My son TJ took us to the Journey concert as a Father's Day gift to his dad. As we were waiting for the band to start TJ said "Oh, can you smell the weed?" I get frightened. They call them triggers in the drug world. He liked weed. He has been clean for 2 years 7 months and 12 days now. His drug problem spanned 7 years starting at 17 years old and took on the usual high school smoking, drinking, weed, then after high school advanced to abusing prescription medication including oxycontin. Once he got to that stage he was basically toast. Trying to get off became his personal hell.
The dichotomy of the whole scenario was while I was detoxing from morphine, a drug I had abused, he was getting high in our basement on narcotics all at the same time. How scary is this situation? Mom so oblivious in her own pitiful world while her own son is getting in deeper than she is, into a world most never recover from.
More than a year after my detox he finally confided in me and told me where he had been. He had chosen methadone as his method of "getting off" the drugs and was going to a "clinic." He explained to me the concept of methadone and because of the limited knowledge that both of us had at the time, and TJ's desperation I was supportive. He had failed trying to get off the narcotics so many times on his own, so methadone seemed to be a good solution. Needless to say methadone was a disaster, he became reclusive, lost weight and addicted to methadone, which is more difficult to detox from than the other narcotics he was taking.
In desperation to quickly cut down on the amount of methadone he was taking he found weed to help the withdrawals! Oh the vicious circle was beginning again.
The deal between us was that he tell me everything. He had started using cocaine. I knew we were in serious trouble and it was happening fast and I was afraid for my child's life. He was mixing so many drugs at one time I was frightened as to whether or not he would wake up in the morning. I cried constantly and begged the Lord to keep him safe till something broke. It did. He called one Saturday and said "Mom, I'm really bad, I don't know what I have taken, but it is really bad and I can't take it anymore".
We all have our breaking points. We reach the bottom and there is no where to go but up. TJ's detox was wicked. I did not leave his side for 2 weeks. He was brave. He was sick. He was sad, but he persevered. He lacked faith many times, but his entire family had a faith in him that picked him up when he did not have enough of his own.
He is a miracle in his own right for turning his life around as he has. To see him today and what he has made out of his life is simply amazing. He reaches out and helps others who face addiction. He gets it.
He now JOURNEYs on his own, WEED FREE AND HAPPY!
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