And to add another reason not to blog, it's been getting warmer here and my office is upstairs and at 5:30 in the afternoon, when I get home from work, even with the air conditioner on, it's just so friggin hot in my office. Oh, and my hot flashes that like to come and go without notice are back, so that's double the sweaty fun.
But I have to blog today, because I have a story to tell you. It's a bit long, so I'm telling it in
This story took place over the last 2 weeks and it's about my daughter who we're trying to get into treatment for her drug addiction. As you know, the last time didn't go so well.
Two weeks ago, while I'm in the dressing room at the mall with my mom (new post coming about my revised view of "mom jeans" by the way), my ex-husband (a.k.a. dad) calls and says my daughter and her boyfriend (also an addict) showed up at his house and asked to stay and just sleep for a while.
Oh, I'm getting ahead of myself. They were homeless (my daughter and her boyfriend, not my ex). He lost his job because he no-called, no-showed too many times and they wore out their welcome on other addict's couches (because believe it or not, even addicts don't like other addicts sleeping on their couch) and her car which they were living in, had been towed. So they had the clothes on their backs and whatever she could fit in her purse.
So there they were, on my exes front porch. I left the mall and headed over. By the time I got there, police had been called because my ex was trying to hold my daughter there-literally-and the boyfriend didn't like it and started causing a ruckus.
So the cops, her dad, her step-mom, myself, and her brother, all try to convince my daughter that it's time to stop this craziness and get help. We told her boyfriend the same thing. He needed help too and the officers gave him a card with places he could go to get help. Her boyfriend is a dick-head, but he's a dick-head with the disease of addiction and I'm not without compassion for him, even though I'm angry at him because of the way my daughter's life has spiraled downward so fast since she met him.
I watched my exhausted daughter agree with all of us that she needed help and tell us that she would get help only if her boyfriend agreed. I realized then what a sick hold he had on her and how much control she had lost over her life. He was her connection to her drug and so controlled her almost as much as her addiction did.
The cops could see it too. One of the cops took boyfriend outside while the other tried to talk to our daughter with us. We tried to tell her he didn't care about her and if he did, he would let her go get the help she needs. We told my daughter to ask him straight out if he would let her go to rehab and see what his answer was. If he cared, he would let her get off the streets and get help.
So we all traipse outside so she can ask him. She looked him straight in the eyes and she asked in a pleading voice that broke my heart if he would let her go get help. And that little mother-effer said, "You don't need rehab, you can get clean on your own."
Bzzzzzzzzzzz. Wrong answer dick-head. But my daughter didn't see it. She said she needed to talk to him alone.
We couldn't hold her there. The cops couldn't make her go. They couldn't haul boyfriend's sorry ass away because he hadn't committed a crime. Our daughter said she would talk to dick-head and get him to agree to rehab and she'd be ready to go to rehab the next day. She said she just needed to talk to him alone.
And so we had to watch our homeless daughter walk away. With a dick-head.
By now, you've probably figured out how this story ends. Because addicts are a predictable lot, not known for keeping their word.
My daughter had said she'd call us the next day by 10 AM and we could take her to rehab. She called at noon. She was high, talking very fast and angrily. She wasn't going to rehab. She couldn't leave dick-head alone on the streets because people were after him. There was no reasoning with her.
She slipped out of our grasp again.
Do you want to know how a parent sleeps knowing their child is out on the streets, homeless, and entrusting her life to a dick-head? They don't. They worry and they cry and they try to enjoy a thing or two here and there, but they're never truly happy because they hurt for their child and for themselves and for their family and for what is no more.
I truly pray everyday for every addict out there, including dick-head, and for every parent of an addict.
Please come back and read part 2, part 3, and part 4 of my story. It gets better.
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