Looking out my Backdoor: Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic

I am writing this, talking about this hard subject, for you, for that one person out there who needs to hear that you are not alone.

This is a topic nobody wants to talk about. Me, included. Let’s sweep it under the rug and pretend that lump isn’t real.

I’ve lost my son. Again. Last time I lost him, the County Sheriff picked him up in a ditch, beat up with broken bones, a backpack containing heroin and other contraband. Landed in jail. The County had a special program, unique, and he volunteered for it, wanted to get clean. It was a great program, combining individual and group counseling, work, AA and NA meetings, physical help, and more.

Once he left jail, the program continued with counseling, a safe house, a job, meetings, a rigorous routine.

From there this man, my son, managed to put together several years of sobriety. It wasn’t easy for him. He didn’t go back to his prestigious IT job. Bit by bit, we, family and friends, saw him getting better.

Then, a couple years ago, we began to see troubling signs. Stories that didn’t quite make sense. But we wanted them to be true, right, so we made allowances. He quit going to meetings. He pushed away friends. A year and a half ago he quit talking with me. I had been questioning some of his decisions, those few I knew about, long distance. When he quit talking, I knew he was using.

Why am I writing about this now? Well, I just heard from a relative, some ugly details of my son’s life. Broke my heart all over again. Oh, yes, I knew he was using. But in the last couple years, I’d managed to compartmentalize the pain. Living 2500 miles away helps.

Two years ago his situation was bad. Now it is beyond ugly and desperate. One knows it is desperate when one hopes and prays that one’s son lands back in jail rather than die in a ditch. That may sound brutal. I don’t know if he will claw his way out of the pit he’s dug for himself. He can, if he asks for help. If.

My understanding is that to those who are vulnerable to it, heroin is like the ultimate bliss. My son, himself, told me that he never forgets, that nothing ever measures up to what he feels on the drug, that it sings a continual siren song.

There is help. For the User. For the Family. If my son had continued to surround himself with friends who didn’t use, had stayed in the job with people in recovery who valued him and supported him, continued with his counselors, gone to meetings, reached out to others who needed his story, had continued contact with his family . . .

This could have been a different story, right?

One of the ways I take care of myself, while crying and allowing myself to feel the pain, to feel it more deeply perhaps, is to throw myself into work. Physical work is balm, for me.

I will take care of myself. I will not allow his addiction to crush me. I know that I didn’t cause it, I cannot cure it, and I cannot control it.

So that is why I set about rearranging deck chairs on my own Titanic. I’m between homes at present, closing down my life in my little casa in Etzatlan, moving to another small casa up the road in Oconahua.

My house was a jumbled mess but I had figured to live in the mess a few more weeks. Then when my son was brought back before me in techni-color detail, I began doing what I know to do. Physical work. I decided to make these last few weeks in this house as comfortable as possible.

I rearranged the furniture, the clothing and food items, some of which I had stashed in boxes, the few patio items I had not moved. I worked until my legs, my back, my arms hurt. Compared to the pain in my heart, physical pain was a comfort. One day of hard labor and I felt better. The heart hurt will never entirely go away. I’ve learned how to live with it. (Counseling, sharing, friends, my Higher Power, see above.)

I will not stop loving my son. He’s my 47-year-old baby. I will not allow him to tear apart my life. It’s hard. It hurts. Heroin is a Destroyer. We do not have to let it destroy us and our family. I’m not giving up. Nobody, but nobody, has to go down with the ship.

Whoever needs to hear this: You are not alone. I hear you. I care. I love you.

——

Sondra Ashton grew up in Harlem but spent most of her adult life out of state. She returned to see the Hi-Line with a perspective of delight. After several years back in Harlem, Ashton is seeking new experiences in Etzatlan, Mexico. Once a Montanan, always. Read Ashton’s essays and other work at http://montanatumbleweed.blogspot.com/. Email [email protected].