Loss

This is the story of a man's addiction, and his mother's pain.

For the past ten years, following an injury of some kind, a man has been addicted to prescription drugs. This of course is a mother's worst fear, because of how extremely difficult it is to overcome. They battled the disease together, the nights she lay awake in terror, hoping and praying he was safe, he, at times unable to resist the urge to get high, not seeing the pain he caused his mother and sister. 

Recently, the mother had moved out of state, and a few months later he was arrested. After spending two weeks in jail, he made bail, and walked from the jail to a clinic, where he knew of a twisted doctor, who would give him some of the pills he desperately craved. The doctor prescribed him Oxycotten, Zanex, and Soma. He then walked to a nearby hotel, where he injected the medicine in his arms. His mother spent another evening in agony, worrying and praying that he was safe, and would call. By the next morning, when he hadn't called, she sent a friend to find him. She stayed on the phone as he banged on the door, and finally called the police. She was on the phone when they broke down the door, and when they saw him, slumped over the desk, head in his palm, looking out the window, smiling. 

There are no words to describe a mother's love for her baby boy. She and her daughter had gone to the morgue that day to say goodbye to him. She told of his little hands, his dimples, the little hairs on his arm as she held his hand and said goodbye. She was beside herself when she recalled the ice cold skin, how his bones were stuck in the position he was in when he died, hunched over and stiff as a board.

After she retold her story, she broke down, sobbing for her son, simply repeating over and over "I couldn't save my baby."

I am no stranger to addiction, my father is a recovering alcoholic, a family friend recently died of a cocaine overdose, but there is one thing I know; no one can ever understand or even relate to a mother's love, and when a mother loses her baby, there is nothing in the world that can comfort her. My heart aches for this mother, I pray for her, I cry for her, and I wish no other mother ever has to feel that pain. 

If there is one thing I hope you take from this post, it is that your actions affect so many, especially those close. People with this disease can not see this, can't understand that the few moments of being high, that little trip, are incomparable to the reprocussions that come from it. If you are addicted please get help. If you have ever tried any drugs, don't do it again, it isn't worth it. Do it for your mother.