Pubdate: Sun, 02 Mar 2014
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2014 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Kristine Lessard
Note: The writer lives in Ranier, Minn.

THIS ADDICTION DOESN'T FOLLOW ANY RULES

Six months ago, I found my 26-year-old son, Derek, dead in his D.C. 
apartment from a heroin overdose.

Our lives are shattered, our hearts broken.

Derek had big dreams.

He wanted to go to graduate school and teach writing at a university. 
He left behind years of poetry to which we have access, thanks to 
Facebook. It is both comforting and sad to read his poetry.

He never talked much about his writing and, frankly, we didn't pay 
enough attention to it. His works are filled with clever and 
heartfelt references to his upbringing in our remote northern 
Minnesota town. He wrote about childhood toys, playing music with his 
punk band and talking by walkie-talkie to his Canadian girlfriend as 
she stood on a dock on the Canadian side of the Rainy River and he 
stood on our dock on the U.S. side.

After graduating from high school, Derek went to the University of 
Massachusetts at Boston for a year, but he set his sights on 
Georgetown, and he was surprised when his transfer application was 
accepted. It was a struggle for us to cover the bills, but we knew it 
was his dream.

He loved living in the District, and he stayed after he graduated.

His substance abuse started in high school with alcohol and 
marijuana, as is common.

A couple of years ago, he admitted himself to a 30-day inpatient 
rehab in the District. We found the journal he kept during his time there.

It is difficult to read of his struggles, but it is a testament to 
his strength and desire to live a clean and sober life that he was 
able to pick himself up after rehab and begin to turn his life around.

He had no job and no money and lived in a rough neighborhood where 
drugs were available day or night.

He found work, moved to a new neighborhood and was applying to 
graduate schools when he died.

I had rented a house in Alexandria last summer.

On Aug. 13, Derek's employer called to say that he had not reported 
to work for two days. I think I knew immediately that he was dead. He 
would never miss work. He loved his clerical-administrative position 
with a large D.C. law firm. As I rode to his apartment in a taxi that 
awful day, we came up behind a young man jogging across the Key 
Bridge. For a second I was sure it was Derek and that the whole thing 
was a mistake.

Derek was an avid runner, a physically fit drug addict.

That is just one indication of the dichotomy of Derek. When the 
building manager let me into his studio apartment and I saw him lying 
facedown and fully clothed on his bed, I was relieved for a second 
and started to tell him to get up and get to work. But when I touched 
his back it was like touching a board, and it hit me that he was dead.

A syringe was neatly placed on his bedside table.

His apartment was tidy and clean as always.

All his work shirts were ironed and hanging in the closet.

Police, emergency medical technicians and medical examiner staff came 
and went as Derek's brother, his brother's partner and I waited in 
the apartment hallway and an apartment next to Derek's that a kind 
neighbor let us use as we cried and made sad phone calls.

Everyone involved that day was extremely professional, sympathetic 
and sensitive.

The detective gave me his card, and when I called a few days later 
with a question, he got me the answer I needed-even on his day off.

Because the death was unattended, we were required to identify Derek. 
We were expecting the worst, like you see on TV, with my son's body 
lying on a steel table covered by a sheet in a cold room. But thanks 
to a program in place in the D.C. medical examiner's office, it 
wasn't as bad as we anticipated. The program provides for personnel 
from the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing, a grief counseling 
service, to meet with the family in a private room, where the 
counselor gives the family information on dealing with grief, and 
then the family is allowed to identify the love done by a photo.

When we expressed our appreciation for all of this, we were told it 
was a fairly new program that's unique to the District. I'm sure it's 
expensive and complicated to administer, but it's completely worthwhile.

Derek died a few weeks after "Glee" star Cory Monteith's alcohol and 
heroin overdose, and we had discussed Monteith's death with him. Like 
Monteith and many addicts, Derek was a functioning and productive 
person. He lived in a nice apartment and had a college education.

We encouraged our kids to dream big, not to be afraid to move to a 
big city and venture out on their own. Of course, we now wonder if 
that was a mistake.

We are crippled by what-ifs. And Derek, like most addicts, didn't 
start out using heroin.

He started with alcohol, then moved to marijuana, then cocaine.

It's a progression, which is why I am angry about the push to 
legalize marijuana in the District and elsewhere. Legalizing 
marijuana can only facilitate the progression.

I would be happy if I could spare even one family from suffering a 
similar fate. I know most families don't think this could happen to 
them. People think that heroin addicts come from broken families 
(Derek's father and I have been married for more than 30 years) or 
they come from poverty (we are both gainfully employed) or have a 
history of problems with the law (no one in our family has a criminal 
history). But heroin addiction doesn't follow any rules.

Certainly there were bad things coming for Derek had he lived.

It would have gotten worse before it got better, if it ever did get 
better. Most likely he'd have lost his job and his apartment, spent 
his savings, gone to jail, failed again and again at rehab, lost his 
dream of grad school.

AndI know there are parents of addicts who spend every waking moment 
wondering, worrying and checking on their children to see if they are using.

I know there is very little they can do. But I would give or do 
anything for one more chance for Derek.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom