; other than realizing a year later that you are now looking forward to those same custodial restraints.)

With one eye on the ticking clock I asked the court officer for the address to the local police station. Upon arrival I informed the officers that I was about to “do their job for them.” They warned that my efforts would be wasted since ‘no one would open the door in a drug den.’ I countered that it was much more likely my daughter would answer if she heard my voice and, regardless, I was going whether they came with me or not. Possibly shamed, but more likely legally bound, they agreed to accompany me. That was when I learned that the neighborhood was so dangerous that a second cruiser was needed. To top it off I was given a lecture about “staying behind the officers” when we entered the building. (No God moments thus far… instead It felt a bit like we were prepping to enter the fifth level of Hell.)

The address led us to a street that was a lifeless shade of grey. There were dozens of people milling about but they morphed, understandably, into silent watching shadows. The triple decker we approached was adrift in discarded clothing, empty cans and bits of unidentifiable metal debris. The front door was located on the second floor and had no discernible way to reach it. No staircase, no doorbell, no mailbox, no buzzer. Together we rounded the building and discovered a dirty basement door boarded over with plywood and nails. I envisioned prying it open and crawling through the darkness. I made a note to return to this door if need be. Rounding the last side of the building we were greeted with an entry level, dead bolted, door. And a woman. The same woman who had been silently watching us from across the street. Earlier I had thought she was a man. But now I was close enough to make out the large breasts that hung to the left and right of her plain cotton tee shirt. She was powerfully built in denim jeans and construction boots. She had a plain round face, and a long thin black pony tail that hung down her back: pencil straight. Her countenance was unreadable. She pointed to me and, wordlessly, pointed to the third floor. I replied “yes.” She nodded and turned her attention to the large brass key ring on her hip. Methodically she flipped through dozens of standard cut keys and selected just one. And she opened the door. The next few minutes were a bit of a blur. I know we climbed to the third floor and we knocked and my daughter answered. The officers put her in handcuffs and she was wild with spitting fury. Even so, the officers carefully tucked my daughter’s dirty blonde head into the back of their cruiser. Before following them back to the courthouse I sat in my car for a moment. I didn’t notice that the woman had approached my driver’s side window until I heard the knock. Rolling down the window she spoke her first word to me. “Drugs,” she said. I nodded. Staring hard at me she then said “Bad drugs.” I replied, “yes.” Then she said, “good mamacita,” and slowly crossed the street.

It was only then that I remember feeling truly overwhelmed. Unhinged may be a better word. I had been playing this game for a few years but this feeling was different. I rolled up my window, but not without the self correcting thought “this is what you do in neighborhoods like these.” Yes, this is where my daughter was lost. But this is also where she had been found. Someone – someone I never expected to help me – had done so. The police hadn’t. What if she hadn’t been there? What if she didn’t have those keys? Why did she help me when she knew there was drug activity going on in a building she obviously had some sort of responsibility for? Why had she helped me in front of the cops? Was it a gift from one mom to another?

It was, in the end, a coming together of disparate parts of the universe.

Of course I felt unhinged. I don’t know if I experienced a God Moment. I don’t even know if there is a God. But I am beginning to believe I may have met some sort of fallen angel. A fallen angel who was working hard on our behalf. A fallen angel in construction boots.

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Sthira vs. Sukha

~ heroin heroine ~ 4 Comments

Sthira and Sukha are popular yoga terms meant to convey a “yin and yang” sensibility. I think of sthira as “roots” and sukha as “wings.” A more accurate translation of the Sanskrit would be “stability” vs. “lightness.” When practicing Ashtanga yoga I have always sought the sukha, or the potential to fly. I sometimes giggle aloud when my feet release skyward or my heart floats up to the ceiling. It is such a rare treat to escape gravity’s pull.

Sthira, however, is quite different – in many cases it requires the engagement of the larger, lower, muscle groups (the quads, the glutes, the abdominals). For two weekends now I have been reminded that stability is key. Scot, our instructor, has had us feel our feet, bend our toes, challenge our inner and outer thigh muscles…he even put us in cat pose and had strangers balance their bodies atop us in a form of improv contact. These undulating movements required constant shifting of my center of gravity in order to take someone else’s flight – or to entertain my own.

I thought I understood: ground yourself before you take off in flight!

Once again, I required re-direction. I overheard Scot explain that being actively grounded allows the upper body to be consciously free. “Active” being the key word.  Do not rest in your present position – but fully feel it for what it is (whether it be crooked floorboards, the push of another body against your spine, or the outward turn of your imperfect feet.) By doing this you are not actively seeking flight or lightness of being. You are instead grounding yourself to the earth and thereby engaging an interior reservoir of strength. Only then will your body feel safe enough to bravely reach upwards.

That is when the lesson sunk in. I have lived this lesson. For years I tried to create and recreate stable, safe footing for my daughter who suffers from addiction. I bounced between “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Maybe I should have said this. Maybe I missed something developmentally. Maybe a new school will work. Maybe a new friend circle. Maybe a new therapist. Maybe a new medication. Maybe exercise. Maybe more consequences. Maybe less consequences. Maybe a different insurance plan. Maybe, maybe, maybe….” I left no rock unturned. I needed her, us, to be free. But sukha was nowhere to be found.

I remember the moment when I finally accepted our situation. I was driving and the sun was setting and and my whole sense of being was flooded by the fact that my daughter had relapsed again. I didn’t know how to be. How could I just be with this? I remember breathing and releasing into that moment with a complete acceptance of the truth. It was dusk and the sky opened up before me and I thought, “this.” There is “this” too.

This acceptance, which I still feel vaguely uncomfortable with, was a long time coming. I had to fully acknowledge that change may not be possible – at least not in this present moment. This is not an easy thing for a mother to fully feel. But once I did I noticed the sky. It sounds so cliche – but at that moment I was fully awakened to the incredulous sky. I also understood this to be the second part of Scot’s admonition: to be consciously free. I chose to see the sky.

Since that day, nearly three years ago, I have looked upwards and found something akin to flight. And, incredulously, for two years my daughter has stood on terra firma.

We are free.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Watching Someone Die in Ohio

~ heroin heroine ~ Leave a comment

Once again I am reading of yet another police department bemoaning the fact that they have to use a nasal spray (Narcan) to reverse the fatal effects of an opiate overdose. Just last week Butler County Sheriff, Richard K. Jones, prohibited his officers from carrying Narcan by explaining “here in Ohio, the (paramedics) get there about the same time and they’re more equipped to use Narcan. Requiring deputies to administer the medication puts them in danger.”

While true that Sheriff Butler is in the midst of a maddening epidemic that is exhausting and frightening – his explanation is nonsensical.  Why would police officers allow paramedics to deal with people who, in his words, “turn violent once they are revived?”

Sheriff Jones further complains that this epidemic is “sucking his taxpayers dry.”  Jones next move may be to follow the lead of fellow City Councilman Dan Picard from nearby Middletown, Ohio.  Picard has requested that ambulances no longer be dispatched to previously revived people. (In fact, he would like those overdosing to be fined – on the small chance they survive without assistance.) Now here is a move that would doubly benefit the taxpayer!

What we are hearing, (if not job exhaustion accompanied by bigotry), is a need to revisit the department’s mission statement. It is not uncommon for large organizations to have to remind themselves of their core mission.

Most police officers are hired:
-to mitigate damage and destruction of property
-to defend and protect individuals in the community
-to operate as first responders*
*Contractual footnote: most stipulate a speedy emergency response even to multiple calls from the same individual – you do not get to choose who you respond to. Also, those served aren’t required to be instantly appreciative or futuristically compliant.

Those of us who parent addicts understand the frustration. We know they don’t listen. We know they go back to the drugs. We know our efforts are often ineffectual. Over and over again – the same honest effort, the same disappointing result. But confer further with those of us who are not in a position to “give up” and we will tell you to trust in that future day. Not all will be saved because no epidemic-sized rescue mission will ever be 100% effective. But the recovery community is surprisingly large. Imagine the day when the person you revived is healthy and whole and breathtakingly alive. Imagine you made that possible by the simple application of a quick acting nasal spray.

Now, imagine differently. Imagine you arrive at the scene. You see the boy you saved last week. He is blue. You try to ignore his crying parents as his breathing slows to a stop. You mumble under your breath “not my problem” because this time you are not permitted to expend any life saving measures. You console yourself that the boy willfully took the drug. Possibly it will feel like witnessing a goldfish jump out of its bowl and quietly allowing it to suffocate.

I imagine that Sheriff Jones forgot one crucial element in his cost-benefit analysis: the mental health of his responding officers. Did he consider how they might feel responding and choosing not to serve? Not to rescue? Not to mitigate the damage? Not to call forth compassion?

It is one thing to be tired of saving the same people over and over.
But it is quite another to watch them die.

The Power of Words

~ heroin heroine ~ 1 Comment

“I am an addict. I fucking love shooting heroin. I love it. You would love it too if you tried it.” – My daughter, April 13, 2015, calling home from Arbor Hospital in N. Attleboro

Until I heard these words I had not fully believed she was an addict. I thought depression, anxiety, poor impulse control and the wrong crowd had led to a misuse of substances. But addiction? To heroin?

The next day she refused further treatment and checked out of the dual diagnosis facility the ambulance had transported her to just a few days prior. The power of her spoken words just a memory. How could they let her leave? Why would she choose to leave? She called once more explaining that she would be staying with an unnamed girlfriend in New Bedford: “There won’t be any problems. She will teach me to drive. There is a community college nearby. I will go to a Suboxone clinic.”

Who was this mystery person who would house my homeless daughter? How can you practice driving without a permit? How can you go to college when you dropped out of high school? How can you start a new life in hospital scrubs? All those motherly questions remained unanswered.

I wanted to believe this new friend was safe; but her last “safe” roomie was dead. Do addicts believe the yarns they spin?

Then my texted treatises begin. I had become as manic and as lost as my daughter. I warned that she couldn’t live a happy, healthy life on dope. I explained why “home is not an option,” and I begged her to reconsider treatment.  I feared her death and every morning I asked myself “will this be the day?”  I didn’t want her to leave this world hating me or not seeing a way out of the paper bag she had put herself in. I wanted to clear the mind debris; hers… and mine.

But my words got no response. Eventually I just texted that I loved her unconditionally…. even if she couldn’t kick this. Each time I wrote it I felt like I was signing a death warrant. But we all die. But not all of us die feeling loved.  I wanted her to know that her mother would always, always love her.

For weeks upon weeks I got no reply.

My daughter was a young adult of nineteen years. The law, the courts, the healthcare system all had decided that it was none of my business. My sick child was now the captain of her own ship.

After a month or two – I received a reply. She did not tell me where she was. But instead wrote, “you will always be the greatest mom in the whole wide world.”

I did not feel grateful. Instead, I felt sick. My daughter was now doing the equivalent of what I had been doing: making sure all of our interactions were kind because we may not have many left. I knew her words would save me if the worst came to pass. But I did not want to hear them.

This disease is so heart achingly difficult to process that sometimes silence gives more comfort than words. And how does a mother find comfort in that?

 

What Am I Here For?

~ heroin heroine ~ 1 Comment

 

My husband says it was to save our daughter. I have saved my child. At least twice she was within days of dying. But is this all I am here for? I can’t keep her alive if she doesn’t want to be. Hell, I couldn’t even keep her alive if she asked me too. In the end, the work necessary for survival is hers. I can’t do it for her. And saving your own child isn’t magnanimous. It is what most of us would do. And, more importantly, it is what we should do.

Doing what you should do can not be a life’s purpose.
And we are all bound to fail if the purpose is following some sort of moral script.

Sometimes I wish we could all be avengers and superheroes; performing spectacular feats of a magnitude that we never predicted on our little home radars. Why can’t the tiny ripples caused by good deeds be more like tsunamis?

There is an urgent need for a lot of saving to be done.
And sometimes I just feel plain powerless as I sit here eating my lunch.

“PTSD” – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

~ heroin heroine ~ 2 Comments

This is when I am supposed to reference Webster’s dictionary. I can picture the bulleted item list that has been carefully compiled by doctors and psychiatrists, and craftily winnowed down by editors.

Yet words are bound to fail. PTSD creates a feeling that can not be contained by bullets or paragraphs. If forced to use words they would be: “sense of dread.”

A sense of dread accompanied by unwelcome imagery. Imagery that is not imaginary. Dread that is not unjustified.

The ring of the phone makes me ill. Physically ill.
A knock on the door? Visions of a police officer.
An envelope without a return address?  Bad news.
My daughter not texting for a few days? Relapse.
Sad song on the radio? Message of doom.
Bitter snow? Frostbitten child.
Cheap motels off the highway? Sadness, loneliness, death.

My list could be longer. But it hurts to write it. If I suffer from PTSD, how badly must my daughter suffer? I have seen the results of her use, but have not lived through the experience of it.

“Conquer your fears” is written everywhere nowadays – from business journals to self help magazines. But the kind of fear they often refer to is that of financial risk. (Or a lifestyle change: try that new vegan diet! get a new partner! make a career switch!) I am talking about a different kind of fear. A primal fear. The fear of losing your stormy green eyed child to something so unpredictable, so misunderstood, so maddeningly unacceptable. I have written my daughter’s obituary in my head. I have actually looked in my closet to see if I have an acceptable black dress. These were my attempts to conquer my fear. My attempts to claim and manage the unacceptable.

Nelson Mandela says that “courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” That the “brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

I am not there yet. But my daughter is. She is putting one step in front of the other…. steady and straight. Even with those swirling thoughts that must exist in her head. If I had to provide a picture of bravery for Webster’s dictionary it would be of my stubborn green eyed child making her way across a tight rope.

And I am waiting on the other side.