you may listen to this chapter on youtube here: ominous clouds ahead
This shit is happening in real time, so forgive me if I make mistakes, take bad tangents, or digress to the point of comedy. I don’t know what’s about to happen. I sense it’s going to be bad. I am often wrong.
The air is crackling with disaster. While making plans and agreeing to boundaries, my zero is not making progress. Yet, the alarm bells continue to sound. I am disconnected from his mom and her husband by choice. I am working to stay in support of him, but he is making that difficult as well.
It’s my kid. I would do *nearly* anything to help him.
I will not sacrifice my own hardwon stability. Not for him. Not for an interested woman who’s begun sniffing around my LinkedIn and social profiles. NO.
What we can do when our lovers, partners, kids, parents, friends, siblings, are acting out is this: take care of ourselves. Like they say in the airplane safety instructions, “Put your mask on first.” I cannot go down with the ship.
So, I am in disagreement with his care team. I am still in support of my son. I will not, however, negotiate with the weak couple who are largely responsible for this crisis. I’m not off the hook. Fuck, no. I don’t want to be let off the hook. But, I am in a solid place in my life, my recovery, and my understanding of what the active drinker (or drug of choice) will do to keep drinking.
Lie.
If my son opens his mouth at the moment, I’m guessing it’s a lie before I even comprehend what he’s asking for, saying, demanding, or complaining about. I’m listening. What I hear is whining. How hard it is. Yes.
But, does my son have to hit ROCK BOTTOM in order to ask for help? Does he have to take every single grain of advice and use that as a reason to go the opposite direction?
Here we are.
It is my projection that my son needs immediate in-patient care for whatever he’s dealing with. He says he’s not using. His actions are adverse, erratic, and spiraling toward a conclusion that will result in treatment or death. That’s how these things go. Might be five years, five weeks, or five minutes. Without a real intervention, my son is spiraling down, perhaps it’s just spinning in place, but to me, as the summer burns on, the likelihood of him being able to complete even TWO college electives starting in September is about 2%.
He’s listening to someone. Perhaps the voices of his peers. He’s listening to me, yes, and thanking me over and over for support. And then, saying I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. No change. Just hey can I do this? Yes. Okay, but now I need to do this. No.
I am the fuck you. I am the brick wall. I cannot force my kid into treatment at 23 years old. I can recommend and vet a place in Taos, now referred to as “the mountain” but I can’t seem to explain to him how it’s not “kumbaya circles” all day. But he’s not hearing any of it. “I’ll walk out.” And that’s where we’re at. I even satisfied his mom’s requests and all but $6000 would be paid for by insurance. “I’ll pay the six grand.”
The squeeze point happened two months ago. TWO FUCKING MONTHS. We had him at his most vulnerable failure. A joint session with his gentle talky therapist, his mom, and me. We had him within reach. At least paying lip service to, “I will do whatever you recommend.” And then they blinked. Mom started offering “alternative treatments.” And here we are two months later, same story, same batshit son exhibiting “help me” behavior. And I can’t make it happen.
I wait.
Today is a big day, at least in my ex-wife’s mind. My son’s take, “I have therapy with both of them at 1500.” He’s taken this military thing a bit far. Says he’d rather enlist than go to treatment.
“Go meet with a recruiter,” I say. “That will open your eyes.”
“I will.”
“You’ll see why the military is not an option for you. And, I’m not sure you’d make it past the initial interview.”
“What do you mean?”
“You are lit up, dude. You can’t not interrupt. You just never shut up.”
“I’m leaving.”
“That’s fine, but you are willing to admit you’re having unhealthy thoughts and taking unhealthy risks, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So, I’m telling you, the Army would eat you alive in your current condition. They’d never let you in.”
This is not what I wanted to talk about.
As the storm continues to gather across this afternoon, the temperature outside has dropped ten degrees, the wind is whipping up the trees and making the birds frantic. The weather warnings keep texting “severe weather warning” for several counties nearby. And I’m here typing angry love letters to my son.
The texts came about 5 per minute. He was coming by my house before therapy. Then he’s got to put laundry in, so he can’t leave for another 10 minutes. Then:
Rapid-fire texting. It is a Chinese fire drill. We end up here.
That’s during my 10-minute drive home from a cardio workout. Gotta keep that cardio going, baby.
I have crafted my life around managing bad influences and leaning into good influences. That’s why I will not negotiate with his mom about her treatment ideas. Yesterday she was asking me to do a lot more research on “the mountain” program. Today’s meeting, in one hour, is supposed to crack him, give him the ultimatum of in-patient options.
He’s never going to go until he sees it as his idea.
I wish them both luck in an hour. I guess he’s not coming. Perhaps I’ll get an assessment from him later. I am outside their system. It’s for my own good.
What becomes clear over the last three months since we busted him: my ex-wife is emotionally crippled. And she married someone even more leftfield of normal than she is. I can’t imagine how their arguments or even agreements go. I understand more clearly now, how our marriage would never have worked out.
Makes me think of my dad and SAM arguing after they were blackout drunk. They seemed to understand each other, but I could not decipher one word. The tone was easy to judge. It screamed, “Get the fuck out of the house.” But I had nowhere to go that Spring Break in Austin.
I was only there by guilt. I wanted to go to New York City with my mom and sister, but I’d been staying away. I gave in. A week in Austin, staying in my dad’s new mansion with SAM. I think her daughter was away with friends, so I had her room.
This was round two for me, of prep school survival. This time in Maine. So far so good. I had lettered in football and was currently on the swim team going to state when we got back from break. But, I was floundering in my dad’s house. My local friends had a different Spring Break schedule, so they weren’t available. I made arrangements to swim at The University of Texas Swim Center while I was home.
On the way back from swimming, I crashed into a trailer truck carrying building supplies. On the winding road, the long truck had spanned the entire road at one corner and my dad’s old Ford pickup slid easily under the bed crushed the hood and damaged the engine. Fuck.
I took the driver’s information and waited for the police to show up. He didn’t speak English. The entire road was blocked. An hour or so later, everything was cleared and a policeman drove me up Mt. Larsen to my dad’s house.
I had to call him at work.
My dad surprised me. He offered to let me take the old yellow Jeep. The one my brother rolled once. He wasn’t worried about the truck. “Oh, we’ll get that old thing fixed.” He wasn’t railing at me. “You’ll have to learn stick though, to drive the Jeep.”
Who’s dad was this? Oh, right, the sober one. The work Dad. The doctor. The man who healed children from all over the state, but couldn’t help himself or his family for shit. I had braced for the rage. My dad had presented as a pussy cat. Things would probably be different later after the first cocktail, but I wasn’t going to count my blessings. I got the keys to the Jeep and taught myself how to drive a stick.
I also started smoking dope again.
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