Great New WordPress Blog

Unable to sleep tonight, I started searching random keywords on WordPress just for something to do, and ran across a blog which blew me away so much that I had to do a “Press This” about it.

The Opiate Fields is written by a mother who is much like me.  Her son is the same age as my son, is also in a rock band, and lost his father as a young teen.  However, that’s where the comparisons end, because her experiences with her son are very, very different from mine.

Reading about what she has gone through (and continues to go through) every single day definitely brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “there but for the grace of God go I”.

Her description in the side column is

My son’s life was never supposed to end up this way, with a needle in his arm and opiates running viciously through his veins.

My life was never supposed to end up this way, fearing that each and every moment will be the one when I am told that my only child is dead.

We are both living in a special place in hell, which I like to call “The Opiate Fields”.

It only gets better from there, and I definitely recommend it as a must-read blog.  Honestly, I’m still in awe, because I would never be able to write about something that painful, and cannot even imagine living it.

Here’s an excerpt:

I put him in rehab repeatedly even before he was out of high school, trying to stop his downward spiral. When one program didn’t work, I’d try another. I spent literally every cent I had, including the insurance money I received when my husband died, trying to get my son off drugs. I tried being tough, and I tried being understanding. I even went into therapy myself, thinking perhaps it was somehow my fault, and that I was the one who needed to change. Nothing I did, and nothing the doctors did, made a damn bit of difference. He was hell-bent on self-destruction.

By the time he was 16, a doctor proclaimed that my son was a lost cause. I refused to believe that. I still refuse to believe that.

I’m glad to see she never gave up on her son no matter what anyone said.  It’s sad that she blamed it on herself, though.  Drug addiction of that extreme type and extent is caused by a dysfunction of the brain, not by mothers.  Her son may very well be suffering from an underlying mental illness which has gone undiagnosed as well, but she hasn’t said enough about his behavior yet for me to even make a guess about what it might be.  It could be a lot of things.

Take a few tissues when you read it, though.  It’s just unbelievable to read what that poor mom has gone through, not only with her son, but one of her son’s friends.  Un-fricking-believable.  In fact, I wouldn’t believe it, except that I actually know some young musicians who use drugs and act just like them, and they have tried similar stunts with me.  Needless to say, they didn’t get away with it here, LOL, but she seems like a super nice lady who was just more than a little naive and wanted to think the best of the kids, and as a result has been victimized over and over again by these young predatory drug addicts.

I’m glad to see she finally woke up to their tricks, though.  Some people never do, sadly.