Mon At the End of My Rope

[Rumpole]

Rumpole, thanks for your response. I'm still so confused as to how to handle my son. Sometimes I want to kick him the hell
out for causing so much chaos in the house and at other times I want towrap my arms around him and not let him go.
I am in such turmoil every day. He actually did call the place that I gave him the number for and he has an appointment
tonight. I really hope this helps. As far as the tough love, that frightens the hell out of me because anything could happen
to him and I don't just mean in the drug sense. If he is on the street, he could be mugged, robbed, or worse and I would
never forgive myself if something did happen to him. I always felt that he is safe if he is home even if he was high because
I would be able to watch him throughout the night, which I had to do this past weekend, both nights. I msut also add that he did OD in April. He took some Xanax and then a while later used Heroin. He came home and was passing out in the ktichen. His father (whom I am divorced from) was at the house and knew he was high and sent him to bed. About ten minutes later he went in his room to check on him and he was on the floor and his face was blue. His father immediately called 911 and the paramedics treated him with the same thing you had. He was revided and brought to the local hospital where he stayed until the next morning. We brought him home and for the next few weeks saw a great change in him for the better. But eventually that wore off and he started his old tricks again.

At this point I don't yet feel our personal safety is at risk, although he has stole some things from me in the past, not
in a long while though. At the same time, I have given him rules to stay in the house and eventually he breaks all of them.
He seems to have this attitude that he is entitled. He is always in my room looking for things and by that I don't mean
stealing. I mean he'll take my laptop, batteries, candy, whatever he finds that he wants. I always tell him that there are
boundaries to someone's personal things and that he needs to ask first. As far as the Suboxoned program, he tested positive at almost every drug test and his last appointment he missed because he was in court, big surprise. He is now seeing an internist who can presribed Suboxone, although he hasn't yet because he is still in the testing stage, blood work, EKG, all that stuff. If he choses to use the Suboxone every day he can probably beat this, but he doesn't. I am also worried that it will be hard for him to break from the Suboxone as well. It's a vicious cycle here.

I hope and pray that the program we are going to tonight is the one. I will keep you posted.

Hi Teeree,

I'd just sat up front, with the Suboxone, it is physically addictive, but if a patient is on it, at least you know they're safe from using heroin, from overdosing, that kind of thing.

You mentioned that you brought him home after the overdose and he was a lot better for a little while; I imagine it's a lot like the son you know and love, and really want back. I can assure you that's the person inside him that is desperate to get out, but it's incredibly difficult when someone struggles with these issues, none of us wanted to disappoint our parents, to cause chaos or make things difficult. Equally, the pull of the heroin is incredibly strong.

If he was still stealing or going through your things to take money, there would probably still be some physical or mental addiction, but it sounds like from what you're saying he isn't in fact fully addicted yet, just very troubled and trying to deal with the issues both of addiction and the normal issues of being a teenager.

He really needs help and with the right help I think he could get to the point where he can be stable for the most part and start looking at how to deal with these issues. It sounds to me as though he's young enough, and not yet far enough into it, that he could get treatment and really work on those issues that are troubling so much. Sometimes they're the kind it's not so easy to talk to parents about, very troubling and difficult ones, but the kind of problems that tend to work themselves out with proper help and with time.

I've sent you a PM, I'm close friends with a couple of the best addiction specialists in Australia and the UK, and they know many physicians in the US who I hope might be able to help on a more understanding basis (and I'm hoping in a position not to charge or charge nominally for their services)

In my opinion, you are right to think that whatever he's doing, heroin included, he's safer at home than he would be on the streets. Unless he has become directly violent, it is my opinion that he's safer and more secure where you can keep an eye on him. However we difficult children might come across, I'd also tell you that the love of our parents, mothers particularly I think, tend to hold us back from going totally over the edge.

I hope, and think, it can get better and you can treat these problems, I can only say that opioid addiction is one of the easier ones to treat because of the existence of maintenance drugs like Suboxone and buprenorphine. It's much harder if they're using drugs like crystal meth or cocaine, but if using heroin the maintenance treatments that are there are very effective.

Hope it starts to get better, please get in touch if I can help

R