YESTERDAY:
I was broken. My wife and I were not seeing eye to eye on how to parent our addicted son. I had a brother who died from an overdose many years ago and I did not want to have a repeat of that. I could not let go of trying to control the outcome – physically, emotionally, or financially. I was so afraid that my son would die, it kept me from making changes, as I just couldn’t imagine losing our son and going through the agony and grief all over again. We were also close to retirement and didn’t feel like we could enjoy that part of our lives because of the worry over our son.
Our son was not only suffering from substance addiction, but he suffered from schizophrenia brought on by drug use. His behaviors were hard to know how to deal with. He would sleep in our room at night so he could ‘protect’ us. He thought the CIA was after him. He would stop driving in the middle of the street because he felt like he was being followed. He would get out of his car and hide.
In addition to this erratic behavior, our son would go from one rehab to another not able to stay long-term as he would relapse and go back to drugs. He bounced all over the place with sober living homes as well. This created problems with our family as well and his siblings got to the point they didn’t want anything to do with him. It continued to get worse when he got involved in an obviously unhealthy relationship as things went from bad to worse. They both got in trouble with the law, were arrested, and went to jail.
Throughout all of this, I am thankful that I found PAL and kept going to PAL meetings.
TODAY:
I now feel I have peace and hope in my life. Our son eventually got to the point where he sought out the help he needed and got sober and into recovery. He is about to reach his 32nd birthday. I can’t believe the difference. Now, he is about to get a college degree after finishing his senior year at a university. From where he was to now, he is taking 12 hours of advanced math classes in calculus. On top of that he managed to get his own financial aid. Before college, he was a general manager of a very successful restaurant franchise. He was able to use this experience for internship credit. I now see him in his new suit, tie and shoes heading off for on campus interviews. I am proud to say that he did all of this himself.
As for the rest of us? As I write this, our son is out playing golf with his brothers while we relax at home. He stops by our home once a week to see us on his day off. He is moving and will be sharing an apartment on campus with four other students. My wife and I are now traveling and going to destinations we felt we could only dream of visiting before. We have learned to stop incessantly worrying about our son. Our home is now a calm respite. PAL helped through all of this.
I still go to PAL meetings. I want to share with everyone how important PAL is. I want to let others know to trust the process and to remind everyone that there is hope.
PAL Dad
