Recipes for Living The Mother of an Addict

Jonathan went to preschool for two years before starting kindergarten. Although Jonathan never liked school, and would rather have been outside helping my father on the farm or doing an activity like riding his 4-wheeler or motorcycle, he seemed to make friends easily in elementary. In fact, we never had any problems throughout his entire schooling. There was never a call from the superintendent, principal, teacher, or bus driver. He did wonderfully well. He had some trouble reading and was put into a reading program, which he stayed with through sixth grade, and in junior high and high school he seemed to get along fine. He went out for football a couple years and didn't stay with it because he didn't think he got the play time he deserved, and I'm not sure he was wrong about that. I encouraged him to get into other extra curricular activities but he chose not to.

I remember Jonathan saying to me in the beginning of his senior year, "I don't fit in. There are preppies and druggies, and I don't belong in either group." However, it was during that year when he started using drugs and I didn't have a clue. My first signal was a couple nights when I woke up and heard the clothes dryer running. I went downstairs and confronted him. His answer was that he wasn't tired so he decided to do some clothes. When I became aware of what was happening I began to find out what methamphetamines do to the body. They destroy the brain's endorphins, and I don't think they can be replaced. What happens physically is that there is an "electric current," dopamine, that runs between the nerve endings. This is stimulated by meth, enhances what normally would occur, and produces a euphoria. The very first usage is addictive because of that high, but it damages the system, and each time it requires more and more meth in an attempt to get the same kind of result. It never happens again. Addicts are always grasping for it and use more and more in the attempt.

In the following years, I learned more about symptoms: rapid weight loss, dilated pupils, and extra energy that leads to nights and nights of sleeplessness before a crash, then sleeping for days. With heavier usage, sores develop on the arms, face, and in the hair. It is as though the drug is trying to find a way out of the body. Addicts become the best liars in the world. In the beginning, it gives self-confidence. By nature, Jonathan was quiet and shy, but when he began using, he would have been comfortable carrying on a conversation with the president of the U.S.

To my knowledge, Jonathan wasn't using very often when he graduated from high school, but things were not going well at home. He was not following my curfew. Money and savings bonds began disappearing. I took his wheels away from him, and our home life - everything - went downhill. His drug usage turned into severe addiction. I didn't think I had any other choice than to tell him he would either have to move out or go into drug rehabilitation. He agreed to go, and I took him to a rehab center in Des Moines, where he entered a 30 day program. While he was filling out a questionnaire on his usage, I picked up a brochure on meth. I knew so little about it at the time. I wish I hadn't ever picked it up, because it told about the power of meth, and what it does to the brain. Very often a meth addict ends up committing suicide. I became involved in the program, also, by going to counseling. I kept trying to figure out what had happened. It was very helpful for me to listen to other parents, who were going through the same situation as I.

At the end of the program, I brought Jonathan home. He got a job. He was not himself and we thought he was suffering from depression. We had an analysis done and an anti depressant was prescribed. In fact, over the years Jonathan has been on several different anti depressants, only to try them and then more than once succumb to the addiction of meth. In the first instance, things went fairly well for eight months before he relapsed. Those eight months was the longest Jonathan has been clean from the time of his addiction until the present.

I honestly can't remember the sequence of events after the relapse. He moved in and out of my house a number of times, and into and out of friends' houses. I would get a call in the middle of the night asking me to come get him. He gave a number of reasons for why he had been kicked out. They were all lies. He got kicked out because he didn't pay rent, or he would stay up four nights and sleep for three days. I couldn't bear the thought of his being homeless or hungry, so I would get him to come back home. I look back on it now and think I was probably harming him more than I was helping him. I didn't realize it, but I believe that by my allowing him to return, I was just giving him the green light to do drugs. He wasn't learning responsibility. After he came back, he would maybe be good for a couple weeks and then it would all cut loose again.

There is a vocabulary that goes with addiction. When someone on meth runs out of the product, or when they have been up for so many days without any rest, it is one of the scariest situations imaginable. Before my very eyes, this little boy, whom I thought was perfect, turned into someone I'd never met before - a violent, totally unpredictable, monster. It is terrible! Evil takes over, and they become "tweekers," which means they hallucinate. I was warned not to do anything to antagonize Jonathan, because he would turn on me and there would be no way to know what he might do. I've read all the books I can on this subject, and have learned so much information I didn't want to know.

When Jonathan was 21, I forced him to go back on the 30 day program. In the third week, he was kicked out. I don't know why. I suspect drugs were brought to him in the hospital. So we were back where we'd been. Throughout all this, I can't tell the number of jobs he had and lost. Over the years, my parents or I have helped him buy at least four or five vehicles. In each case, all at once he didn't have it, and later confessed he had sold it for drugs. Because he was so strung out on meth, those of us who cared about him feared he would take his own life or someone else's, and we committed him for treatment again and again.

Shortly after he was kicked out of the second rehabilitation program, he came back home, but refused to get a job, wasn't following rules, and I began to get tougher, which I should have done long before. I told him he would have to leave and for quite some time I didn't know where he was. I'm not positive of the date, but in the middle of a night, I had a call from one of Jonathan's friends saying he had just dropped him off at the hospital. He was badly burned. I'd learned enough to know how it happened. He had been making meth, and the jar exploded.

As his grandparents and I got to the hospital, Life Flight was arriving and I knew it was for him. I still almost gag when I remember the smell of burnt flesh. He was conscious and higher than a kite. He begged, "Mom, Mom, Mom, tell me I'm not gonna' die; tell me I'm not gonna' die!" and they whisked him away. They handed me a bag of burnt clothing, and my mom and I went straight to Des Moines. At the hospital, I was pulled into a room by a pastor, and we saw the doctors. They or we didn't know whether Jonathan would live. I told them what I suspected, but they already knew.

Jonathan was in the hospital 46 days. He nearly lost his life. More than thirty percent of his body had second and third degree bums. After he came home, he still needed medical treatment for about six months. He had to have the dressings changed every single day. There remained a spot on his arm that wouldn't heal, so he went back into the hospital for a skin graft, taking skin from his thigh to transplant to his arm. He had no insurance. I spent so much money on prescriptions, daily dressings at the hospital, and then at home!

After he came home, of course, he couldn't go out to get drugs. He was too sick. I don't know how long he stayed clean - not long - and away he went again. During this time, he met a very nice girl, who had three small children. Once again, my hopes were raised. I thought maybe this was what he needed. But she was very naive. In a short time, he started using again and she didn't have a clue what was happening. Until I started filling her in, she didn't even know to suspect drug abuse. During their relationship, I don't know how many times I was at her house in the middle of the night, picking up her and her kids because of his abuse. In spite of that, out of her love and concern for him, she became an enabler like I had been.

In 2002, Jonathan got my nephew involved in manufacturing meth. My nephew is a very gullible young man, and Jonathan convinced him he could be debt free in a few months by the manufacture and sales. It would be hard to say how many different occasions there were when my nephew paid for the ingredients. Jonathan was caught manufacturing and ran from the scene. My nephew was the only one who had a key to the building they were using, so they arrested him. He went to jail and Jonathan was at large. After a week, Jonathan turned himself in and was in jail for quite some time. When he went to court, he was given a 10-year sentence, which they suspended because he had not been in trouble before. He was on very strict probation, but in no time, he was using again.

Another addition to our vocabulary is "drop a dirty UA," which means that when he was given a random urine analysis, it was not clean. When that happened, his probation officer discovered that Jonathan had been lying to him, telling him he was not using. He was. Saying he was working. He was not. He had to go to court at that time, and the last time he was arrested was in February 2004, and has been in jail ever since. They reinstated his ten year sentence. His court appointed lawyer said he would probably serve 14 to 15 months.

All of this is evidence of what addiction to meth does. Someone thinking clearly would not put themselves in such situations. He violated probation several times. When earlier he dropped a dirty UA, he was locked up for seven months. They call it a "90-day shock." They released him, and there was another dirty UA. They reinstated the 10-year sentence. The first time he was locked up, I didn't visit him, trying to teach him that this is where his life was going to be spent if he didn't change. He would have to give up his family and all the people who cared about him. Nothing else had worked, I hoped this might.

Since he was locked up in February, I did go to see him. It was about six weeks ago. I hated it! I hated being in the prison! I hated seeing him behind locked gates! It tears a parent up to see their child behind bars, but in all honesty, with everything I have been through for the last eight years, I would rather see Jonathan locked up than on the outside doing drugs. I fear this will be his life. I don't know how to turn it around. I don't know if he can.

Meth has completely changed Jonathan. He has lost interest in all the things he enjoyed before, such as hunting, farming, demo-derbies, painting tractors, and even when he was clean, he didn't seem to regain an interest in those hobbies again. He has told me he is never happy on or off drugs. Addicts are either "high" or, when not using, they go "low," each time "lower," but they never again reach the original high for which they keep trying. To recover they have to take time to heal and go through the "lows." That is when most addicts relapse.

Mother's Day was the last time he was taken from jail. Needless to say, it was one of the hardest days of my life. And for him, he told me that while he had been there, he craved meth so badly he had rubbed the skin off the bottoms of his feet, rubbing them back and forth on the cement. Knowing that was the reason he was in there, it would seem even the thought of using would have made him sick, but the craving was that bad.

This is the worst nightmare I can imagine - no, I guess it's not the worst. He is still alive, but I've buried him 100 times in my mind, fearing that will be reality. Meth doesn't just destroy the person, it destroys families. His siblings have seen more at their young age than they should see in a lifetime. For my parents, this was their first and favorite grandchild. We all thought he was perfect. I realize now that I was too young to be a mother. I was 17 when Jonathan was born, but he was brought into this world to my entire family. His father and I never married, but Jonathan couldn't have been more loved than he was. My mother fell head-over-heels in love with this child the day he was born. My dad immediately became his father-figure and my Jonathan immediately became his son-figure. My parents spent more time with Jonathan than with their own children. When the trouble started with meth, they bent over backwards trying to help, to be supportive, but to no avail.

Other parents may be able to imagine all the ways this has affected my life. Anyone who knows me knows my kids have been the biggest part of my life. Friends tell me, "You need to think more about yourself. Some day your kids will be gone and you'll be by yourself ." But whatever I've done, I've done for my kids and never regretted any of it. There is something that happens the minute a mother feels life move inside her. A special bond is formed that creates an unconditional love - and I have felt that - but Jonathan's addiction has left me totally confused about how to express it. I've thought I was doing the right thing by showing tough love, but then the motherly care-taker side comes in, and I feel so sorry for my child. I cry for him, and I've seen him cry a hundred times over this addiction. I sympathize with him. It has to be terrible.

So I feel sorry, but then I look back at how he's treated me, his employers, my parents, his siblings, and girl friends, and I get so angry at him that I don't want to be around him. I don't believe in not treating people right and taking advantage of them. The way he's been is nothing that I stand for. I don't like it in other people and I don't like it in my son. I see him like that, then he goes away, and I feel guilty for the way I feel. I don't like any of those qualities, but this is my son! I love this child but I don't like him. It is so hard!

A few days ago I sent him a birthday card. I wandered around trying to find one appropriate for a son in prison. They don't make them. I wrote him a six page letter. One birthday tradition at our house was that the one having the birthday could pick out their favorite meal and their choice of cake. In the letter I said, "This isn't the way it should be, with you having a birthday in prison. You should be home with us around the kitchen table eating Mexican chicken, and white cake with chocolate frosting. That is what we should be doing."

I told him that I could forgive him for all he has done but he has to stop, and stop now. He can't continue this lifestyle. Nobody is going to want him in their lives. He has burned so many bridges. He has tried to write to many people and nobody will write him back. And I don't blame them. It sounds cruel to say I'd rather see him locked up than doing drugs, but he's not safe and nobody is safe with him.

I wish I could look forward to a bright future with Jonathan being clean, becoming the person I knew he could be before he started using meth. I don't know that I can. I don't know what will happen when he is released. He is now a convicted felon. He has one of the worst work records in the world. I'm sure no one would hire him. I don't know where the story ends.

I hope no one who reads this will ever have to go through what my family and I have been through – or what Jonathan has been through. Meth destroys the life of the user and everyone associated. I hope it never happens to anyone I care about. It is horrible! A counselor told me, “You didn’t cause it, you can’t cure it, and you can’t control it.” But that doesn’t take care of all the feelings we have for this child so many of us love.