“Rich with characters who climb into your heart,
this beautifully told story is a powerful contribution to the literature.”
— Barre Stoll, PsyD, licensed clinical psychologist
this beautifully told story is a powerful contribution to the literature.”
— Barre Stoll, PsyD, licensed clinical psychologist
Prologue
The best way out is always through.
— Robert Frost
— Robert Frost
I stood gripping the kitchen countertop, taking short panting breaths, feeling as if I’d been squeezed inside the darkest tunnel. Just get him to the airport, I told myself. Get him to the airport.
I could hear Jake walking down the hall from his room, pausing to cough, a deep, racking sound. He stepped into the kitchen, wearing his usual shorts, T-shirt, white Vans, and Giants’ baseball cap, carrying his duffle bag, which he dropped on the floor. My nineteen-year-old son was so thin I wanted to cry, his skin so pale it seemed translucent, tinged slightly green.
“Do you want breakfast?” I asked, barely trusting my voice. He shook his head. His pupils were huge. He averted his eyes from mine.
For months, like cloud cover, my son’s minimizing and omissions, his lies and excuses, had obscured that his life was falling apart. Over the past few days, I’d suddenly strung it all together—the soot on his forehead, the hollowed-out Bic pens in his rented room, the ruined finances. Jake was addicted to OxyContin.
I was about to send my son to a rehab facility I’d scrambled to find. Was it the right one? My husband was away on business, and seemed more resentful than supportive. My seventeen-year-old daughter was deep in her own crisis, her boyfriend threatening suicide. I felt completely alone, torn in too many directions, exhausted, forging ahead because someone must.
That moment in the kitchen felt at the time like the lowest point of my life. I didn’t yet understand that addiction was a disease. I hadn’t yet learned how to step back and let my child fight for his own soul. If I had known I was only at the starting gate, I might not have had the strength to pick up the keys, put my hand at my son’s back, and steer him toward the car.
In the wrenching months that followed, my family witnessed firsthand the ways that society sidelines addicts and alcoholics, believing it is their choice to use drugs or alcohol to destruction. Years into our crisis, a thought surfaced in my consciousness: a book could help uncover this untruth. A book could tell the story of my family’s battle, the lessons learned, the patterns repeated, the growth and change, the love. A book could help shine a light on the family disease of addiction, and let other families know that they’re not alone. One book at a time, one story at a time, we might help halt some of this devastation.
Addicts are loaded with shame because society holds them to blame. I hope this story helps Jake and many others absolve themselves from that shame and blame. In describing this fierce fight, I want to illuminate the challenges posed to a person with this lifelong disease, and help make sense of the chaos. I want readers to know how an entire family can be consumed, that addiction can make us prisoners, that it will grow stronger if we don’t continually attend to it. Drug overdoses now claim a life every fourteen minutes. Overdoses are the leading cause of accidental death in the United States. While most major causes of preventable death are declining, death from drugs is not. If we have conversations about drug and alcohol addiction, and add our faces and voices to the grassroots recovery movement that is emerging nationally, we can talk about solutions, and unite to bring about change to America’s enduring drug problem.
I will tell the story of my own family, honestly and truthfully. Addiction has changed our lives completely. We have glimpsed silver linings along the way. We will keep looking back to find a way forward. We will keep reminding ourselves to live one day at a time.
I could hear Jake walking down the hall from his room, pausing to cough, a deep, racking sound. He stepped into the kitchen, wearing his usual shorts, T-shirt, white Vans, and Giants’ baseball cap, carrying his duffle bag, which he dropped on the floor. My nineteen-year-old son was so thin I wanted to cry, his skin so pale it seemed translucent, tinged slightly green.
“Do you want breakfast?” I asked, barely trusting my voice. He shook his head. His pupils were huge. He averted his eyes from mine.
For months, like cloud cover, my son’s minimizing and omissions, his lies and excuses, had obscured that his life was falling apart. Over the past few days, I’d suddenly strung it all together—the soot on his forehead, the hollowed-out Bic pens in his rented room, the ruined finances. Jake was addicted to OxyContin.
I was about to send my son to a rehab facility I’d scrambled to find. Was it the right one? My husband was away on business, and seemed more resentful than supportive. My seventeen-year-old daughter was deep in her own crisis, her boyfriend threatening suicide. I felt completely alone, torn in too many directions, exhausted, forging ahead because someone must.
That moment in the kitchen felt at the time like the lowest point of my life. I didn’t yet understand that addiction was a disease. I hadn’t yet learned how to step back and let my child fight for his own soul. If I had known I was only at the starting gate, I might not have had the strength to pick up the keys, put my hand at my son’s back, and steer him toward the car.
In the wrenching months that followed, my family witnessed firsthand the ways that society sidelines addicts and alcoholics, believing it is their choice to use drugs or alcohol to destruction. Years into our crisis, a thought surfaced in my consciousness: a book could help uncover this untruth. A book could tell the story of my family’s battle, the lessons learned, the patterns repeated, the growth and change, the love. A book could help shine a light on the family disease of addiction, and let other families know that they’re not alone. One book at a time, one story at a time, we might help halt some of this devastation.
Addicts are loaded with shame because society holds them to blame. I hope this story helps Jake and many others absolve themselves from that shame and blame. In describing this fierce fight, I want to illuminate the challenges posed to a person with this lifelong disease, and help make sense of the chaos. I want readers to know how an entire family can be consumed, that addiction can make us prisoners, that it will grow stronger if we don’t continually attend to it. Drug overdoses now claim a life every fourteen minutes. Overdoses are the leading cause of accidental death in the United States. While most major causes of preventable death are declining, death from drugs is not. If we have conversations about drug and alcohol addiction, and add our faces and voices to the grassroots recovery movement that is emerging nationally, we can talk about solutions, and unite to bring about change to America’s enduring drug problem.
I will tell the story of my own family, honestly and truthfully. Addiction has changed our lives completely. We have glimpsed silver linings along the way. We will keep looking back to find a way forward. We will keep reminding ourselves to live one day at a time.