Forget Making Assumptions

Just in the past twenty four hours I have learned so much. I have often forgotten to take a moment of disconnect, rethink it take a moment and breathe. This post is not about making excuses for our sons behavior and his addiction. It is however about putting the pieces of the puzzle together, to understand it better and possibly make treating his addiction a little easier to understand. You see...

Our son Kyle did really good maintaining his sobriety for several years. Because we didn't know what truly happened we started interjecting our own feelings into it and concluded that it had to be his old friends.

About three years ago he relapsed. For a year we have been racking our minds trying to figure out, what happened?

After some recent events with our son and in talking to someone close to him we have learned a few things that in doubt led to this spiraling out of control so fast-so easy.

About three years ago Kyle was working a stable job. He tells me about others on his job that were using pills around him and that he had been so strong in declining any offers. He hurt his back one day on the job. A guy on the job offered him a Perc. At first he declined it, but as the day went on his back was hurting even more and he took the pill.

He said he knew just swallowing it would not have that immediate affect he needed, so he smoked it. Kyle said there was immediate battle going on his head. He felt so guilty for doing it, but it relieved the back pain.

He said this one time use set off a trigger in his brain. He told no one- not the girlfriend- not us- no one. For approximately six months he became what is known as a functioning addict. Then came the layoff. Not enough work to go around and he and his crew were laid off. This would be the event that set in motion the decline and his sobriety spiraling out of control.

He was looking for work, but as we all know having a criminal record doesn't make it easy finding a job. With his back still hurting he found it easy to keep himself self medicated on the streets. He could find what he needed anywhere.

He started lying that he was out looking for work. He said he was embarrassed to tell his then girl friend that he couldn't find anything because of his record. He became too overwhelmed with the pressure that he needed to find a job to help with the household expenses.

He had denied to himself and those around him that he had a problem. That would mean admitting he had slipped.

When he finally admitted what he had been doing-self medicating- it was pretty much too late. He had been using heroin for many months at that time.

His then girl friend would take him to the hospital because at times the pain became so bad he went into seizures.

One look at track marks and it is like "GAME OVER" at the hospital. They did not believe he was in pain and he often was told take Tylenol and sleep it off.

He never in the past years stopped complaining about lower back and abdomen pain. Sometimes the pain was so severe he couldn't walk. Other times the pain so severe he went into seizures.

Last year when he was going to the Martinsburg Institute we know that his medical records were faxed there and was told that he had some really severe medical problems going on. One being his kidneys.


>>>>>>TO BE CONTINUED

© 2016 Gossip Girl

Things I've Learned From An Addict: The Signs

Now, whether or not an addict is living in your home I think you can relate to some of this...

Our son has not lived with us for many years however here is some of the things I can tell you about dealing with an addict. We found it really doesn't matter if they live with you or not.

I have divided this into five or six posts because there are a lot of things I learned. Let's start with the signs.

The Earliest Signs Do Get Missed:

Trust me here. What we know now and what we didn't even know about heroin and opiates unless they have a sign flashing or they come right out and tell you. No, you will miss it whether they live in your home or not. Even if you see them a lot, you'll miss it. Why? Because I really don't think as parents we are looking for the signs in the first place. We can see a lot of odd behavior and in our minds, we somehow sweep it away to mean something else.

Our son didn't live with us and one day I happened to notice that I had three spoons left from my dollar store bought set. It's only me, the hubby and the dog here. I accused the hubby of throwing out the spoons to the trash. Why would you throw away our good set of china?

A tote of shoes in the closet of the spare room- every pair was missing the strings- weird...

Every time we wanted to throw something on the grill we had to go buy a new box of aluminum foil...WTH do we have aluminum foil bandits living in the laundry room?

Now for some reason and I don't know why if I get agitated or mad I start cleaning. I'm talking about chucking the furniture around like I'm the incredible hulk style of cleaning. I was angry at something that happened at work and came home and literally just started cleaning and pulled the cushions of the couch to vacuum and found a bent spoon with a burned black mark on the bottom.

I picked it up and wiped the black mark and HOLY COW... that was the moment I finally figured out what those black smudges were in my bathroom These marks weren't there all the time, I only found them when our son stopped by. I knew what they are now.

From there the puzzle in my mind started and I started connecting all of the dots. Who? What? When? That sort of stuff.

It hit me whenever my son visited he came in and said, I've gotta go to the bathroom. When he went to the bathroom he was in there for what seemed hours. What are you doing? When will it be time for the next group to go? Did you fall in or something? Hello... Hello...

The next time he came here I wouldn't even let him in the door. Oh no, you got to go, leave, get out of here!! You don't have to leave but ya gotta get the heck off my porch.

He was just visiting. We told him that He was not allowed to visit or be around us when he was using. He needed to respect us that we didn't like him using, we didn't want it anywhere near our home and just how much we hated drugs of any kind.

Now, this is a Bill Engvall Here's Your Sign... moment. The sign was flashing many colors but there it was!!!

Even then we didn't know it was heroin. I looked online at drugs and spoons and all sorts of drugs came up- crack and others.

It would be several months later before we learned it was indeed called heroin. This is nothing you can smell.

Of course by this time they've been using for some time. This wasn't a fluke. It wasn't like this was the first time. Don't deny it. You'll feel much better in the end- trust me.

Don't blame yourself for not knowing!! I know you will. I'm just telling you DON'T!!! It wasn't you. You had nothing to do with it.
Why blame yourself when you didn't know. We all want to believe that none of our kids would ever use drugs so no... stop blaming yourself. Unless the umbilical cord is still attached to them which it is not you really didn't know.

How would you know if you didn't know what to look for?

And well how many of us parents even think their kids would be using drugs? None of us!

Some personal signs I noticed from my son:

• If your loved one suddenly cannot keep a job
• If you find that they are sleeping all of the time
• No attention span when talking to them. They appear they are nodding out which is what it is called.
• Uncontrollable eyes- especially when they are under the influence of heroin. Their eyes appear all over the place. I even commented What is up with your crazy eyes?
• They cannot hold a conversation without dropping off to sleep.
• Under the influence, their speech is slurred but you cannot smell alcohol.
• It's 120 outside and they are wearing hoodies and sweat pants.

This is the Heroin/Opiate abuse: The Classic Textbook Signs of what they tell us are the signs of heroin/opiate abuse.


Part II: The Enabler

© 2016 Gossip Girl

Signs of Heroin Use

Some of you may wonder just what are the signs?...