Hello you, and to anyone who may stumble back to this space after being absent for a good, long, many years.
I feel it is now time for a moment of retrospection and to follow up on how my family is doing overall. I still vividly and often reflect on the events that transpired in my life, which brought me to the writings below.
Truthfully, I stopped writing about the goings-on when they became even more difficult than I relayed in these posts. Writing, for me, is a therapeutic practice. But when things get bone-tired HARD, I tend to bury my head in the sand, and facing tragic difficulties is a painful experience for many of us. Hiding is my coping skill when these sorts of events confront my life.
Picking up from when I last posted here, my son was struggling deeply with his addiction. The drama that continued to unfold due to his addictive behavior was progressive and intense. In my typical fashion, I decided protective cocooning of our family was the necessary pathway. By that point, we, as a family, had entered what I consider dangerous territory. My son's addictive behavior at the time involved regular police intervention, including arrests, jail, lawyers, and sentencing. These measures did not matter to him, nor did they do anything to impact his behavior. He, on some level, seemed unable to possess the ability to recognize or predict the outcome of staying on his continued path. Granted, he was still in his early 20s, and we know that the prefrontal cortex, located at the front of the brain behind the forehead, is the last part of the brain to fully develop during adolescence. This region is crucial for functions like planning, prioritizing, and making good decisions. Its development continues through the teen years and is not typically complete until the early to mid-20s, but in boys can take to age 25 or beyond.
I believe addictive behavior is based on fractured thinking, where the brain has become a mix of problem neurotransmitter signaling, and, when abused, points the user to pleasure-seeking behaviors based on dopamine-seeking receptors, resulting in seeking, obtaining, and using the drug of choice. Without intervention (the earlier, the better), the user descends into a pit of his own creation, but is driven by the failed workings of their now-maligned brain. For true healing, the brain needs a minimum of a 1-year break from the abused substance/ behavior in which to repair itself. In one year, the brain will replace every cell and rebuild itself into a "new" brain.
Our family endured, aside from all the police activities, a situation involving a stabbing inside a rented apartment we had recently moved into. My son was not involved in the stabbing, nor was he the perpetrator; however, the scene took place in our home when the other 3 family members were away for the day. Needless to say, we were kicked out of the apartment. The local police unfairly blamed my son for many illegal community events, where they actually named him on social media (!), though there was no proof. (What happened to 'innocent until proven guilty'??). Finally, after a raid at our home by the sheriff's department, my son was in the deepest trouble, labeled by the courts a "serial drug offender" among other offenses, and sentenced to 4.5 years in federal prison.
What do these things do to a family? That was, of course, my viewpoint, and my daily question. Trying to keep my younger son safe and uninvolved in this type of mayhem proved difficult. Community shunning and blame were paramount in our family's destruction. Trying to balance reason within my relationship with my husband was challenging, and many marriages split up amongst these types of destructive dynamics.
And my son, who was in the deepest pit of shit and shame due to his addictive behavior?
Imprisoned. Where he could finally be kept safe from himself. That is, should he choose to be safe. There are still drugs and tons of danger within the prison population. Before he left the jail system for state prison, I told my son the following:
"This does not define you. A series of poor choices led you to this moment. There will be plenty of people in the prison system who are good people who made bad choices. Align yourself with those people. They will help you find your way. Consider this a new beginning, a chance for a fresh start, one where you can live your life differently."
He went into the prison system, where he was determined to be healthy, meaning there was no hint of mental illness. At that point, he had been drug-free for approximately 5 months. He was then transferred to a prison location where they offered the FireCamp Program, a state-funded program where, if he could get in, he would be an employee of CalFire and would be trained to be on a fire crew within the state.
The summer and fall of 2019 - 2020 were a period when it seemed like the whole West Coast was burning. And then Covid hit. But before COVID, the citizens of California determined that something had to be done to reward the prisoners for the work they had done in saving so many communities and homes. They petitioned Governor Newsom to assist prisoners from the CalFire program. And a law was passed that said once a prisoner was released from detention and provided they did not reoffend, they could petition the courts to have all of their charges revoked.
Wow, huh?
And guess what happened with my son? A model prisoner and one who worked on the CalFire crew line, he was among the first to be released early due to the COVID epidemic. Though he came home and relapsed within the first two weeks, he immediately found a 6-month treatment program, which he successfully completed. Then sober living for the next 6 months. And he was successful! Fast forward 5 years, and his petition to the state of CA was granted. No charges on his record! He has a 100% clean record!
God is good, and God provides. I will never think or believe otherwise.
Yes, we are extremely fortunate. And we were all able to see our son return to a place of positive health before losing my husband to an aggressive brain cancer. At least my husband went to his grave knowing our son would be the biggest supporter for our family. And he has been.
#blessed
