I feel like a yo-yo....my emotions are back and forth up and down. Or maybe perhaps it's more like Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum".
I cook to de-stress; I could read recipes for hours and cook all day if given a chance. I think when I found out my son was using (and even tho it was Thanksgiving) I have never cooked for so many straight hours in my life. Sun up till sun down. It was the only way to take my mind off of not knowing where he was.
I found out the week before Thanksgiving when I was doing laundry and collecting all of the bath towels all over my son's room. My boyfriend had made a comment about my son never being without his backpack. My thought was that was because he used it to carry his laptop in. But I guess there was something nagging in the back of my mind...something telling me something was off. As I picked up the last towel off the floor in my son's closet, I noticed his backpack on the floor under the rest of his dirty laundry. To put my mind at ease and confirm that what he had told me about the needle I had found a few weeks back in the trash was used to put tiny amounts of Desolve-It on price tags to remove them so he could remarket the item on eBay, I decided to open his backpack and check it out. I have always maintained that we are all entitled to our privacy and couldn't believe I was actually 'snooping'. I wish I would have snooped a long time ago. I still kick myself about this everyday.
When I opened his backpack I thought I would pass out right then and there. I found about a 8-10 used needles, white powdery residue, rope, and various pills. I started shaking uncontrollably, not believing what I was seeing. I took everything inside of the backpack and threw it all over the kitchen counter - putting in on full display so that when my son came home there would be absolutely no misgivings about what I had found and what he was doing.
My son came home at who knows what time, saw what I had done and immediately left the house, not returning. At this point he still had his iPhone so there was the ability to text, etc. He screamed at me that I had no right to go thru his things. It only escalated from there. We kicked him out of the house.
Looking back there were so many signs, so many red flags. Hindsight is always 20/20.
May 2014 when we were in Texas for a wedding, my son called crying telling me he had just totaled my Prius on the freeway, explaining it wasn't his fault...he was 'set-up'. Investigation determined he was at fault.
Late summer 2014, my son rear ended a brand new BMW in my mom's Durango...blamed it on my mom's brakes.
February 2015 when we were in Europe (this is when I can honestly say that I was having serious anxiety but couldn't put a finger on it), my son rear ended another vehicle on the freeway in his truck. While his truck was in the shop, he managed to cause damage to the rental vehicle.
When we returned home in March, the crap hit the fan. Hard. During a family discussion about the direction we were going as a family and what we expected from my son as he was now living with us, he was at first defensive and then immediately flipped and went on the offense....almost coming to blows with my boyfriend and ultimately kicking a kitchen chair across the room. We had told him he would have to move out, that we wouldn't tolerate his attitude.
During the next six weeks, it was evident that he was coming home to take showers and eat. Thru conversations with one of his friends, we found out he was living out of his truck; we couldn't figure out why he wasn't staying with a friend. Easy to figure now. After about six or seven weeks, he called me one day and uttered one word to me. "Goodbye". I was at the dry cleaners in the middle of paying when this happened; I was barely able to drive myself home I was so hysterical.
We looked for most of that day, driving around where we knew he had been hanging out to see if we could find him; trying to track his phone. It wasn't until we were home later that night that he finally called and told us that he hadn't eaten in a few days, all his money had been stolen and his truck was out of gas. Again, knowing now what we know, we wouldn't have rushed down to him with food and gas.
Sometime around the middle of May, I got a call from my son asking me to come get him because he crashed his truck. Crashed was an understatement, he hit a pole or tree head on. He managed to push his truck up into a vacant parking lot so as not to draw attention....now I know why.
The insurance company cut a check and my son was able to buy another truck. He had to get insurance on his own now too, he was no longer allowed to be on my policy nor was he allowed to drive any of our cars.
Things were noticeable (I say this now) going downhill. I barely saw my son even tho he was back living with us and when I did his diet seemed to consist of ice cream and sour gummy bears. I found out later that heroin addicts crave sugar. He only wore long sleeved shirts....big red flag - especially in summer. Although at one point I did ask him to 'humor me' and show me his arms. He did and they were clean....I just didn't know he was shooting up higher and on the back sides of his arms and his feet. He kept hours of a vampire...he would sleep all day and work all night out in his shed. I figured as long as he was working....how wrong I was!
Getting him to commit to anything was becoming more and more difficult. Just going to the dentist on time was a fight....his excuse was that he kept falling asleep because he was tired from working all night....I now know that 'nodding out' is indicative of heroin use....as in 'just used'.
Since we had our Thanksgiving dinner the Sunday before Thanksgiving (the Sunday after the Friday I found his backpack) we were going to go up to San Francisco to spend the actual holiday with family there. I obviously had to cancel my plans as now I knew my son was using and couldn't risk him coming back to an empty house. I had also called a friend who is an interventionist to help me get him into rehab. This was not going to be easy...it was also one year ago that I lost my mom to cancer.
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