46 days

My son had an appointment with his addiction specialist today. His drug test was 100% clean. He has been totally drug free for 46 days. That might not sound like a lot to some of you, but it is monumental in our world.

Congratulations, son. I'm so incredibly proud of you.

It cuts like a knife

One of our kitchen knives is missing. It's a knife from a nice Hoffritz set my wife and I got as a wedding present, but that was almost 22 years ago, so it's not a huge loss. At the same time, though, it was a knife I used very frequently, so I'll miss it. It wasn't even a regular knife. It was a small knife with a curved, almost hook-like blade. I used it for lots of things, including opening packages. I have no idea what could've happened to it. Maybe it'll turn up somewhere.

The reason I bring up this missing knife is because it brings back memories of some of the worst of times involving my son. A few years ago, not too long after our son's unsuccessful overdose attempt, another one of our kitchen knives went missing. We looked and looked, but couldn't find it anywhere. Eventually, though, we did find it. My son had it hidden in his bed. He was using it to cut himself. "Cutting" is something that is more common among troubled teenage girls, but some troubled teenage boys do it, too.

We were pretty alarmed to discover what our son was doing. It was another one of those "Where did we go wrong?" moments. It's tough to see the self-inflicted, bloody letters that spell "SIN" cut into your kid's bicep and not feel at least a little bit of guilt about it. That incident led to my wife and I actually hiding all the knives in the house for quite some time. We were terrified that the cutting would lead to something worse.

In any case, I was doing dishes a while ago and was washing some knives. While I was washing the knives, I kept thinking about my son and the cutting incident. This happens pretty much every time I wash the knives. Or use the knives. In fact, just seeing the knives triggers the memory. The same way that just hearing the name of a certain restaurant triggers memories of my drunken father getting into a horrible argument with my mother at that restaurant when I was a kid. Or the way the smell of an idling lawn mower brings back happy memories of my maternal grandfather--one of my favorite people ever and my son's namesake--who owned a lawn mower repair shop.

It's fascinating how the mind works. How little things can trigger memories, good or bad. I love to cook, so I use those damn knives a lot. So I think about my son's cutting a lot. Which kind of sucks. I wonder if that trigger will ever stop. Somehow, I don't think so. Oh, well.

Teens hooked on heroin

Thanks to another parent of an addict for posting this 20/20 episode on Facebook. I hadn't seen it. It's worth watching to see how heroin use is exploding amongst young people these days. Very sad. But very true.

Teens Hooked on Heroin on ABC's 20/20

The inconvenience of addiction

As I type up this blog post, it's 2:20 on a beautiful Friday afternoon, made even more beautiful by the fact that I took the day off of work. It would've been nice if my lovely wife and I could've gone out to lunch today or something. Instead, my wife is 30 miles away, with our son, sitting in his doctor's waiting room.

You see, in order to get his Suboxone prescription refilled, my son has to see this addiction specialist every other week. And although the doctor does take some appointments, they book up quickly and we usually miss out on getting one. So instead, my son has to be seen on a "walk-in" basis, which means really, really long waits. Sometimes three- or four-hour waits.

My son will be 21 in December, but he still doesn't have his driver's license. His life issues kind of got in the way of getting his license. As a result, we end up driving him to a lot of places: school, doctor's appointments, therapy appointments, meetings, etc. I don't even want to hazard a guess on how much time my wife and I (mostly my wife, bless her heart) have spent doing this over the last five years.

Yes, it would be great is my son could get to these places on his own, even without being able to drive. But the public transportation system around where we live is pretty awful. So for now, we'll keep playing chauffeur. And watching the minutes tick away on the clock. I'm just hoping the huge investment of time we've made pays off someday.

UPDATE: My wife and son got home at 5:00 PM. They were at the doctor's office for more than five hours. A few minutes before they got home, my other son and I got home from his therapy appointment. Thank God it's Friday.

Why are some people such assholes?

My kid went to an AA meeting tonight but came home early--and very upset--because an old-timer there accused him of being high and asked him to leave. Are you kidding me?! This pissed me off so much.

Addicts attending AA meetings is a very touchy subject with many AAers. Some AA members are "old school" and don't like or want addicts at their meetings. They want the addicts to go to NA (Narcotics Anonymous) meetings instead. "Alcohol might be a drug, but drugs aren't alcohol," some of them say.

While I can sort of see their point, I have to believe that alcoholics and addicts have more things in common than they don't. And AA and NA both use the same 12-step program. The fact of the matter is, there are very few NA meetings in decent neighborhoods in close proximity to where we live. So it's easier for my son--who doesn't drive--to attend AA meetings.

I would've hoped that someone in recovery would've been a bit more sympathetic towards another person in recovery, regardless of whether that other person was recovering from an addiction to beer or wine or vodka or Vicodin or marijuana. I guess I'm expecting too much of people, though. I guess some people are just assholes. Period.

For the record, my kid wasn't high. But the side effects from Suboxone can often times make a person look like they're high. Just another obstacle for a recovering addict to overcome.

WTF? (Part 2)

Today marked Day 7 of my son's Suboxone withdrawal. Unfortunately, Day 1 through Day 6 were pretty awful for him. Like I said earlier, it wasn't quite heroin withdrawal, but that doesn't mean it didn't suck real bad. Body aches, pains, fatigue, insomnia, sweating, dizziness, headaches, etc. You name the symptom and my kid probably had it. And there were no signs of any improvement.

Finally, last night, after seeing our son be miserable for almost a week, and after he missed a full week's worth of classes, we decided that we'd call the doctor's office today and ask if there was anything that could be done to ease the pain of the Suboxone withdrawal. When my wife called the doctor this morning, they told her to bring my son in.

The doctors at this particular office are addiction specialists, and today they were only accepting walk-ins. No appointments. So my wife and son made the trip out to the other side of town and waited to see the doctor. Unfortunately, the long wait they encountered forced us to have to miss a family session with my son's therapist late this afternoon. But what went down at the doctor's office was definitely interesting.

Today my son didn't see his usual doctor. (FYI, his usual doctor is the one that gave him the "stop smoking pot or lose the Suboxone" ultimatum.) He saw a different doctor, and this doctor was brutally honest about the Suboxone withdrawal. According to my wife, the "new" doctor said my son was weaned off the Suboxone too quickly, and that if he continued not taking it he would probably "be sick for a year." Of course, my reaction to hearing that was, "What the fuck?"

Evidently--and this is just speculation on my part--my son's usual doctor was trying to teach my kid a lesson by taking my kid off the Suboxone as quickly as he did. My kid didn't quit smoking pot, so Dr. Hardass figured he'd show him. OK, doc. You made your point. Thanks for fucking up my kid's world--and his family's--for a week. Now, can we move on?

The new doctor suggested that my son go back on the same Suboxone dosage. Then, after he stabilizes, the doctor will wean him off the drug at a much slower rate, which should limit the pain of withdrawal. Granted, the new doctor also told my son that he has to give up the pot smoking. And that he has to test clean very soon or risk losing the Suboxone again. But I think this doctor is a bit more sympathetic. At least I hope he is.

Let me stress that I totally understand the doctors' ultimate goal here: to get my son to stop smoking pot, which has been the gateway drug for him since he first started experimenting with drugs way back when. I certainly applaud that. But as a doctor, shouldn't your first concern be the health of your patient? You can't prescribe a drug to someone and then suddenly take it away as a punishment. A punishment that makes that person so physically ill that their whole like pretty much comes to a complete halt for a lengthy period of time. What sense does that make? Needless to say, I'm pretty pissed off at that first doctor.

So that's where things stand right now. My kid is back on Suboxone, and says he's committed to giving up the marijuana. Let's hope so. If not, the pain and misery of Suboxone withdrawal will re-visit his world again in the not-too-distant future. And that's something I don't want to be around to see.

A clarification

I want to clarify something: I love my kid. More than life itself. In fact, I've often said--probably at least once or twice somewhere in this blog--that I would give my own life in a heartbeat if it meant having my son "cured." So if anyone ever reads something here and thinks I don't love my son, they're dead wrong. Am I angry? Hell yes, I'm angry. I'm also disappointed, terrified, worried, sad, frustrated, exhausted, emotionally drained, and a whole lot of other adjectives. But that doesn't mean I don't love my son. Loving someone doesn't mean you can't feel all those other things in connection with that person. And I do. Lord knows, I do.