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I don’t know what I’m doing, actually. I’m not a super Al-Anon. I’m wayfinding in many ways just like my son. He on some counter-rotational decline into more darkness. Me trying to hold the flashlight at the trailhead up and out. It’s not what either of us thinks. It is what we do.
I am tired of writing this testament. Or confessional. Different process than my prior injustice. Some of the same characters, yes, but this is about me. My depression. My tendency toward addiction. My own father, his father. How I imagine my own struggles give me some insight or hopefulness for my son’s malfeasance.
At certain points in our lives we hit inflection points. Depending on which path we take, our aim is up toward the surface of the ocean of doubt, my son appears to see the shining path, the mountain, and sinks deeper using his weights and measures toward what I can only hope is not death.
Hope does not live inside the suffering addict. Alcohol, meth, sex, coke, become the all-consuming goal for an active user.
In a moment, yesterday I put a bow on the story and hoped for the best. A text from my son, yesterday, demonstrated his heavy ballast of shame and failure.
And here he weaves a sad tale of his admitted addiction to benzos and the coming shitstorm now that he slept through both his TA appointment and his psyche appointment. He was a double-winner yesterday. And this is from a guy who claims he’s not addicted to anything.
Serenity is about finding your truth and sticking to it. My son has no truth. He revolts against a program while admitting he’s heading into a dark period of withdrawal from benzodiazepines. I have begun to understand my malfunction in the face of my son’s failures.
I am the only person I have agency over. My son is going to do what he does, just like my father did. No pleading, no new plans, no strategy, is going to bring my son in for a landing until he has exhausted all of his exits. All of them. Death is an exit.
I’m wondering now about something I said to him a month ago, trying to stay on his team while disagreeing with his and his mom’s approach.
“Maybe I wanted to go to the mountains of Taos for 30 days,” I said to him.
“Probably.”
I know this is not the truth. I know my son is lying right now. He did sleep through his “planning” meeting and his “meds” meeting yesterday. He was given an airbnb so he could get out from under his Mom’s toxic overwatch. The conditions were his ability to make appointments and stick to the plan.
Failed on step one. Refusing to accept the other step one.
Admit that my life has become unmanageable.
The technical escape clause in his mind, “I’m not addicted to drugs.”
In the same way, I’m not confronting his lies about the lesbian goddesses in Dallas, I am staying out of his process with his mom and her husband. I will not negotiate with my ex-wife. She’s already blowing up my phone this morning. She is not in the loop about my son’s current 48-hour cycle. She’s asking me to join in the TA process.
I am not my son’s keeper. Today, I am reorienting myself. This story is my story, not my son’s story. How I overcome adversity to save my dad and then my son. That’s how it’s going to play out. Of course, I don’t listen to my own lies. I know he’s dropping. But how long can someone continue to fuck up until he’s caught or killed? His gun thing is not a comforting angle.
So, now, at this moment, rather than wait, I’m going to act. My own program. My own healing and recovery. The flywheel of anxiety whipping up a frenzy just below my conscious mind has given me back the 15 pounds I lost before the crackup. My life, my health, my relationship with my one.
Foundering is a terrible place to be. I don’t, however, need to get in the anxiety boat with him. I do not need to supply him with more backup benzos. And somewhere shortly, he’s going to be tranquilized and taxidermied. No, that was for effect. He could run on like this, gaming his mom and her husband through the summer. He may never finish college.
I am waiting for him to check in again. See how his rebooted therapeutic appointment went. What did his new ally say? Did she share any concerns about his benzo use or his inability to make the first crucial meeting, yesterday?
It’s about returning my focus to my own growth, healing, and the next right action.
I spoke with the young lady at the Taos program again, yesterday. I had ideas of inviting my son to have a conversation about the kumbaya circles. There was no opening to breach the subject with my accelerated son, yesterday. I’ll try again today. And I’ll book my Taos retreat too.
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