“I’ve cleared the washer and dryer, in case you want to run a load before you go,” I said. It was 11:30 am. “I’ll be back with groceries around 1:30. I’d like to beat rush hour if possible.”
Getting my kid to get out of the house is a thing. His mom’s got the same malady. It’s why they were an hour late arriving at the ER after my son’s car wreck. “Had to stop for Gatorade,” his mom said.
He was still stretched across his bed when I got back with the groceries. There was a fresh load of clothes in the dryer, so, at least we were moving along. It took two and a half hours to get out of the house. I didn’t press him, complain, or hurry things along. This was a big moment. I wanted to feel all of it. If he needed more time I could be chill.
I let a bit of my frustration show in the car as we hit the snarl. “Ah, this is what I was hoping to avoid. Oh well!”
One of the young proctors came out and met us.
“There’s a room on the first floor, a double, you’d be with my old roommate. He’s great.”
We carted several loads of clothing and food into the house. I handed him his guitar, “You’ve got to cross the threshold with this in *your* hand.”
My son came into the front yard for a minute as I was getting ready to leave.
“Everything in the freezer and refrigerator is yours,” I said.
“Thanks.”
“I love you.”
“Yeah, me too.”
This is not empty next syndrome. I’m a bit sad he’s gone this morning. But, it’s different. It’s amazingly hard to watch your kid suffer. Powerless to effect change, parents are often at a loss. How can we help? Stay out of the way. Trust the process. One day at a time. That sucks. I want to be an active participant.
“This is not going to happen on our time,” said his 12-Step coach.
I clean up the screen porch. Throw away the empty Marlboro Menthol boxes stacked up. I move his slump chair to a new place and sweep out some of the ashes. I can’t figure out how to make the ceiling fan work, so I hope the breeze and coming Fall weather would take care of the smell.
The smell of cigarettes is my brother. He was a tragic smoker. Tragic drinker. Tragic. My son adored my brother’s sense of fashion. And for a short moment they connected around fancy men’s clothing. My brother wanted to be a mentor. My son was excited to accompany Tom to his favorite haberdashery. My brother bought him a fancy shirt with French cuffs.
My brother had bigger personal mountains to climb. The thread between them was lost.
Now, my son smokes like a fiend. Is it a death wish? Is it depression? Addiction? An ongoing injection of anxiety and energy, one puff at a time. I watched my best friend vaping with the same intensity.
Feel a feeling? Take a hit. Need to fill out a job application. Take a hit. Feeling sad. Take a hit. Take a hit. Take a hit. It’s mood management at the micro level. It’s so much easier to see with vapers. The hits are single discreet events. Spending time with my best friend I was beginning to worry about his overuse. Sometimes, we’d get to 20 or 30 hits an hour. Can you imagine if someone were drinking at that rate?
I’m not ready to address his room, the music room just yet.
A random woman texts me and asks me if the Glock is still for sale.
“WTF?”
It’s the first contact with her in three weeks and she leads with, “I’m still interested in buying your Glock. Maybe we can all go to the shooting range?”
I guess this was an attempt at flirting. It was a miss.
“$500. I don’t shoot, however.”
Haven’t heard back from her. I imagine she didn’t know the price of a new Glock. My son was supposed to be selling his guns, and yet this one was purchased with a new credit card in February. After his debt consolidation plan was put in place. He’s gone against his own plan and purchased another gun. $750 after taxes. WTF?
While he was here in my house over the last month I’m sure I hit 20 WTFs a day. I was unhappy about his depression. Also, he was doing nothing to pull himself up from the floor. As the Prozac kicked in he became more antagonistic. Leaving dirty plates all over the house or building stacks of dirty dishes and silverware in the sink. When the fruit flies showed up, I mentioned the behavior to his 12-step coach.
“You’re fucking yourself, dude,” the coach said to my son. “You think you’re fucking your dad, but you’re really fucking yourself.”
Now the fucking has stopped. Completely.
As the pace of this normal life catches up to me again, I’m overdrawn at the bank, my legal mediation has been pushed back another two months, and my prospects for work are good, but none of my efforts are reaching an offer.
Stop. Breathe. This is not a crisis. Yes, I’m feeling big feelings about my son and his trajectory. I have sent him a few songs and memes we share. Nothing.
That’s okay. I know my recovery is my business. My happiness is not tethered to my son’s troubles. The real power of recovery is the understanding of what I can and cannot control.
I cannot control my son or his spirals up or down. That’s a process he’s going to have to discover for himself. Either he finds a spiritual program or he struggles. Not much I can do about it either way.
“He was not getting better,” my friend says. “Just hibernating at your house wasn’t helping him.”
As parents we want to put our arms and hearts around our children like protective barriers. But life comes rushing at them anyway. My son had an emotionally handicapped mom with a neurodivergent husband. They were not help. I was sidelined to weekend father duties. I did my best.
Again, I’m forced to learn this lesson over and over. I cannot rescue my son. I can’t do the recovery for him. And anything I say is immediately rejected. I am the enemy.
According to the founder of the sober house, “His success is dependent on knowing he will not be bailed out again if he walks.”
They’ve had only five people leave early, in ten years, says the founder. Still, he is looking to us, on the Zoom call, for confirmation that we are all committed as a family to not rescue our son. He smiles. “That’s great. That’s how this works.”
It feels a little like I’ve just enrolled my son in a military school for bad behavior. Shipped him off to a place where he can learn about men without drinks. Living without drugs. Maybe some of the masculinity that was missing from his stepdad and limited with me by time, maybe some of the guy stuff would rub off on him.
“He’s probably going to learn to barbeque and hang out in the backyard. With other guys, doing their best at staying healthy. Finding happiness within, that’s an indirect goal of the program. Staying off drugs, when drugs have caused so many problems, is the first order of business. Learning how to be in the company of other men, not partying, is a big part of growing up.
This morning I’m framing it more as setting him up in a dorm at college. I recall now that I was left out of that part of the process with my son. He wanted his mom to transport him to college in Dallas and help him get set up. He has a codependent relationship with his mom. They chose each other. And as she trashed my reputation over the course of his next ten years of life, I can’t imagine I came across as anything but an asshole. She was mad at me about the divorce that she asked for.
She was mad at everyone for what wasn’t working out for her. Shit! That’s him. They are aligned.
Yeah, but…
Time for a new plan. The old model was not working and left my son emasculated and as emotionally withdrawn as his mom.
Today, he learns. Today, he grows. We will sort out tomorrow when it arrives. Sober.
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