THE SHEER DREADFUL AWFULNESS OF ADOLESCENT DRUG ADDICTION

Cunning, baffling, powerful.  That’s how Bill Wilson, AA’s co-founder, described alcohol addiction in AA’s “Big Book,” written more than 80 years ago.

I wonder what terms Bill W. might have used for the disease of adolescent drug addiction.  Somehow the head-scratching nature of the words “cunning, baffling, powerful” just doesn’t quite match the sheer dreadful awfulness of watching a beloved child change right before your eyes into someone you don’t recognize as your own.

The metamorphosis is so drastic and so sudden – or so it seems when the truth finally comes crashing in – that mere words crumble before the horror of it all. 

Perhaps a story will bring us a little closer to the reality of this hell of helplessness.

One afternoon, not long after I began volunteering to work with youth and families at the Juvenile Justice Center, a probation officer asked me to meet with a 17-year-old boy and his parents.

The boy was a meth addict—thin, frail, with dyed blonde hair and black roots.  He sat at the end of the table in the small conference room of the Juvenile Justice Center, his hands and feet shackled, his orange jumpsuit baggy and ridiculously bright in that beige-walled room, staring at the table, refusing raise his head to look at his mother and father.

They tried to talk to him, they gave it all they had—tears, threats, pleas, expressions of deep and unconditional love.  His mother cried, tearing a tissue into small pieces and then picking up the ragged edges and tearing them into even smaller pieces.  His father was dry-eyed, stoic, lips tightly pressed together. 

I wondered how this boy, confronted with his parents’ deep and terrible pain, could sit there and remain unmoved.  That was the word – unmoved.  He was so still, so silent, it was almost as if he had stopped breathing.  

I realized, then, that I had been holding my breath, too.  Waiting for -- what?  I wasn’t sure.

For the first half hour, the mother and father stayed calm and composed, speaking to their son with love and concern.  Then, it was as if a switch was thrown.  I saw the change in the mother’s face, her grief metamorphosed within minutes into the fiercest sort of anger, a fiery fury sparked by too many scenes like this, too many futile arguments, too much love met by this terrible stillness.

“I wish you still had leukemia,” she said in a low voice.  

The boy’s head jerked up then, and he stared her, his mouth dropped open.  

I could imagine her thoughts, Oh good, now I have your attention.  She repeated the words with even more emotion. “I wish you still had leukemia because at least then we were fighting it together.”

“What the hell . . . ?” he said.

“Do you remember?” she continued, because at least now he was looking at her, at least now she had an emotional response, at least now she could see some remnant of the son she used to know.

“You were five years old, and I would read you stories.  Story after story after story.  You would lean your head on my shoulder and we would cry together. 

“We held on to each other.  I was always there with you, and you were always there with me. We went together to every doctor appointment.  We fought it together.  And we won.  Remember?  I was with you the whole time—I never would have left you—and you needed me, you wanted me there with you.  Remember?”

But the moment had passed and he stared back at the table, his mouth a solid line of fury, his eyes narrowed, his whole body screaming the words, Get me the hell out of here!

Minutes later, he left the room, staring straight ahead, his shackles clanging, the detention officer next to him with his hand tightly gripped on the boy’s elbow.

When the door closed behind them, the boy’s mother laid her head on the table, covered now with shredded pieces of tissue, and sobbed.