DCFS

Over and over again, we heard that our son did not want to live with us anymore and that we needed to find him a place to live--or kick him out.  We were going crazy because we didn't know what to do.  
I still wanted to get him into some kind of treatment program, but just kept running into brick walls with every telephone call that I made.   Apparently, the same insurance that we had 2 years ago that allowed residential and day treatment, doesn’t cover either one, now.  Other state or county programs had 6 to 8 weeks waiting lists just to be able to be evaluated,  

What are people--who don’t have the finances to put their child in residential treatment--supposed to do while they wait 8 weeks to see if they can get their child into one of these programs?  Put their son under house arrest?  Let him run amuck and do whatever he wanted to do in the meantime?  Every private program that I checked into ran from $160.00 a day to $6,500.00 a month.  Who can afford that?

A few months ago, we learned that friends of ours had a daughter with a cocaine addiction.  Their insurance allowed them to put her in a rehab facility for two weeks.  Two weeks?  The first two weeks are the weeks that the child is angry and uncooperative.  After that, they slowly let down their barriers and begin to realize that everyone there, including their families, are trying to help them.  And even then, the progress is slow.  Two weeks isn’t long enough.  It made me want to find a way to start a foundation to provide scholarships for young people to be able to have the addiction recovery treatment that they so desperately need.  I had no idea that I would soon need that kind of assistance myself. 

At that time, I felt so bad for our friends, felt that I knew what they were going through, and wished I could help them.  I was happy that we didn't have to go through that and felt good about my son doing so well with his sobriety.  I had no idea what was coming.  You never know what is going to be the trigger that ends the sobriety and starts the relapse.  I guess the battle over school and the battle over privileges were his triggers this time. 

And now, things were not going very well in our home.  Sometimes it was so bad that I almost wanted to kick him out.  No matter how bad it got, I wouldn't do it and definitely didn’t want him to run away, go live with some unknown people, go live on the streets, or have anything bad happen to him, 

I didn’t know where else to turn and even though I didn’t really want to have DCFS (Division of Child and Family Services) involvement in our lives, I thought they might be able to help us figure out what to do with him.  After being transferred around and given different telephone numbers to call, I finally got through to a supervisor and she told me that a 45 day temporary placement might be an option while we got things figured out.  I knew that it would be heart-breaking to have him placed somewhere else, but what else could we do?  

After several weeks of waiting and calling and waiting, a Post-Adoption Family Preservation therapist made his first weekly visit. Our son was not excited that we were having a caseworker come to our house and told me that he was going to leave before the therapist got there, even if he had to go without shoes or coat again.  So, I asked the caseworker to come in the morning instead of the afternoon, just to catch my son off guard. 

He would either be just waking up or would still be sound asleep at that time of day.  He has always seemed to have problems sleeping, but now, just to be obstinate, he was staying up really, really late at night and then sleeping most of the day.  It made it hard for me to sleep because I felt like I had to stay awake too, so that I would know what he was doing. 

One night, I heard him in the kitchen at 2:00 a.m.  He was looking for some food and I told him that he just needed to go to bed and at least try to go to sleep.  He gave me a “make me” look and said that he was going to stay up as long as he wanted to because there was better stuff on TV at night than during the day.

I didn’t get into the argument with him that he seemed to be itching to have.  Sometimes I think his addictive nature feeds off confrontation just as much as it feeds off substance abuse.  I just had to walk away from that “make me” look, even though it frustrated me so much.  He loved throwing it in my face that he had the power to sleep or not and there was nothing I could do about it. 

He was very annoyed in the morning when the caseworker arrived just after he woke up.  The caseworker asked us a lot of questions as he tried to understand our family dynamic.  Our son was defensive and argumentative.  He even stormed out of the room at one point when he didn’t like hearing my husband’s opinion and feelings.  When the caseworker got to the drug history part and asked about our son’s desire to use drugs, he said, “I will probably smoke marijuana after I turn 18, but it isn’t worth the hassle right now.” 

It hurts so much to hear that.  “Why does he not get it?  Out of all of the things that have happened to him, that he has been taught, that he has seen, and that others in AA have shared, how can he still want to smoke pot, or use drugs of any kind?”  He has even said that he knows that he has damaged his brain and is not able to do certain things that he used to be able to do, mentally, because of all of his drug use—and yet he still wants to do it.

Someone who sponsors a lot of young men told me this:  “It doesn’t surprise me when someone relapses, it surprises me when they don’t.”  That is how often it happens.  He said that he went to rehab four times in three years before he finally realized that he wanted a life of sobriety and wanted to help others more than he wanted to self-destruct.

Every time I hear how long the relapse/recovery process can be and think about how bad it gets in our family with our son’s addictive and oppositional defiant behaviors, I wonder how we will ever get to the point where he has learned from his mistakes, is still alive, and ready to make a difference in the world. 

Our caseworker probably thought that we were a really messed up family.  Just to hear us try to communicate and to see how we interact with each other, surely makes us seem hopeless.

He asked my son if he would be willing to go to a day treatment program and he said that he would think about it.  As the interview went on, he changed his tune and began saying what he thought the caseworker wanted to hear.  He said he would check into programs and would see if he could get my son's name moved up on some of the waiting lists.

Being on waiting lists, though, meant that our son was in limbo.  He needed to be enrolled in school again, but I wanted it to be in day treatment, not at our boundary high school (which I call the Den of Iniquity because of his drug connections there).  Not going to school was just fine with him.  He thinks it is pointless because he is so far behind in credits toward graduation, anyway.  For me, having him around all day and night, never knowing what kind of mood he was going to be in or what was going to set him off kept me on edge all the time.  It would have been nice to have that 8 hour reprieve during the day.

When it was our turn to talk to the caseworker alone, we explained again that our son doesn’t want to live in our home and wants us to kick him out or find him a place to live, how he acts like he can’t stand us, how he wants everything in our house to run HIS way and if it doesn’t go the way he wants it to, he works himself into a rage.  

The caseworker said that his purpose was to keep our family together and that he would work as hard as he could to help us with that.  He wasn’t very encouraging on the topic of having our son temporarily placed somewhere.  He said the WE would have to pay $500.00 a month in child support to the state.  That was pretty unrealistic for our financial situation.   He was going to try to help us come up with other options and try to help us work through our problems.   

As the allotted time with the caseworker drew to a close, he warned my son to stay out of the “red zone” (which probably means blow-up mode), to stop screwing up, and to make sure that there weren’t any more incidents between then and when he went to court on the drug charges.  He said that if our son got into trouble again, the judge could give him consequences that he wouldn’t like. 

And then our son responded with, “I would love to go to Juvie.”  He just had to show what a "Bad A" he was and that he could care less if he got a harsh consequence.

The caseworker just ignored that and asked my son what he was going to do for the rest of the day.  I said, “I am thinking about taking him to the guitar store to see what is wrong with his guitar--if he promises to be nice to me.” 

He liked that idea, but had to show that some DCFS caseworker wasn’t going to change his mind about not wanting us to be his parents anymore and asked me this ‘dagger to the heart’ question:  “After we go to the guitar store, will you take me to the courthouse too?”  He was still certain that he could become emancipated.  The caseworker told him that the chances of emancipating were about 1 in 1000 and that he didn’t have anything going for him to show that he could be self-sufficient.  It didn't make any difference though.  He was still adament about going to there.  I really didn’t feel like taking him to the guitar store anymore.   

You just don’t know what it feels like to have your son constantly swear that he does not want you to be his parent.  I wanted this child so much.  I fought to keep him when he was a baby in the legal/risk foster care placement.  And now I was fighting to keep him as a teenager.  I love him so much and it is sad that living in our house, with us as parents is so terrible for him.  This isn’t what I thought his teenage years would be like.    

I tried not to show how much I was hurt by his request and I just said, “I will drive to the parking lot and I will sit in the truck.  You can go into the courthouse and do whatever you are going to do.”  He said that was fine with him.

After we left the guitar store, as I was driving toward the courthouse, he said, “You don’t have to go to there today.” 

I replied, “We might as well.  We are only two blocks away.  This is a good opportunity for you to get started on it.”  But, he just said no and that he was okay for now.

And we came home.

I guess he was going to give it another day.

I would be happy with one more day.

Saturday Night #1

Relapse was just part of the cycle that we found ourselves in.  

We were about to have two weekends in a row disrupted by big blow-ups.  

BIG. 

Saturday night number one:  We were getting ready to go to bed and told our son that it was time to stop playing Starcraft in the office so that we could lock up.  

Ever since I caught him in the basement smoking pot--when he was supposedly in the office playing Starcraft--we have instituted a rule that he has to go upstairs to his room at night when we do.  And, we lock the office, garage, and basement doors, as well as having the alarm chimes set on the outside doors so that he can't sneak around while we are asleep.  It is too bad that we have to do that, but the trust that we had built up over the last year was gone because of what he chose to do. 

This time, he informed us that he intended to stay up late playing the game since he didn't have very much time to play it that day.  At first, we said no, but when we saw that he was going to "lose it" over that decision, my husband said he would give him another half an hour while he stayed up to watch the local Saturday night outdoor television show.  

But, our son had already fixated on the “no” and went into battle mode, ready to fight to the death to get what he wanted.  He kept pushing the issue about how he should be allowed to stay up late and he shouldn't have to follow any stupid rules that we made just because we didn't trust him.  By the time he figured out that we weren’t going to change our minds, the half hour of game time that we were going to give him was over. 

I was amazed that he gave up his campaign and felt myself sigh with relief when he stormed up the stairs and slammed the door to his room.  

I thought we had dodged a bullet that night, but a few minutes later, he knocked on the bedroom door and said that he needed help with his guitar.  It was a little bit frustrating that the problems he had been having with his strings and tuners suddenly had to be fixed in the middle of the night.  But, we wanted to do our part to keep the peace and my husband tried everything that he could think of to help--even though he doesn't have any particular skills in that area--and nothing worked.  We told him that we would have to find a day during the coming week when we could take the guitar back to the guitar shop to find out what could be done to get it working again. 

However, since that didn’t solve his problem immediately, he acted as if it was another life or death situation.  He became more irrational and yelled that if he couldn’t fix his guitar right then, that night, he was just going to quit playing the guitar forever and then he would have NOTHING in his life anymore because we had already taken away everything else that he loves. 

Well, the only things we had "taken away" were the X-Box and marijuana.  

We found ourselves right in the middle of the big underlying issue.  He wanted his X-Box privileges back and since we had "unjustly" taken them away from him—we had taken away everything else that he loves.

We reminded him that he could have had the X-Box back by then, if he had only done the things he needed to do to earn it back.  He said wasn't going to do anything that we told him to do.  So, we asked him to tell us what HE would be willing to do to have the privilege back.  He answered that he couldn’t think of a single thing he should have to do to get something back that we had no right to take away in the first place. 

I said, “Oh, come on.  You know what we want you to do.  Why can’t you just say that you’ll be nice, stop swearing at us about everything, clean your room, go to school and pass your classes, go to AA, get a job, help out around here, and stay clean and sober?”

His response was, “Because I am not going to do any of those things.  I don’t want to live here anymore.  I can’t stand it here.  I would rather live behind a dumpster than live here for one more minute.  So, what I want YOU to do is tell me what I have to do to get you to kick me out!”

One minute we were being as helpful and supportive as we could be with his guitar needs and the next minute, he would rather live behind a dumpster than live with us.

We replied that we loved him and didn't have any desire to kick him out and that we just wanted him to stop fighting against everything, do what he was supposed to do, and get on with life in the best way possible.  But, he just said that we don’t love him, don’t do anything to make him happy, and needed to just tell him what to do to get thrown out of the house.

Even though it broke my heart to do this, I pointed to his shoes and coat and said, “Leave if you want to.” 

He proceeded to rage at me about how I would just call the police and tell them that he ran away and that I needed to kick him out so that it would be my fault if he was caught out on the streets.  He screamed, "If I burn this f***-n house down, will you kick me out?  Maybe that is what I should do.  If I do that, you’ll have to kick me out!”

We just calmly stated that if he did that, he wouldn’t have a house anymore, anyway, and that he would probably end up in jail.

He said, “If that is what it takes, then I will do it.  I want to go to Juvie.  That would be better than living here.  If I have to be here for the next 18 months, I am going to be a total a**hole and I won't do one thing that you want me to do.  So, kick me out or I am going to burn this house down.”

We did not feel safe at that point.  What would happen if we ever even tried to go to sleep that night? 

This situation was just spiraling out of control and I decided that I should call and ask my older son to come over in case we needed him to help us. 

Then, I called the Mobile Crisis Helpline to see if someone could be sent to our house to help us through this.    

I learned that the “mobile” part of their helpline doesn’t mean that they will come to your house, and the “help” part doesn't mean much either.  When I explained the situation, I was told that if he wasn’t already in a program there wasn’t anything that they could do.  I said, “If he was in a program, I wouldn’t be talking to you.  I have contacted so many agencies and programs trying to get him some help or get him into a program and all I get is put on waiting lists, or told that he doesn’t qualify, or that I can’t afford the costs because it is impossible to get a kid in a private program anymore unless you are a millionaire.  I need help and I don’t know what to do.  I was told by Youth Services that I should call you if we got into a crisis situation and that YOU would help me and now you are just like everyone else that tells me there is nothing you can do!”

I probably sounded like I was crazy, but I was tired of being told that there was nothing anyone could do to get my son the mental health help that he needed. 

The only advice she gave me was to call the police and have them come to take him to the hospital for a psych intake.

Well, thanks for that idea.  I never would have thought to call the police.  I was really trying to avoid having to call the police!  

And then I told my husband to call the police. 

When they came, our son was still belligerent and angry, but tried to act as if he didn't know why they were there.  He even had the nerve to say that he had been joking about burning the house down.  Just joking?  I swear I need to have an F-bomb activated recording device so that people can really see and hear what goes on and how it really does get as bad as we say it does around here. 

After speaking with us and trying to get our son to talk to them about what was going on, they determined that because he hadn’t made any threats to himself, they couldn’t take him to the hospital. 

Apparently, Freaking out and threatening to burn the house down did not meet the criteria for the police to help us either.  What a surprise.  As usual, we plea for help and there is nothing that anyone will do or can do to help us. 

The officers did suggest that WE take him to the hospital ourselves and volunteered to escort him into the back seat of our older son’s car, which has child-safe doors that can't be opened from the inside.  I was glad that he was able to come.

We felt that we had no other choice, but to take him to the hospital.  We didn’t know what was going on in his head and we didn’t know if he really was a threat to himself, or to us, or not.  We hoped that maybe we could get what we needed for him through the emergency room route. 

At the hospital, he had blood drawn, vitals taken, and a talk with a doctor, and a crisis worker.  After speaking with my husband and I, the crisis worker indicated that he was leaning toward recommending that our son be taken to one of two hospital psych units for evaluation and mood stabilization.

He spoke with our son at length.  At first he was very defiant and unwilling to talk about anything.  But, as soon as the crisis worker mentioned going to the psych unit, our son changed his tune.  He became apologetic and emotional.  He had tears streaming down his face and promised the moon and the stars that he would change and do whatever he had to just as long as he didn’t have to be hospitalized.

We all had to talk together about what would happen if our son came back home that night/morning.  The crisis worker pointed out the stark realities that might happen to our son if he continued on the path he was on (like prison, dying, etc.).  Our son half-heartedly admitted that he needed to change his ways and be a better person.  It sounded to me like he was just saying what he thought the crisis worker wanted to hear and whatever he had to say to be able to go home. 

And then the decision about what to do with our son changed.  He was getting another chance to straighten up and get his act together.  We did not feel good about this.  After all that had been happening over the course of the last few weeks, I didn’t believe that he was really going to commit to any serious long lasting willingness to change.  He was just playing a game and he was betting that he could win with this sorrowful change of heart act.  

The crisis worker sensed our ambivalence and reassured us that we could bring our son back to the hospital if he blew up again in the next few days and then he would be admitted to a psych unit.

But for now it was the same old story—"We are sorry that you are having struggles with your son, but we can’t help you. Good luck."

We were exhausted, discouraged, and apprehensive as we arrived home in that pre-dawn hour.

We crawled into our beds.  

And we slept.

After Youth Services

We had to pick our son up from Youth Services the next night.  They were only willing to keep him for 24 hours.  No matter what we said, they would’t keep him any longer and we were very nervous about bringing him home.  As soon as he walked into the room, it was obvious that he was NOT even remotely happy to see us. 

A therapist was supposed to help us resolve our conflicts before we went home, but not one thing was accomplished during that hour.  Our son was just as defiant as ever and was unwilling to see that the path he was on was not going to get him anywhere in life.  As far as he was concerned, his problems were not his fault.  If we, as parents, would just give in and let him have every privilege he desired—whether he earned it or not--he wouldn't be bored.  If he weren’t bored, he would not have to get so upset, we would not have any problems with him, and he would not have to resort to arguing with us, or smoke pot.  Nothing was breaking through his walls and finally, the therapist gave up and just told our son that if he kept acting like he was, he was going to end up in prison someday.

We were on our own again and the first thing he said to us as we walked out of the building was:  “I want to do two things tonight—-go to Ian’s house to get my money, and then go buy myself a pizza.” 

We had never heard the name Ian before.  When we asked him who Ian was and why he had our son’s money, he said, “He is my friend and he has my money because I didn’t want YOU to take it away from me.” 

We offered to drive him to Ian’s house, but made sure that he knew one of us would have to go in the house with him.  He said, “No.  I am walking there because I don’t want you to know where he lives.”

He seriously thought we would have to let him go to a mysterious location to see some kid, who had his “money” and who is probably a drug dealer--because he said so.   Not surprisingly, no one went to Ian’s house that night and Ian still had our son’s “money”. 

We did buy pizza for dinner, and he thought he would play Starcraft on the computer while he ate it.  Unfortunately, for him, we had restored our computer to its original factory settings during one of his recent departures and his game was no longer installed.  He screamed at me and said that he was going to make me or the person who restored the computer pay him back for his game because HE certainly wasn’t going to pay to buy it again.  This made absolutely no sense because he still had the original installation discs.  

I said, “Look, you weren’t here when we had to fix the computer. If you had been here, you could have made sure that the game was backed up.  Nobody deleted it purposely.  If it is gone, it is gone.  Reinstall it, play it, and get over it.  It is not the end of the world, but it IS the end of this discussion.” 

He began screaming at us about everything from the computer to every single unfair thing that had happened to him in his horrible life, lately.  He obviously came home in the same unreasonable, irrational frame of mind that he left in the night before and he was cycling toward another blow-up.  The game was just the catalyst that he needed.  

It was like Déjà Vu of the night that we brought him home from rehab two years before.  He did everything in his power that night to show that he was resuming control and seemed to be doing the same thing this time, too.   That night, two years ago, we thought we had made a big mistake in bringing him home and now, we felt exactly the same way.  This time, he begged us to take him back to Youth Services because he just couldn’t stand being at our house with us. 

Well, I would have liked to take him back, too.  But knew that wasn’t an option unless things got really out of hand.  I told him that the best idea would be for him to just go to his room, be quiet, and let everything drop for the night.

Needing to have the last word, he demanded that I drive him to the courthouse Monday morning to get his emancipation started.  This made me want to laugh.  He wanted to emancipate, but he needed his mom to drive him to the courthouse.  Yes, he was definitely ready to live on his own.

The next day, I did not wake him up.  I felt that if he was mature enough to be emancipated, he should be able to get himself up in the morning.  And, there was no way I was going to drive him to the courthouse.  He slept until 3:30 in the afternoon.  We said about 20 words to each other, if that, until my husband got home from work.

Suddenly, my son needed his ear buds and I was supposed to know where they were.  He said they were in his backpack and that since we had taken his backpack from him, we needed to tell him what we had done with them.  Well, we had already given him back his I-Pod and everything that was in his backpack (minus his clothes, a Chapstick, and a multi-tool) and I seriously could not remember if there were ear buds attached to the I-Pod or not.  In his mind, I stole them from him because I always take away everything that he loves.  He informed me that now I owed him $30.00 for the lost ear buds!

He sure seemed to have a huge need for money.  First, the Ian money and then the Starcraft money.  Now, I magically owed him $30.00.  I always seemed to be blamed for everything that he couldn't find, lost, or caused to be gone from his life.  He said that if I didn’t give him the money, he would take something of mine and keep it or break it to make us equal on what I supposedly owed him.  I told him that he had no right to take or touch anything of mine just because HE misplaced something of his. 

At that point, he informed me that I also had to give him the $2.00 worth of change that the police took away from him when they took his marijuana, lighter, and pipe.  The police also stated at that time that he should obviously not be allowed to have money and I didn’t really think anything had changed since then to make him trustworthy with money.  But, he made me want to just throw 200 pennies at him and say, here is your money.  Good luck with it.  

Instead I diverted the discussion away from that money and reminded him that as a minor, living under his parent’s roof, he does not OWN anything.  I said, “Every single thing in this house, whether it was given to you or bought by you, does NOT BELONG to you.  It belongs to your Dad and I.  When you turn 18, if you move out, you can then take your stuff with you.  In the meantime, if you try to retaliate by touching anything of mine, I will call the police and they will tell you that you don’t have a leg to stand on in this situation.  You will not be allowed to steal or damage anything that I own without suffering the consequences.”

He finally seemed to feel that he had pushed the situation with me as far as he could and turned his anger toward my husband, who had been backing me up on everything.  My son said that he wished he could go lock himself in his room so that he wouldn’t have to look at his dad and want to punch him in the face as bad as he did right then.  He probably really wanted to hit me, but knew that there was no way he wouldn't get flattened by my husband if he did that.

Then, he got a little bit smart alecky and said, "Oh, yeah, but I can't lock myself in my room because I don't have a DOOR!   It did you a lot of good to take away my door.  It didn't stop me from smoking pot, did it?" 

I thought, "It also didn't stop you from getting charged with possession and drug paraphernalia either, Mr. Smart A."  

Finally, to show me what he thought about not owning anything, he threw everything out of his room that wasn’t important to him.  He kept his TV, X-Box, and guitars.  We gathered it all up and either threw it away, or put it in the basement.  I guess the next time he wants something that was in the hall, we will have to remind him that he threw it all away that night.

And then, around 10:30 that night, he came into the kitchen and asked me if we had any French fries.  As he cooked his food, he was animated and conversational as if he hadn’t just been raging at me a few hours before. 

His moods cycle so rapidly, that we almost never know what to expect. 

No matter how hard we try to make things better, though, it seems like we should always expect the worst.

I am tired of the worst.

Very tired.

THE AFTERMATH

At the police officer’s recommendation, we took all of his clothes and shoes from him so that he couldn’t take off again.  It was quite a struggle to get it all away from him and I wish we had taken it while they were still here.  He did not think that only having the clothes on his back was optimal for any of his plans, so he got a little bit upset about it. 

I didn’t feel very good about the fact that the police just wrote him a ticket and then left him home alone with me all day.  Not only was I worried about how the rest of the day was going to go, I really wanted him to have a more immediate, serious consequence for the drug charges.  Maybe a first drug possession might not necessarily warrant a trip to detention, but I think it would have been a bigger wake-up call for him than a ticket. 

What was I supposed to do with him?  What other consequence could I come up with for the fact that he blatantly smoked pot right across the hall from my room!  How could I get this child to show some kind of respect for me, our home, and the expectations that come with being part of a family?     

The previous week, I had told him that he couldn’t live here and do drugs in our house or anywhere else.  Then, the police forced him to come back home.  So, was he thinking, “They tell me to leave.  They make me come back.  I still want to smoke pot, so I guess I will just do it here anyway.” 

What was he going to do without that choice now?    

I wasn't anxious to find out and I wanted to keep myself safe, so I locked myself in my room and hoped he would go to sleep and let the rest of the day go by quietly. 

I was crazy to hope for peace and quiet.  An hour later, he started screaming at me through the door.  He didn’t know where his I-Pod was and he absolutely needed it immediately.  “You cleaned my room without my permission, so tell me what you did with it!” 

Of course he would blame me that the I-Pod’s location was unknown.  Nothing is ever my son’s fault.  But, I tried to stay calm and I stated, “During the time that YOU chose to live somewhere else, I did three things in your room.  I picked up and threw away a lot of garbage.  I took armfuls of dirty dishes to the kitchen, and I took all of your dirty clothes and towels to the laundry room.  I DID NOT see your I-Pod, I DID NOT touch your I-Pod, and I DID NOT do anything with your I-Pod.  If YOU can’t find your I-Pod, then maybe YOU should figure out what YOU did with it.  But, I will say that you might want to look in your top dresser drawer or on top of the TV stand in the family room.” 

He just stomped away and then it was quiet.  So, I peeked out the door and I saw through his open doorway that he now had his I-Pod and was playing a game or something on it.  I was grateful that he found it and a potential conflict was averted.  The rest of the day was quiet and he even finally did take that nap.

That night, his friend dropped off a guitar and some of the other possessions that were left at his house.  He told me that my son had texted him during the day and tried to get a cell phone number from him (the number of someone who could have hooked my son up with some more marijuana).  But, he ignored the message.  That was interesting information and now I knew what my son’s real agenda was for getting that I-Pod.  He needed it to send that text message.

He just kept adding more and more reasons for us not to trust him anymore.  Every ounce of trust that had been gained over the last year or so was gone.

I didn’t trust him enough to leave him home alone.  As soon as he was unsupervised, he could leave and make contact with someone to replenish his stash.  Or he would just leave and not come back. 

So, he was basically under house arrest and that meant that I was, too.  He wouldn’t go anywhere with me and it was going to make it very hard to do the things that I normally do on a daily basis.  I was just as confined as he was.      

Even though I didn’t like having to ask for help, I had no choice the next day because I had an obligation that made it necessary for me to leave the house. My parents kindly came to babysit him.  I was worried about how he would act around them and had to hope that he would just sleep all day.  I had to instruct them to not let him leave, call anyone, or have any visitors.  I told them that if they smelled marijuana, or if he got belligerent with them about not being able to do anything, they should call the police.  They said they didn’t know what marijuana smelled like and I told them that it was just an awful smell and they would know if they smelled it.   I assured them that I would hurry as fast as I could and hoped that nothing would happen while I was gone. 

When I returned, he was still asleep and had not given my parents any trouble.  That was a relief. 

I went to check on him to make sure that he was still breathing and he woke up.  Even though, it was late in the afternoon and he needed to be awake, I regretted even bothering to check on him.  

Within an hour, he came downstairs and began raging at me that enough time had gone by since he was grounded from X-Box Live and that he needed to have it back.  

In what reality, would we restore his privileges the day after he was charged with possession of a controlled substance?

He said that if he didn’t get it back, he was going to die from boredom, or was going to make sure that he died because he didn’t want to live like this anymore. 

I said, “We have already gone over this with you.  You had a list of certain things that you were expected to do.  And yet, I have not heard you apologize to me for telling me to f*** off when I was trying to get you to go to school.  You did not do ANYTHING to bring your grades up to at least passing and now you have been kicked out of school.  You haven’t cleaned your room.  You did not clean the bathroom or do any other chores.  And then you ADDED one really BAD thing—smoking pot!  Yes, a lot of time HAS gone by, but you haven’t made any effort to earn your privileges back.”

He shouted at me, “I DID do something to get it back.  I went to someone else’s house and I played the X-Box and had a good time.  Here, I just sit around doing nothing but being bored out of my mind and I would rather die than keep doing this!”

That statement didn’t exactly do anything for his cause.  I almost wanted to laugh at it, but I didn’t. 

He was already well into his irrational behavior and there was not much chance of stopping it.  He was fighting for control and he was going to continue the battle until he achieved his goal.  That is Oppositional Defiant Disorder.  This type of behavior can really wear the parents down until they give in and let the child have what he wants, just to end the war.  I have wanted to give in many times.  

I didn’t want to have a war this time, but there was no way I was going to reward him for ongoing defiance and relapse.

Just as my husband walked in the door after work, the telephone rang.  He answered it and told me that I had a call from Job Corps.  I had been waiting for this call and as I took the telephone from him, my son started yelling at me to hang up because there was no way in hell that he was going to go to Job Corps.  I had to go upstairs and lock myself in my room just to be able to have a conversation. 

My husband found himself in the middle of a something and he had no idea what it was.  He did perceive by my son’s reaction that he was “on one.” 

My husband asked him, “Why wouldn’t you want to go to Job Corps?  You don’t want to live with us.  You need to graduate from high school.  So, go there.  Live there.  Get an education and a job skill.  You get everything you want and some benefits for your life, too.”

When I came back downstairs, my son declared that he could not stand living here anymore, and that he was finished with having us as parents.  He demanded that I drive him to the courthouse immediately, so that he could get emancipated from us.    

He became even angrier when I told him the courthouse was closed, that emancipation doesn’t just happen in one day, and he doesn’t even meet any of the criteria for emancipation.  He began packing another backpack with whatever meager possessions he could still find in his room and planned to leave as soon as he could whether he had shoes, a coat, or a place to go. 

It was snowing like crazy and we didn’t want him to go out in that kind of weather.  We told him that if it was so bad living with us, we would talk to the Division of Child and Family Services and ask them if they could find him another place for him to live and he should just stay in his room that night and settle down. 

That just made him angrier because he didn’t want the State or anyone else to tell him where to live and for some reason, he now demanded that we get his guitar out of the basement for him.  I was surprised that he wanted to take it out into a snowstorm, but my husband went to get it for him anyway.  While he was  downstairs, our son tried to work on my emotions one more time to see if he could get what he wanted.  He stood in the living room and regretfully stated that he would rather die out in the cold than live at our house where he couldn’t play the X-Box. 

It took a lot of effort to just not sit down and start crying.  I didn’t want him to leave.  I didn’t want him to be unsafe.  I didn’t want him to be unhappy, or die.  I didn't want him to use drugs, or hate my guts, or not want to live with us anymore.  The situation with him was just getting harder and harder and it was breaking my heart. 

But, I didn’t cave in and say “Fine, go ahead and do whatever you want, have whatever you want--just don’t leave.”  He didn't hear what he wanted to hear, so, he followed me into the kitchen and resumed yelling and swearing at me.  He even grabbed a can of soda and threw it across the room causing it to explode.  Soda was spraying everywhere and my husband took him by the arm and told him to get out of the kitchen and away from me.     

My son’s reaction to that was to push my husband up against the counter and tell him that he wanted to kill him and punch him in the face every time he looked at him.  He grabbed my husband’s face and screamed at him while threatening to choke him with his hands around his neck.     

The whole situation was just escalating too much.  I went into our office, locked the door, and called the police dispatch number.  When I told the dispatcher what was going on, she agreed to send an officer to our house.  She could hear my son yelling at me through the door, repeatedly demanding to know who I was talking to and told me to stay on the phone with her.  When I didn’t answer him, he grabbed his backpack and walked out the door into the snowstorm, without shoes or coat.

The police came and asked my husband what direction our son had gone when he left and where he might have gone.  They found him a short time later at his friend’s house—the house he had been kicked out of a few days before.  He actually thought he could hide from the police there.  And when the police rang the doorbell, he begged them to not answer the door.  The officer that was with us at our house asked about pressing charges.  Since we aren’t trying to get him into trouble and we really only want him to be safe and to stop acting the way he is acting, we just asked them to take him to Youth Services for the night.  

A few minutes later, he was brought back to our house in handcuffs so that he could get his shoes.  Then they escorted him out the door to the car.    

And we watched our son being driven away in the back of a police vehicle. 

Another first experience.

We spent the rest of the night wondering what we were going to do.

And came up with no answers.

It Gets Worse

He wanted to pack a bag and leave the night that he smoked pot in our basement and started the relapse roller-coaster ride.  It was 10 degrees outside and I couldn't stand to have him out there looking for a place to stay in the middle of the night.

I eventually got him to agree to at least go up to his room and wait until the next day to leave--if he really still wanted to make that choice, then.  After he finally went upstairs to his room, we searched everywhere, but didn’t find the marijuana. He told me that he had just used the last of it.  We did find some “bowls” (or homemade pipes) sitting in the downstairs window—smashed soda cans that had been used to smoke the pot.  I was so glad to get back upstairs and out of that room.  The smell made my stomach feel sick, my head feel weird, and gave me a nice, gigantic migraine.

I was disappointed when he got up the next day,  packed a bag, came down the stairs, said he would call me sometime, and headed out the door.  As he was leaving, I said, “I love you and I want you to stay, but you do have to go back to being clean and sober.”

He looked at me like I was his worst enemy and replied, “You see me walking out the door, don’t you?” and then left. 

He just keeps breaking my heart and throwing my love right back in my face.

We were worried about where he really went because we didn’t know if he would go to the friend’s house that he always goes to, or if he would go to some drug house from his pre-sobriety days.  Later that first night, his only good friend came by to retrieve some guitar picks for him, and we were relieved to know where he was currently staying. 

The next day, his mom and I talked and she said she would let him stay there, but only if she could search his backpack and pockets because she didn’t want him smoking pot in her house either.  She has always had a good relationship with my son, so said she would try to get through to him and talk some sense into him. 

He was there through the weekend, but then Monday evening, she called me with bad news.  Her son had come home from school that afternoon and found my son sitting on the sofa in their living room smoking pot!

(My son is not in school at this time because he was dropped from his alternative high school right after the midterm for failing most of his classes.  He had been given numerous chances to improve his grades, but had not taken advantage of any of them).  

My son’s friend was so angry and upset.  He felt very used and he told my son that he had to either get rid of all of his stuff and stop using drugs or he would have to leave their house.  He said, “We have been friends for a long time and we will always be friends, but I can’t hang around you if you are going to be like this.” 

And then, my son did the worst thing.  He trashed the only good friendship that he has, packed his bag again, and walked out the door.  How sad.

I was proud of my son’s friend for sticking up for his values and wanted so badly to be proud of my kid like that. 

I did not know where he was going to go and I was so afraid for him.  I called my husband and told him that our son was somewhere out on the streets.  Luckily, at that moment, about one mile from our house, he saw our son walking down the road.  He stopped and talked to him, but even after reiterating how much we care about him, that we don’t want him to hurt himself by using drugs, and that we don’t want him to be wandering around with no place to go, our son drove another dagger into our broken hearts and said, “It is better to be out here, freezing and hungry than it is to be living in your house with you.”

The addict mentality--not thinking or caring that he was hurting anyone else.  As long as he was doing what he wanted to do and wasn’t under our control, he was happy--or had convinced himself  that he was.

We decided that since he wouldn’t come home, we would report him as a runaway.  My husband tried to keep track of him until the police arrived.  They were able to locate him and talked to him for quite a long time, then insisted that he come home with my husband. 

A very belligerent, angry young man walked in the door.  It was a relief to see him, but I was extremely apprehensive about what was going to happen next.  My husband searched him and his back-pack but only found some make-shift pipes (made out of empty lip balm containers), and two lighters.  We still did not find any marijuana.  He sure has a knack for making it impossible to find.  It seemed likely that he probably still had some, but we weren’t sure where. 

We tried to be hopeful that he would take to heart some of the things that the police or his friend had said to him.  We wanted to believe that he would make the changes to move past this and start a new path of recovery. 

So much for hope.

We didn't have more than one day before he pushed against the rules and restrictions again. 

My husband left for work, but I was still trying to get some sleep.  I had been sleeping with my senses on high alert for the last two nights, just in case he tried to get away with something again.  We had taken his door off of his room and made sure that we now had key locks on all of the doors of areas of the house that he wasn’t trusted in anymore.  But, I had a hard time feeling like I got very much rest.    

Suddenly, I thought I heard someone knock on the front door.  I got up, put on my robe, and ran down the stairs to see who it was.  There was no one there.  As I climbed back up the stairs and approached my son’s room, I realized that what I really had heard was my son opening or closing his window—because--guess what I smelled when I stopped at his doorway?

Marijuana! 

He actually had the nerve to smoke pot in his door-less room, right across the hall from my room! 

He claimed that something had to help him get some sleep and not be bored out of his mind.  He didn’t even seem to care one way or the other that I caught him again.  I told him to give me the marijuana that he had in his pocket and he just looked at me with a look of contempt as if he were saying, “Go ahead and try to get this from me.” 

I got out my cell phone to call my husband and he said, “If the police are coming, I really need some time to get showered, dressed, and packed so that I can leave before they get here.”    

As if I would really say, “Oh, yeah.  No problem.  Take all the time you need.  Go take a shower and dispose of the marijuana that is in your jacket pocket before anyone can confiscate it from you.”   

My husband did call the police and as soon as my son realized that the police were most likely on their way, he threw on some shorts, began packing his back-pack, and tried to be gone before they got here.  His efforts were frustrated when he couldn’t find his shoes.  He was still looking for them when the police arrived.    

They searched him and found marijuana in an Altoids mints container, a lighter, a pipe, and an ineffective scent-hiding filter that looked like part of a toilet paper roll stuffed with toilet paper.  Nothing is safe around here — chapstick, toilet paper rolls, soda cans.  Everything has a potential drug use.

Three different officers tried to find out what was going on in his head and tried to talk to him about how he was screwing up his life.  He was defiant, smart-alecky, and rude to all of them.  The first officer finally said that he was finished talking to this kid and expected to see him end up in prison someday.  He gave him a ticket charging him with possession and having drug paraphernalia and then they all left. 

His first drug charge.

Not exactly a “first” to brag about.

Not the kind of first that I ever wanted for him. 

No parent would.

DEJA VU

He should be able to say that he is two years sober now. 

Another entire year has gone by since we celebrated the big one year milestone.  These last 12 months have been full of conflicts, blow-ups, and crazy anger issues.  The problems happened so often, that I didn’t quite know how to write about them.  He started doing poorly in school and then just quit going all together, argued with us about everything, was charged with assault (by me) and criminal mischief (for breaking things), had to appear before a probation officer, wasn’t doing very well at living life, started a new school, but still failed all of his classes, and couldn’t stop blowing up about anything and everything.  It was not the greatest year in our family. 

At least, though, it was another year of staying clean and sober and we had to be hopeful about that. 

Until one night last week when an odor woke me up and five minutes later, I found myself in a nightmare that turned the world upside down.

At first, I thought it was our dog (who was sleeping in our bedroom), emitting one of her really offensive dog smells.  I quickly ruled that out and thought maybe it was burned popcorn.  But, it wasn’t quite the burned popcorn smell either, so I got up to investigate. 

I descended the stairs into the basement level of our house, and my heart dropped into my stomach with every step I took. 

I knew what that odor was.

Marijuana.

Really?  Marijuana?  He relapsed?  When?  Why? How long ago?   

He had been fairly nice that day.  He thanked my husband for making him some French toast.  Instead of just staying up late without permission, he asked if he could stay up until midnight or so to play StarCraft on the computer and we said he could.  He always told us that we didn’t trust him and we kept trying to show him that we were trying to.  Allowing him to stay down on the main level of the house in the office was one of our acts of trust.

But, he wasn’t in the office playing a game.

Even though this last year was fraught with turmoil, I did not expect this.  We were warned repeatedly, that it was likely.  Most of the kids that we knew from rehab relapsed within weeks or months of commencing from treatment.  But, since so much time had gone by I really believed my son when he told me that he was through with that part of his life and never wanted to use drugs again. 

Apparently, all this time--talking the talk and going to his weekly AA meetings—he was just being compliant with our expectations of sobriety without being committed to sobriety for himself. 

I walked into that basement room, gagged on the awful smell and said, “What the heck are you doing?” 

He looked at me and blatantly lied, “I am working on my amp.”

I said, “You were just smoking pot!” 

He denied it.  As I stood there in that disgusting smelling room, with my head spinning and feeling like I was going to vomit--he denied it.

“Your eyes are bloodshot, this room reeks of marijuana, the smell was coming up through the furnace into my room, and it is obvious by the temperature in here that you have had the window open!  I am not stupid!”

He just looked at me with a smug look of mis-guided power and said, “So what if I was smoking a bowl?  I can smoke pot if I want to and there isn’t anything you can take away from me or ground me from that will make me stop.” 

No! Not again!  This could not be happening again.

At the New Year most people resolve to make the coming year better than the last one.

My 16 year-old nephew’s New Year’s Resolutions were something like this:

No more junk food or soda.

Get at least a B in all of my classes.

Work out more.

Get a job.

Go to church on Sundays.

Better myself in all aspects.

And yet my 16 year-old son seemed to have come up with this one--

Smoke pot whenever I want to

because there isn't

anything wrong with it and

 there is nothing

that my parents can do

to stop me.

We heard that exact thing from him 2 ½ years ago.

And now it was like experiencing Déjà vu.

Why, oh why, oh why?

Lost Links

I think recovery from addiction can be symbolized as a chain made up of many links.  There are links for admitting that you have a problem, accepting that you need help, working really hard to make changes, committing to sobriety, etc.  It is a day to day, life long process to connect all of the links into a solid chain.

During this last year, my son seemed to have made a good start at accumulating many links in his recovery chain.   He admitted that he had a problem.  He had finally stopped fighting the rehab process.  He was letting the program, counselors, and his sponsor help him.  He was staying clean.  He had established some goals for the future.  He seemed happy.

But gradually, as time went by, he stopped progressing and I realized that these recovery chains probably start off as fragile as paper.  It takes time, determination and work for the links to become as strong as metal.  Rather than working to make these newly formed links become stronger, though, my son was letting some of them simply break apart. 

The most important link—the sobriety link was still holding, but I couldn’t help worrying that it wasn’t as strong as it could have been.  Some of the comments that he made every now and then made me wonder if his commitment to stay sober was going to be life-long or temporary.  There were vibes that he might be simply biding his time until he was old enough to move out and live on his own so that he could use drugs and alcohol if and when he wanted to.  I pray that he will never make that choice. 

At first, my husband and I were hopeful about the future because it seemed like our son was enjoying life outside of rehab and getting along with everyone.  He appeared to have learned how to manage his feelings in a positive way and was seeing the world as if he had never seen it before.  It was incredible and we were so encouraged.

But, after he had been out of rehab for about 5 months, the ability to deal with life in a positive way began to diminish.  There was a separation between the link of sobriety and the link of LIVING life.  He started to close himself off from the world and when challenges came his way, the skills he had learned to help him cope were suddenly missing.   

It became apparent that he was going to act how he wanted to act and do what he wanted to do.  This did not include getting along with his parents, or any other people who might care about him, or who might have authority over him.  He began letting us know that he didn’t have any respect or concern for us, our beliefs, or our expectations. 

It was very hard to watch him go from the point where he had been opening himself up to life--to the point where he declared that the only thing he had in life was his ability to be a jerk.  He said that since that is what he was good at--that is what he was going to be.

How does not using drugs anymore leave him with one thing in life—the ability to be a jerk, and nothing else?  

What happened to all of the other links in the chain?  Why did everything that had been so positive, vanish so quickly? 

It was disappointing when the link of goals and dreams for his future deteriorated.  I thought for sure that he had a good, solid link when he discovered his passion for photography during the summer.  He loved taking pictures, he was good at it, and even had sold some of his work. 

When the school year started, it made sense to enroll him in a photography class as a step toward his new goal of becoming a professional photographer.   However, the class focused mostly on manipulating digital photos in Photoshop and not as much on learning photography techniques and he did not like it at all.  His teacher gave him the idea that as long as you could digitally alter the pictures, you didn’t have to have photographic talent.

I watched his excitement for photography disappear.  We tried to keep the fire going, but he had no interest in our help and encouragement.  The last time that he took any pictures was a disaster.  We offered to take him out on a sunny Sunday to drive through the mountains looking for places to take "reflection pictures" for an assignment.  I didn't know what happened as we drove to change his mood, but he became grouchy and managed to find something wrong with every possible picture location.  He got very angry at any suggestions that I gave him.  He told me that I didn’t know what he needed, and that I should just shut my mouth.  He swore at me and said he would either take pictures or not—it was his choice. 

After that day, I don’t think he ever took another picture.  It was sad that he let his bad attitude and frustration at everything and everyone get in the way of being able to do something that he had a real talent for and he let go of one of his dreams. 

Negativity about school and all other aspects of his life increased as the days went on.  He gave up on every goal that he set for himself.  He was bitter and over-reacted to situations which caused many hurt feelings in our home. 

For some reason, he seemed determined break the link of family support.  Was he testing us to see if we would stick with him no matter what he said or did?  Hadn’t we already proven that?  Hadn’t we made it clear that we were giving all we could to be there for him and help him?

But, he was pushing us away.  All of the commitments that we had made to each other earlier in the year and all of the good progress that we had achieved so far just didn’t matter to him anymore. 

The fragile chain was coming apart.

We didn’t know what to do to stop it.