Raising someone elses kids is a challenge to say the least. It's doubly hard when the kids' parents come in and out of the picture based on how far down the rabbit hole they are in their drug journey. I've shared with you some of the stories coming out of the Opioid crisis and the devastation it has visited on countless families. But this is my story. It's personal and my wife and I were determined that it would end differently.
The road to Avalon leads, it is said, to a beautiful island where King Arthur and other heroes are laid to rest. On the other hand the Road to Perdition leads straight to hell and is lined with the bodies of those whom satan has destroyed. But in the real world a simple wrong turn can lead down the road to a life of misery. Jason and Addi (my wife's stepson and his girlfriend) were two raging Heroin addicts trying to raise two children.
Jason and Addi were good kids who just took a wrong turn. I know that sounds cliched but it's cliched because it happens all the time. Jason grew up in the suburbs, attended one of the biggest high schools in the state and played tennis well enough to play in tournaments. He dropped out of school before his senior year. He later got his GED and began attending college. But falling in with wrong crowd (another cliche) soon manifest itself in drug experimentation and then addiction. He was young and healthy and felt he could handle it. When he met Addi he, of course, shared his addiction with her.
Addi on the other hand, never really had a chance in life. Her mother was an alcoholic and her father a drug addict who used to use his pre-teen daughter to find out what was in other people's medicine cabinets and then would have her steal what she could. When she met Jason she already knew more about drugs than some medical personnel. She knew the effects of Oxycodone and other Opioids. So it wasn't a huge leap for her to begin the use of
Heroin.
It was obvious that if we were gonna help them be the parents they needed to be, we needed a plan that would push them toward sobriety and keep the kids safe. Because they were facing eviction again we told them they and the kids could move in again with us but the ground rules would be stiff. They both needed to get sober and we would drug test them on a regular basis. Also, unbeknownst to them, we secretly attached a GPS tracker to their vehicle. It was accurate in giving the time and place where they bought the dope and the fact that they would show they were shooting up in the Walmart parking lot. Again there was a long story about how they had to take money to a guy they owed it to and how they had stopped at Walmart for baby formula.
Trying Sobriety
But now they were determined to put drugs behind them and they began the gut wrenching process of weaning themselves off of Heroin. Jason would go cold turkey and fight his way through dope sickness - a process that nearly killed him; and Addi would depend on Suboxone to slowly come down.
This period of time was to be the best we saw of them. Addi would help my wife with some chores while Jason was at work. They began to save a little money and Addi relied on some of here relatives to send money. With this sober period under their belt they again were looking to get a place of their own. Jason finally secured a whole house, a split level little bungalow that gave them the most space they had ever had. Where he found people to rent to him without taking background checks or checking references, I'll never know. I'm sure a lot of it had to do with both Jason and Addi putting on the charm and convincing someone to believe how upstanding they were. They both could be very charismatic when they needed to be.
After they moved into the house, Addi showed signs of being a good mother. She cleaned and completely decorated the house for Reese's first birthday party. And she made progress in her counseling sessions. We again would take the kids on the weekends to allow Jason and Addi the opportunity to recharge. It was an encouraging time and we tried to praise them whenever it seemed appropriate.
However, after about eight months there were signs that the other shoe might be ready to drop. When we showed up to pick up the kids one weekend, the house was showing signs of neglect again. Toys and clothes were everywhere, the living room coffee table was covered with several kinds oozing liquids that were now dried and crusty. Addi was in the bathroom and didn't emerge until we were ready to go. Charly told us that, "Mommy was in the bathroom a lot." This of course is a red flag for drug use. She told us she had a real bad sinus infection and how her doctor had told her she might have "a false positive" on a drug test because of the medicine he had prescribed for her." Again we retreated to our house with massive doubts and suspicions, and held Charly and Reese a little tighter.
A couple months later Jason and Addi said they would like to have a meeting with us. We met with them at their house and they ask us if we could "lend" them a couple month's rent because they were in danger of being evicted again. We had lent them money on several occasions so we knew they had no intention of paying this money back. Also with several of my wife's jewelry pieces missing we felt we could not agree to help them again. With the thought of the kids being out on the streets with them, we drove home in complete silence as my wife and I entertained scenarios in our heads as to what the coming weeks would present to us.
Living in a Hotel
We soon learned that they were living in a hotel room. Addi had gotten some money from a relative of her's and they had paid ahead for a month. Visiting them in this one room with the kids together in one bed and the four of them living out of about four garbage bags, was enough to set my jaw. But we offered to take the kids whenever they needed.
A couple of weeks later Jason approached us again with that hang dog look he gets when he knows he's asking again for help. He wanted to know if they could move in with us just for a couple of months so he could get money together for another place for them to live. He said he was sober and he thought Addi was "close to being sober. Due to the fact that we knew if we did this again it would probably be another nightmare, we again considered just saying no. However, the thought of the kids lying around a hotel room in soiled diapers and eating God knows what was too much for us. So we agreed to taking them in...again.
We tested Jason for drugs with a home kit and found him to be clean. Addi tested positive but she said it was for Suboxone which she said she needed to kick the Heroin.
So there they were again in our little spare bedroom with a crib for Reese, a double bed and a little cot for Charly, and a huge TV Jason had bought that was on 24/7 from what we could tell. This period of time became one of the most stressful for Maggie and I. Addi would sleep much of the day and then, we found out later, sneak out at night for reasons that changed all the time. We finally again put a GPS tracker in her car (in a place where they couldn't remove it) and we found she was going to Walmart and the gas station but we also found that she would go to odd places which made little sense. She would go to industrial parks or vacant lots. It became obvious that she was having drugs delivered to her (which she had to pay for) and then make up excuses for why she was in those places -- she was actually at a nearby doughnut shop or the car had a flat tire or she got pulled over for having a tail light out. All plausible but not very likely.
Paradoxically, the kids were thriving during this time. Though Addi would not spend much time with them, when she did they always seemed to engage with her because she was a lot like a child herself. They ate well, slept well and were learning about new things daily. Other than a little Asthma experienced by Reese, both kids seemed to bear no ill effects from whatever may have passed through their systems in the womb. We did not take this particular blessing lightly. We had heard many disturbing stories about kids born with drugs in their system so we were glad that Reese, especially, showed no ill effects of being born addicted to Suboxone.
One day while Maggie and I were picking up clothes and toys from Jason and Addi's room, we discovered a garbage bag under the bed filled with something. Maggie thought it was clothes but I could see it contained things with harder edges. We long ago had learned that respecting their privacy was actually counterproductive, so I immediately dragged the bag out and opened it. What we saw nearly took our breath away. It was filled with personal items that belonged to Maggie and I. From jewelry to family pictures, art supplies to craft items, electronic pieces to small appliances -- it became clear that Addi had been through every square inch of our house, especially the basement where much of our personal stuff was stored. Only a portion of what was there could bring any money from a pawn shop, so it was perplexing as to why she had randomly squirreled away so many diverse items. We considered that it might be possible that Addi just wanted items that said family to her.
When confronted with all this, rather than begin her usual protracted explanation, Addi just simply said "I can't live like this with people going through my stuff and constantly accusing me of something or other." "That's exactly what we were thinking", we said, "maybe it's time for you and Jason to go". The next 24 hours were a whirlwind of frenetic activity as Addi spent all kinds of time on the phone trying to find a place to go and money to get there. The next day while Jason was at work she packed all of their belongings including kids clothes and toys, into garbage bags, strapped the two kids into car seats and sat out on our porch waiting for her ride. Talk about a heart wreck, to see those three sad souls sitting there like they were waiting for the bus and we not even knowing where they were going just literally cracked our hearts in our chest.
Our house was suddenly so quiet after they were gone that Maggie and I could only hold each other and try to make sense of what just happened. I think we both knew we had reached a point where we had no more control of the situation.
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