The first time my son, Zack, died was just after his 18th birthday. The kind, funny, charming young man who never failed to light up a room, died slowly. Though his physical body remained, the person I knew and loved gradually slipped away while being replaced, piece-by-piece, by a burgeoning addict.
It is like watching a terminally ill cancer patient who, despite best medical efforts, cruelly suffers and fades away until they are no more; meanwhile, we as parents are forced to stand by helplessly and witness their heartbreaking decline. I know of nothing more emotionally devastating than watching your child suffer and feeling helpless to fix it.
When we notice the first indicators that we have a child struggling with addiction, it is common to encounter what I have come to refer to as the “hope-to-despair” roller-coaster. As loving parents, we can’t help but be in some disbelief, even a level of denial and (justifiably) an unwillingness to accept the reality of the present situation. We remind ourselves constantly of how they were so good growing up, popular, athletic, happy, fun, etc. It is incredibly hard emotionally and mentally to accept that the once happy and healthy child is now a drug user.
I couldn’t even bring myself to use the word “addict” to refer to Zack. He was simply too good.
Navigating your child’s addiction is difficult, and it is so easy to feel guilty about their situation, but accepting that their addiction is not your fault is paramount. As painful as it can be to realize, you, as a parent, don’t make their decisions for them.
When someone we love is suffering from addiction, it is easy to internalize the problem and self-blame. Don’t fall for that temptation. Of course, we all make mistakes, but the reality is simply this: for myriad reasons that may always be difficult to fully understand, we have a person we care deeply about who is suffering and trying to manage that suffering by self-medicating.
You did not cause their addiction. You cannot control their addiction. You cannot cure their addiction. This situation is not your fault, and wherever you are in this journey, you cannot beat yourself up about it.
Remembering the 3 C’s (cause, control, cure) gave me hope. Hope that one day I will come to believe that I was not the cause of my child’s choice to continue an active addiction, but I could be a support if they chose to stop. I was not responsible for fixing every poor outcome, but I could help them when they wanted to choose differently.
Allow me to remind you that you have loved your child more than life itself since the day they came into your world. Forgive yourself for your past mistakes, stop blaming yourself and find the support you need to get through this.
The last time Zack died was July 15, 2022, just three Fridays past his 26th birthday. When the medical examiner’s report came back many months later, they found that his deteriorated physical state, coupled with the effects of the drug he ingested, had caused his heart to fail. Though he had used the same drug in approximately the same quantity as before, his prolonged use of substances had over time enlarged his heart, causing it to become weaker.
In the saddest of ironies, the young man who was well known for having the biggest heart of anyone I knew, died in part from having an enlarged heart.
I know what it is like to love a child who is suffering from addiction. I know what it is like to ride the hope-to-despair roller-coaster, to feel lost and alone. But you are not alone. Many of us have walked this difficult road, and no addict or family member of an addict is an island.
And there is hope on the other side of immense loss.
Stephen L. Randell is the Calgary-based author of My Child is an Addict: Navigating Through Your Child’s Addiction. He can be reached at stephenlrandell.com.