My Addicted Son/I Have Sinned..Havent I?

Today as I sat down to have lunch with my youngest son, I was telling him about the book I read about the fathers journey through his addicted son's life. As I looked at him, it hit me like a bolt of lightning - how much time have I devoted to obsessing over my addict son and not given him the time and attention he deserves? He is an amazing young man and luckily he seems to be okay. Since he was in the army, he has somewhat of a tough exterior, but inside I thinkhe battles also - just not as much as I do. He has his own stuff going on, as he should, and getting ready to start school plus working. He understands and will tell you that he got as much time, love and attention that his brothers did. He and I are closer than the other 2 because we spent quite a bit of time with it being just us 2. I love him so much and he is my affirmation that maybe, just maybe, I did something right as a parent - IF I choose to believe that. Its very hard to think that way. I may not be a good parent, but then again, who is defined as a good parent? Someone who loves their kids? Thats me! Someone who spends time with their kids? Thats me! Someone who spends the time trying to teach them right from wrong, not to be prejuidice because people are people and race, religion, or gender cannot play a role in how you feel about someone. That has to come from the person themselves. Yeah, that was me.

My son is SO smart..he did well in school up until he decided school wasn't for him. I can't even remember when that was. One time I got a call from the hospital saying Tyler had been in a car accident. He was 15 years old, didn't have a drivers license and he was the one driving. He had to go to court on that one but the other kid, the one who had the drivers license and the car was the one held mostly responsible. He is the one that let Tyler drive. He drove 90 miles an hour in a Kohls parking lot and hit a light pole..in the rain. Luckily no one was killed. It was raining and there werent that many people out. That was just the start. Some of the things when he was a teenager I don't even remember. This is the same kid that I stood in line with my sister for hours looking for Power Ranger toys, Ninja Turtle toys and Optimus Prime toys. The same one that had a bundle of energy and loved playing outside..and eating butter. YUK! He wore glassed when he was 9 months old. Seriously.

I rented a small, super small 3 bedroom house in a pretty decent area when I moved to Ohio. Tyler lived with us then and moved out for the first time to room with a friend. He had a pretty good job at the time. One morning he called me and said that the cops had busted down the door and was looking for drugs and drug paraphanelia. He said he had no idea what was going on. At that point in time, I either didnt believe or didn't want to believe that he was an addict but either way, I let him move back home when he got evicted. I mean, who wouldn't evict you when the cops break down the door looking for drugs. He ended up disappearing for a few days and one day I get a knock at my door. It was the local police looking for him and when I looked outside, there were a couple of them dressed in what appeared to be running clothes. I don't know, maybe they thought they would have to chase him. They had a warrant for his arrest for the whole drug thing. He did get arrested, the charge got reduced to a misdemeanor and he had fines to pay and community service to do. That seems to be the way things go for him and the court system. He gets slapped on the wrist and away he goes. He moved out again with his girlfriend at that time and I felt instant relief. Its funny how that goes. So, my youngest son and I looked for a better place to live. The house, even though it had 3 bedrooms, in his bedroom, he could stretch his arms out and touch both walls. We found a 2 bedroom apartment that was perfect for us. But it wasn't to be just for us for too long. His girlfriend and him broke up and she kicked him out. I later found out that a friend of theirs was over to the house and had to use the restroom. For some unknown reason, he looked above the medicine cabinet and found a bunch of needles hidden. After telling me a bunch of lies about what happened, he moved in again but he didn't have a bedroom to sleep in so he slept on the couch. It was a locked building - you had to have a key to get in the front door as well as a key to get in the apartment. One day he came home after being gone for awhile and was staggering at the front door and I thought to myself, "awesome, he's drunk" It didn't occur to me that you couldn't smell any alcohol. I told him that he needed to find a new place to live and that he was doing nothing with his life except whatever he wanted. He said he was sorry and it wouldn't happen again. They always say sorry, they always say it won't happen again, they always say they will stop. The thing is, once the addiction has its grasp, they can't just stop..not without help and not without God. I, at the time, still did not realize he was an addict. Or maybe I was in denial. I figured I must have sinned somehow for my son to be like this. Somewhere I did something wrong. It took me a LONG time to realize that that's not exactly true. I may not be the reason for his travel down this road to addiction, but something is. I for the life of me will never know unless he tells me and you can't rely on him for honesty - and thats providing he even knows what led him down a path that his brothers only glanced at and moved on. A path that I never went down. I'm not a goody two shoes, but I never did drugs and never drank. I have only recently allowed myself to have a drink or two on occasion. So, what made him go down this path he has chosen for himself? He told me once that he has done every drug under the sun and his drug of choice is heroin. The only thing he doesn't do is smoke pot although I don't know why he frowns on that. Maybe it doesn't do anything for him..I have no idea. I have spent so much time trying to figure this out and figure out what to do and have come up with no good answers at all. I know that drug addiction, or any addiction, hits all walks of life, every race, every gender, all ages, all incomes - it knows no boundaries. When he was in rehab, he said that his best friend there got out, went home with his mom and 2 days later his mom was backing out of the garage to go to work and found him dead in a snowbank. He had OD'd. A couple of days later another friend of his died from an overdose. That doesn't even phase them. I have heard of 2 people being in a car and shooting heroin, one will overdose, and the other one will search his pockets and take whatever drugs he has left. How can that be!?!? I talked about Tyler going out to Indy to stay with his dad for a little while and I put him on my phone plan. The agreement was that he had to pay his portion of the phone bill. It was 57.00 per month. He told me one time that his phone broke and he was ordering another one. When the new one came, he had to send his old one back. It was an Iphone of some kind. I got a message from the carrier that they were adding 600.00 to my phone bill because the other one never came back. It never came back but he sold it for drugs. I had to pay off that phone and just recently was able to removed his line. I still had to pay for the line because it was a 2 year contract. He did stuff like this on a regular basis. I am ruled by my heart instead of my head unfortunately. My heart overrules anything that my mind tells me isnt right. I have always been like this. I am a slow learner, but I am a learner. I have maxed out my credit cards giving him money, paid off that telephone among other stuff. I won't put him back on my phone plan, and I won't let him live with me again. I can't, not if I want to have some kind of a normal life.