Drug Addiction Stories & Info

You always want your child to be safe. If he is in a fight, you want him to come out of it okay. What if the person your son is fighting is his brother? That’s a biggie. That’s a hard one. That’s the one where there is no way to support one without hurting the other. That’s what drugs will do 

One gets high on crack and throws something across the room, hitting a friend accidentally. His brother jumps up and yells at him to chill out and act like a man. Suddenly they are both fighting each other. How does that happen? Are these the same two young men who grew up so close in age and looks that people often mistook them for twins? Are these the same two who joined a baseball team together and wandered the halls of high school more like best friends instead of brothers?

So what happened? One night the older one got messed up on crack after work with a couple of buddies from the fast food joint he worked at. He felt such a euphoric rush, he wanted to experience it again. And again. And again.

He hid it for a bit but his brother found out. Then his parents. Then his mood swings got bad as the addiction came to stay. He became increasingly paranoid and violent when he was in need of a fix. He had thrown a lamp across the room because the friend had refused to loan him some money to go get some crack.

A fight between two young men turns rough and violent and bloody. One yells he can’t understand where the brother went to that he grew up with while the other tells him to try the crack sometime and he would understand. The mother steps in and gets knocked in the face, causing a greater fight.

She breaks down in tears and they stop. Somehow, some way, he sees that his mother has been hurt because of his addiction. He cries out “I’m sorry” as he sinks down beside her. Right then and there he promises to get help. She picks up the phone on the end table and hands it to him. “Do it now.”

He calls the local rehab center. He doesn’t even question why or how his mother knows the phone number by heart. Arrangements are made and she and her younger son drive the older one over to the treatment center.

How do I know this? It was us. My husband was at work that day four years ago when my sons got into their argument. Today, they are close again. I’ll never forget that day, though, when things had to hit rock bottom before my son got help.

Sometimes I see it over and over in my mind. My family does not understand so I do not bother to try to explain it to them. They do not know how it feels to have a friend literally die in your arms, a buddy who would and did risk his life for his unit, who sacrificed his life for his unit. Even now, after being home for nearly two years, I can not sleep sometimes because I see his face, his final smile telling me to hang in there.

Sometimes I am told I am a hero because I went to war. Yet when I seek treatment for the nightmares and headaches, when I try to talk it out, when I take a chance on letting someone get close to me, I feel like I am being judged. My family tells me I am not but I am. I am judging myself and I am not coming out on the good side of it.

My mother does not look the other way when I go on drinking binges. She does not let me get away with it. She sought help for me, first through the VA and when that did not help, then through a treatment center. She would not let me fail myself as I felt I had failed my buddy by not dying in his stead.

When the humvee exploded that day, we all felt it but only he died. The headaches began that night but I shook them off. How do I go see the medic over a lousy headache when my buddy lost his life? How do I forget that day? I don’t.

I remember feeling like I just wanted to die. People were going about their daily lives here at home and yet my buddy never would again. I was going about my life. How fair was that?  I began drinking to forget.  I couldn’t.  Still, I drank more and more, hoping I could at least pass out and not have to deal with the nightmares. 

Still, my mother would not let it go. Sometimes I think if our mothers went to war to defend us, there would be a lot less casualties on our side because mothers will fight with a vengeance to protect their children. When moms go to war, they make things happen.  When it became apparent that I had turned into an alcoholic, my mother did just that: she went to war on a new enemy: alcoholism.

I have been clean about six months now. My mother takes me to Alcoholics Anonymous and sits in the car reading while I am in my meetings. She is helping me with my VA case and encouraging me as I return to school. She reminds me of what I keep forgetting: that she had a son over there, too, and that he is worth saving.

Thanks, Mom. I love you.