A Life Intertwined
By: Laurie England
It was just our perspective...We took a pill to fix it.
We started with a hug. I tease him about his smooth baldhead and how the red on his chin should be back on his head the way I remembered him to be. We compared his image to the photo on my wall of him just a few years before. We talked quickly to catch up on the news of the day, and then easily switched to the topic at hand. With some it would have been awkward and tentative to talk about growing up in a family who all were consumed in drug and alcohol abuse. But, Cody talked about it with ease and peace. No judgment, just kind recognition. “That is just the way it is, and all did the best they could.”
Cody is a twenty two-year-old male who grow up in a family of five children. He is the second to youngest. His father left when he was very young, leaving his mother to handle the load on her own. When I fist met Cody about 5 years ago, he was an ‘Award of the state’ and every one of his family members were under a different parole officers jurisdiction. As I talk with him today his eye are bright and clear. His understanding of things is honest and forthright. His gratitude for his sobriety and control are evident in all that he does.
Cody I asked, did you ever do prescription drugs? “All the time and lots” was his response. Mom had lots of surgeries. She had breast cancer and then she had heart surgery. There were always pills around and the attitude it seemed to me was “ fix it with a pill.”
“What kind did you take?” I asked him at the first. “Oh - pain killers, muscle relaxers, ADD medication,” he named a few.
“Why did you do that to your self“… (I was so curious to find out.) Well he said, “It was part of life at my house for one and ever one was doing it. It was the social thing to do. “That is what you did when you got together.” And that is what I did with my friends. That is how we hang out.
When I asked him why he did prescription drugs I was surprised at his response. He said that they are really powerful, about ten times more numbing than alcohol and other drugs. You don’t have a hang over afterwards, and they are easy to get. He said that he would steal them from his mom, get them from his drug dealer, from people that had broken their legs or had surgery. “You could totally milk the system. Just go to the doctors and say the right things. “I feel anxieties and depressed” “this dose is not working, I need a higher dose.” Say the things they were waiting to hear. Tell them you need more and more. Act the part. Make it look like you are in more pain than you really are.” His last thought on Doctors was that he guessed they must get paid something for the prescriptions that they write.
When the question come up about why would you abuse something like that he paused and then responded… “Really they are so numbing. I am sure my mom did not want to face the problems around her. And for me it was the same thing, as my life was falling apart around me. It is so much easier to just be numb then to face the music.” It was so hard for me as a 7 or 8 year old! It was my responsibility to watch my mom for days at a time to make sure she was still breathing when she would go on her pill binges that would last for weeks at a time. Sometimes calling 911 when things got too scary. “ It was too hard.…….”
Do you have any advice for parents I asked him as our time together was coming to a close? After some thought he concluded that you should keep your pills under lock and key, watch for a change in friend groups with your kids, and be observant if they start wanting to spend time alone, isolating. And he paused; “our attitude of pills must change. They can’t fix everything... but they do make life so much worse!”
"A life intertwine" Personal/by phone interview. 26 Oct. 2015.
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