by Donna Dutchess

Created on: May 11, 2008   Last Updated: February 20, 2011

Battled Scared & Triumphant
The Mother of an Addict's Story

It’s no secret that drug abuse among teenagers is an epidemic in this country. I remember in high school we were all forced to sit and watch the nauseating movie about the cocaine addicts whose noses ended up literally rotting off their faces from the drug. But that was 1960. You don't hear about anyone's noses falling off anymore! Could that be because the addict doesn't live long enough for that to happen anymore?

My son was the last person in the world I would ever expect to be an addict. Well, Mother's are the last ones to accept that anyway. If I were to go around and ask friends and family members, I'm sure they would all say that they either knew, or they expected it to happen. How could I have been so blind? What would I have done different, if given the chance?

I'm not here to tell Jason's story. I need to tell you Jason's mother's story.

When Jason was born, he was the baby brother of a 7 year old princess, named Tammy. Beautiful, smart, funny, Tammy could do no wrong in her parent’s eyes. She and Jason became best friends. She was the best big sister any little boy could ever hope for. On Saturday mornings I would get out of bed and find my two children wrapped in each other's arms watching cartoons and laughing. It made my heart sing to see my family so complete.

The only flaw in Jason's early childhood was that he was so different from his father. It was apparent very early that this boy was not going to be a chip off the old block. He didn't want to hunt; he didn't want to play sports. He was his own person, must to his father's dismay. But, that didn't stop us, his parents, from forcing him to participate in soccer, baseball and football. In hindsight, my son was simply not a contact sports person. He spent 9 miserable years trying to excel in sports, and fit in with a team, that he simply was not cut out to do. You can't force a square peg in a round hole. That poor little "square" picked up dozens of bruises over the years from trying to fit in, where he knew he didn't.

When Jason was 9 years old, our lives were literally turned upside down when Tammy was killed in a car accident. He didn't just lose a sister; he lost his very best friend. Over the course of the next ten years, my husband and I and Jason drifted apart as we each struggled to survive the unthinkable. I consider it a great triumph that we managed to keep our family together at all. But in that process,

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