What do you do when the addict has upped the ante and in order to save his life you have to trick him? Does it matter if you trick a trickster? I am sure the signs were there but again I was so overwhelmed with the steps, my feelings, everyone else’s feelings and daily life that sometimes maintaining vertical was a false state. Was I in denial or even enabling him? Those words are certainly the favorite choice of experts in describing loved ones of addicts however the words are limited by their dictionary definitions that don’t account for the emotional definitions. How I felt about and reacted to the steps, words and process was a jumbled mess because my emotional definitions were completely broken down by things not going as I had planned in life. So even though I understood the importance of the steps, sometimes I would just pray for normal and when that didn’t work I would just pretend things were normal. Perhaps if I had understood my emotional definitions I would have handled this better but I didn’t. There was a lot of pressure to deal with the addict and his behavior and those once a week meetings as a family focused on that. Living everyday with the fact that my child was an addict was a punch in the gut that brought every doubt about who I was to the front and overrode any certainty that I had on my mad parenting skills. Anger and depression went hand in hand on this path of hell that was a vicious cycle of reviewing the steps I had done to raise my children and the failure. I just couldn’t get beyond those emotions in order to fully engage in the new steps of salvation. How can anyone? My knowledge had tricked me. My son had tricked me. Drugs had tricked all of us.
I was desperate. Desperate to get out of this hell and desperate to save my son. Outpatient treatment should have never been the choice for him. Ryan had tricked everyone but especially me. He banked on my love for him to override the fact that things did not add up and for a while that worked. Drugs had rewritten his emotional definitions and I was completely unaware that drugs do that. Drugs were his ruler now and what that meant was still not in my emotional definitions. How do you process, deal with and make steps to beat a monster that has complete control over your child when you don’t even know what all that really means? How do you do it when it means different things to different people? How do you do it when the addict is a separate being from your child?
Once his tricks became obvious I realized he would need inpatient treatment in another state but he was facing charges in the juvenile system so I consulted his lawyers. Their answer was an emphatic no. I did not think about the courts or the repercussions of sending him out of the state. I only knew in my heart that he had to go. I found a place out of state and made arrangements for him to go there. I had chosen it because Ryan would be outdoors in the wilderness. He would be far from civilization. I told them that Ryan would not go willingly and they gave me the name of a person who transports addicts to their treatment center. I dialed this man’s number. We arranged to meet.
Over lunch, we talked about my son, where he was going and what it would take to get him there. I assessed this man to see if he was trustworthy of my hiring him for this difficult task. I do not know what he thought of me but he did say I was doing the right thing. I did not mention to any of these people about Ryan’s impending court date. I only mentioned that he would have to be taken by force. Force. I had hired a man and his partners to take down my drug addict son while having lunch. Was this really happening? I had warned the transporter that Ryan would not go without a fight and they needed to be prepared for that. We selected a date and decided exactly how it would happen. I had new steps to follow. I felt scared and yet invigorated because I was sure these were the right steps to correct the failure.
My next goal was to enlist my oldest daughter Ashlee in to helping me. Dear Ashlee who loved her brother and was my biggest supporter. I knew she would be able to get her brother to the house under the false pretense of a family dinner. She would then be able to lure Ryan back to his bedroom to talk. I was so sure of what needed to be done that I did not worry about how my choices would affect her or anyone else for that matter. I knew she would see the right in sending Ryan to rehab and that was as far as I got in my thought process. I don’t know how it felt to her to make the choice to betray him or to watch him be taken down. I did not ask her before it happened if she was okay with it nor did I ask her afterwards if she was okay with it. I just expected her to handle this emotionally. I just assumed she would be okay. Can doing what is right balance out the emotional pain of a sister placed in the position of being a key player in the betrayal of her brother? Would their relationship survive the betrayal? Would it affect our relationship? I didn’t think about it because I was acting like my drug addict son. I was making decisions that could cause harm but I didn’t care because it was for the good of saving Ryan and for me. I am sure he would have said that using drugs was for his good because he felt no pain when he was high. That impending transport to rehab made me feel high. It was a moment of parallel between Ryan and I. Both of us wanted relief from the pain and both of us were willing to do whatever it took to get that relief. Opposite sides but parallel. Both of us expected others to pay the price and banked on love to override our actions.
I was maintaining vertical and Ashlee was about to pay the price for it…all in the name of love and saving Ryan…
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