I promise. You’ll get your mom back.
I’m writing this letter to plead guilty to the charges from my August arrest. I’m not a bad person, only made some horrible decisions which I’m lucky didn’t end in the death of either my best friend, another motorist, or myself. I’ve just turned eighteen years old and have lived with my family the whole time. I have a great family life, no alcohol or drug use, and my parents never fight. Since the incident I haven’t smoked marijuana or used any other illegal substances and have found the whole experience rather eye opening to the consequences of my actions and the need to think things through. [Letter to the court from Joey’s computer files.]
After four months of not a lot of fun for anybody, Joey is moving out. He says he’s ready to make his own life. I think what he means by that is he’s ready to party without restraint. But he’s an adult now. His choices, and his desire to make good choices, must come from within. My worrying and nagging sure don’t work. I’m afraid for whatever comes next. And sad. But mostly I’m relieved—and I feel guilty for that.
Me and my parents are doing ok. We’re close but I’m kinda being kicked out. Well more lightly pushed out. They can’t deal with watching me hurting myself anymore with drinking and drugs. Yeah I’ve tried a lot of new stuff here. Coke, ecstasy, mushrooms but I’ve only done them all once and won’t do them again. I know what I’m doing. Kind of. Probably more than you think but less than I think. [Email from Joey to a friend.]
For months, I’ve sat on an uncomfortable bunch of hunches. Now, before Joey leaves, it’s time to speak the unthinkable. Ambling into his room, I find Joey tossing blankets and pillows into a box. His smile fades as I launch into what he is in no mood to hear: There are addicts in our family’s attic, and I don’t want Joey to join them.
“You’ve heard this before, but this time you need to really listen. Addiction runs in our family, on both sides. Smoking pot and drinking are gambles you cannot take. You have too many relatives in various stages of recovery or active addiction to take this lightly. All of them were about your age when they started doing what you seem to think of as something everyone tries, and ‘just having fun.’ And they probably thought the same thing. They had no idea how un-fun things would become. They didn’t know they were stepping onto a slippery slope, but you, Joey, do.” I pick up a corner of a wrinkled black bedsheet, shake it out, and begin to fold. A slippery slope. I’ve seen the power of addiction. And I fear it.
Twenty-five. That’s how old I was when I first gave addiction any thought. I had to. A visiting friend from my college days had the DTs (delirium tremens).
I only remember snippets of what happened after Kelly arrived in Florida. (Faint memories, thankfully, are all that remain once a nightmare retreats to the dark corner it came from.) When Joe and I picked Kelly up at the airport, we were ready for fun—newly employed newlyweds excited to show off our new life.
I don’t remember exactly when I realized Kelly was crazy, but it wasn’t long after we’d shown her around our tiny apartment. Maybe it was when she started squashing the speckles in the granite tabletop with her finger, mumbling about bugs. Or maybe it was when she stood in front of the birdcage, swearing back at the parrot that wasn’t swearing at her. Or maybe it was when she ran out the door and through the apartment complex at the brightest point of the summer day, with spooked-horse eyes and not a lot of clothes on. No, I don’t remember the moment when I knew she was crazy, but I do remember calling her mom.
“Jan, something is really wrong with Kelly.”
I’d never seen addiction before. I didn’t know anything about it. From my perspective, my friend had lost her mind. Kelly was the rattling top of a boiling pot ready to explode, and I wanted to escort her back to Colorado and hand her off to her mom before she did.
The first line of parental defense when dealing with a child’s nightmare is to put a friendly face on the monster and shove it into the closet. That’s what Kelly’s mom had been doing for years. But once she heard what was going on down in Florida, she faced the monster. And she named it.
Kelly, my smart and serious college friend, was an addict.
She wasn’t crazy. She was having DTs.
The vision of Kelly’s mom flapping around her frenzied daughter in the tiny kitchen of their family home still haunts me. Somehow Kelly escaped. Someone called the police. And somewhere down the road she was picked up and taken to a hospital. Searching their house, Kelly’s mom and I found an astonishing number of empty liquor bottles poked into handbags and sweater boxes in Kelly’s bedroom closet and inside suitcases stored under her bed. Silently passing one another on the stairs, up and down, in and out, we took the empty bottles to the garbage cans behind their garage. As quickly as seemed acceptable, I left the nightmare of my friend’s addiction in her mom’s hands and returned home to Joe.
I wrote Kelly a letter, a real scorcher, telling her she was hurting her mom and to stop. Not long after, Kelly was released from detox. She moved back home, began an outpatient treatment program, and from afar, things seemed fine. Handled. Over.
I moved on with my life, unaware that Kelly and her mom were still in the trenches, duking it out with addiction; Kelly was lying, and drinking, and cheating the program, and her mom, doing the only thing left in her power, was trying to believe that her lying, drinking, cheating daughter wasn’t.
It was a rainy day when some final straw, some new promise, was broken and Kelly’s mom Let Go. She watched her daughter walk out the door—no umbrella, no money, no car—not knowing if she’d ever see her again. Weeks later the doorbell rang and Kelly stood on her mom’s front porch, beaten down by whatever had happened and ready for help. She went to an inpatient addiction treatment facility, then on to a halfway house and has been living a healthy lifestyle ever since. Years later Kelly told me that she did whatever she was told because she knew if she listened to herself she was going to die.
Now, decades later, these memories are as present as the curlicues of my breath crystallizing in the winter air. I stand next to Joe, watching Joey close up the trunk of his roommate’s blue sedan. He has tucked our good-luck wishes in alongside our old toaster and is ready to go. Turning, he reaches out for a hug. With my mittened hands, I hang on extra-tight. For all the worrying I’ve done over Joey lately, the only result is a deep crease between my eyebrows. But reason melts in the arms of my child; I’m worrying about him already. I’m worried about what happens next.
Pulling a brush through my hair as I stand before the bathroom mirror, I see that I’m smiling. Joey has invited me to meet him downtown for an ice cream cone on this now-very-fine spring day! I slap on some lipstick and dash out the door. Last month Rick pretended to believe me when I said Joey couldn’t make it to his birthday dinner because of work. But the truth is he never bothered to return my calls. Or any calls since. Today, though, he’s called me!
With Joey at my side, I’m beaming as I order a strawberry double-dip. I try not to notice the trembling hand that may wobble the scoop of chocolate ice cream off Joey’s cone. I just want to have fun. We claim a small bistro table outside on the patio. I dole out a couple of napkins, talking happy tidbits of this and that. Joey cuts me off, voice rising.
“I’ve been talking to people and realize that you and Dad ripped me off. You owe me a thousand dollars since you claimed me as a dependent on last year’s tax return. I want my money back. I need it. There’s a cash machine down the street. Let’s walk over there now.”
