Hollywood and the Biggest Lie

This picture was taken after rehab and before another relapse. (2013) Parker was asked to help a photographer with staging at a wedding and he gladly did it. He knew he looked good. It still makes me laugh every time I see it. 

Not long after losing Parker, I found myself joining page after page on FB about grief. Talking with other mothers that knew this loss, helped in a way nothing else did.  You can’t express to your friends and family how great this loss is and you don’t want them to ever experience it. There aren’t words strong enough to describe pain like this.  The wounds continue to open and seep.  Some chasms lengthen and stretch further than I can bear. I question if it’s survivable.  Feeling each crack takes a strength of will, I didn’t know I possessed. Somehow the days are going by, stretches of time, divided into before and after. I long for the day when I no longer have to fake it, when the smiles become genuine and the anger disappears. 

I made a mistake yesterday and watched “Ben is Back” with Julia Roberts.  This movie shares the story of a mother fighting for her son, Ben, who is an addict.  She tells him the rules when he shows up at home.  Rules like this: “you won’t be alone in this house ever, you won’t sleep in a room by yourself, you won’t leave this house for anything, you won’t shut any door, even to pee and you will pass this drug test to stay.”  

Let’s be very clear and if you learn any ONE thing from me about addiction, it is this.  You can’t play jailer, it only feeds the addiction, gives the jailer a false sense of security and if this loved one can’t be trusted, you have a hard decision to make.  Boundaries have to be established and kept.  If you say it, mean it. Threats mean nothing to someone in addict behavior.

The message at the end of the movie teaches us, put everything else in your life on hold and YOU will save him. All of the work and worry will be worth it.  You just have to find him in time to use the Narcan. (Yes, that was sarcasm.)  As she laid across his chest and begged him not to leave her, I thought of the reality of laying on Parker's cold hard chest one last time. The memory punches me in the gut and takes my breath away.

The message of this movie is deceptive and will take our mental health if we allow it.  We can’t control other people and make choices for them. I would have done anything to save my son from this life of hell. I did “some” of the same things that this pretend Hollywood mother did. Rehab taught me different and I worked hard at changing my enabling behavior.  In the end he made a fatal choice.  The heroin hit his heart and took his life in 2 minutes.  My son, another statistic of addiction and the growing numbers of deaths across the U.S.  Knowing he is with the one that loaned him to me in the first place, out of pain, filled with peace, takes part of the anger away. 

To those of you that are fighting this demon, you are my greatest hero’s.   Keep speaking your truth and teaching us.  We are listening.