I’ll get him out of this, even if I have to fall on my face

Behind the doors of many Slovak homes, unimaginable human tragedies caused by drug addiction of one family member unfold. By the time the people closest to him realize they face a serious problem, some time has already passed. When the situation gradually escalates and becomes unbearable, when problems begin to pile up and affect a growing number of people, then the wider environment learns of the problem too, because the signals that leak out are impossible to miss. What impartial observers can see is only a fraction of the real suffering the entire family is going through.

Today's mass media, whether electronic or print, occasionally present the life story of a drug addict, told in the first person. We would like to offer our readers a look at the problem of addiction from the other side. Or rather: we offer the story of a woman—the mother of an addict. This is a personal testimony from a loving mother of an only son whose life was destroyed by drugs. We will try to paint a picture of a strong woman who has lived through her own hell. The hell of struggling to help a single child whose life was collapsing in front of her eyes, the hell of superhuman effort and sacrifice, the hell of personal falls and failures, sleepless and tearful nights, feelings of despair and helplessness.
For understandable reasons, we assigned pseudonyms to both main protagonists of our true story. The mother will be called Maria in this article and her son we will call Simon.

When I first approached Maria with a request for an interview for Prohuman, she thought deeply. From her facial expression, I could not tell whether she would answer yes or no. A brief moment of mutual silence was interrupted by several practical questions, and then she agreed without hesitation. She said that if someone reads it and it helps at least one family that is currently going through suffering similar to what she and her family endured, then the article will have meaning.

Maria is a petite, energetic woman in her sixties who looks very good for her age. The youthfulness and charm she radiates are a natural part of her personality. Without makeup or special care for skin and body, she is a naturally beautiful woman. During our whole meeting she was relaxed, sincere, and friendly. She immediately impressed me with her sense of humor, and we laughed heartily together many times. When she begins talking about Simon, she grows serious, but not downcast. She weighs every word carefully. She respects the dictaphone and lets herself be guided by my questions.

What was Simon like as a child?
When Simon was little, he was attentive to what he was told. There were no problems with him. He learned well, but later he became a little slow. In school, mathematics was his strongest subject. Since childhood he had a hobby of repairing engines and cars. He was always fixing something. In addition, he loved computers. He dreamed of studying and working with computers. He enjoyed that a lot.
Problems began only in the eighth grade of primary school. Then he relapsed. He had a friend who tempted him into toluene. I did not know what was happening. At home, he kept dozing off. I took him to a doctor to examine him and find out why Simon was always sleeping. The doctor prescribed medication and sent us home.
My husband insisted Simon learn a trade as a bricklayer. He wanted him to have a proper craft in his hands. But Simon did not want that. He would have preferred to train as a mechanic. He said bricklaying did not interest him and he did not know whether he could stand it. So we sent him there anyway, and he did not complete it. He lasted only one year. At that time he was already smoking marijuana. He seemed slowed down, tired, and kept dozing off. I did not like that, but I never thought what might be behind it. At that time we knew nothing about marijuana. It was in 1997, and Simon was sixteen. But the problems were not yet there. My husband and I were employed and Simon helped around the home. He listened, tidied up, kept an eye on everything at home while we were at work... In those days, things were still okay.
When he was eighteen, his cousin Tibor (the name was changed – author’s note) invited him over for the summer holidays to visit his parents. Since they were relatives of ours, we allowed it. But that was a fateful mistake. It was his own cousin who gave Simon heroin by injection for the first time. And then it kept going...

After the first intravenous use of the drug, Simon did not sleep for three days. His parents still had no idea what the problem was. Maria was restless, and the change in Simon’s behavior troubled her. When at Christmas Tibor came, together with friends, to fetch Simon and wanted to take him out for fun, Maria let him go.

At the gathering, his friends injected him again and “cleaned him out.” They also took the new sweater that I had bought him only shortly before. He came home only the next day. That is when I realized we had a serious problem. Simon started becoming aggressive. He was no longer my boy.
How did you find out Simon was using drugs?
After returning from the Christmas gathering, he confessed on his own. He told me he wanted to stop, but that he couldn’t, that it is hard, and that he didn’t know what he would do.

On the advice of the local Catholic priest, Maria and Simon began attending the colloquiums in Piešťany. The goal of the pre-entry interviews was to prepare applicants from all over Slovakia for admission into a community that is part of an international Christian network. Simon began preparing for the trip to Medžugoria, where he was to undergo detox treatment in a protected environment. In the meantime, he registered in the district city for treatment at a center for drug dependence.

I could see he wanted treatment and needed someone to help him. I felt it was me. In Piešťany, I was with him three times.

After participating in five colloquia, Simon was to travel to the community in Medžugoria. Maria openly admits where it all fell apart then.

I had no time for further trips to Piešťany. I had to go to work and my husband did not help me. We started arguing. It was bad. We needed money. I had to earn.

If Simon had traveled to the community in Medžugoria, Maria would have had to spend the first month there with him. It was a dilemma her and her husband could not solve. Both were employed and they could not agree on any compromise. Conflict in the family escalated.

The boy began using heavily. He injected heroin, smoked amphetamine, and marijuana. He could not handle outpatient psychiatric care; he lacked the willpower to keep it up.

How was drug use reflected in his health and behavior?
He was aggressive, cursed vulgarly, and got into fights. He was irritable, touchy, rude, and said to me things I had never seen him say before. It was unbearable. It was terrible. His pupils were dilated and overall his eyes looked larger and sunken. Whenever he sat or lay down, I could see how terribly his toes shook. When he used drugs, he trembled all over.

Simon was tired, weak, ate poorly, and lost weight. He would run away from home to the district town. He returned home drugged late in the evening or at night.

When he came home, he usually slept. I could not say anything to him, I could not push him, because he became immediately aggressive, swore terribly, and shouted at me. I could not ask anything of him or expect anything. Even when he promised he would help or do something, he did not follow through. He threatened to hang himself.

Maria’s husband tried to deal with the situation in a “manly” way—with physical force. The father’s blows led to states in which Simon threatened his mother with suicide. Maria suffered because she did not know how to help her son and at the same time tried to keep the relationship between Simon and his father at a bearable level. She functioned as a buffer between the two men. Family relationships were shaken to their core, and pathological interpersonal communication deepened the crisis further. Then came another blow: Simon was diagnosed with toxic psychosis. This is a psychotic disorder induced by drug use. The content of toxic psychosis is very similar to schizophrenia. It appears after drug use, and after the drugs are discontinued, it usually fades after a few days. However, there is a serious risk that the psychiatric disorder may persist even after complete cessation of use. A person suffering from this psychiatric illness is often dangerous to both himself and those around him. Maria recalls psychotic episodes after Simon’s intoxication:

At home, everything metal bothered him. Spoons, forks, everything made of metal, he threw into the trash. Even plates. When I came home from work, I was rescuing our household from a container. Simon felt he would have peace only when nothing metal remained in the house. He collected scrap metal and paper from the street and brought everything home to the container.

Simon suffered from anxiety and persecutory feelings. He had auditory and visual hallucinations, was relationally difficult, and experienced abnormal emotions. The flight of thoughts he experienced severely complicated communication with him. Maria recalls how Simon constantly spoke very fast and in a fragmented way, and she could not grasp his train of thought. She also remembers whole nights she could not sleep, because she listened to nocturnal sounds and kept watch, afraid of what Simon might do in a state of delirium. She feared he might hurt himself, especially after one night when he had built a huge cross in the yard from glass window frames that had been stacked there.

I pleaded with Simon not to use drugs. I tried to help him as best as I could. In the house, money and belongings began to disappear because Simon was selling them to have money to buy heroin.

At first, Maria could not admit that her own son was stealing from her, to whom she was willing to give everything out of good intentions. Like any good mother, she wanted her boy not to suffer from deprivation, to be happy and content. She managed it all until everything collapsed due to drugs. In panic and fear, she suddenly realized that she had to lock up valuables and money before Simon. Despite that, she kept a clear head and dealt with the problems rationally. She was alert and tried to keep a sense of order in the situation. She defused her husband’s anger toward Simon and put out the fires of family arguments and shouting. Today, with a smile she still says that even now, years later, she has a kind of “tic” in her subconscious: a tendency to hide money in her bra.

Simon’s serious drug problems began in 1999, when he was eighteen. What did you all go through in those not quite 15 years?
Simon underwent inpatient treatment three times, and in addition completed outpatient psychiatric treatment. Nothing helped because his will was weak and he never stayed abstinent for long. When he returned home from treatment, he was fine. But after two or three weeks, either he found his friends who supplied him, or they found him. It was cruel. I was desperate. Every time he injected, symptoms of toxic psychosis appeared. It kept getting worse. His mental state was so disturbed that he did not know what to do with himself or what was happening to him. He was totally done... He was collecting stones in the streets and yard and saying they breathed. I could not bear to look at it. It hurt terribly. I called emergency services and police to take him for treatment. After that he refused treatment.

Maria arranged for Simon’s stay in a co-ed therapeutic community with a long-term resocialization program, a highly structured routine, and differentiated control according to the phases of the resocialization program. Soon after entering the community, Simon ran away.

I did not know what to do. In the end I filed a petition with the court to deprive him of legal capacity, and became Simon’s guardian. That enabled me to reach our current situation. I found Simon a new doctor and am very satisfied because he prescribed the right medication, which helps him. Simon has even started doing some things. He mows the grass, washes the floor. This week I got him to paint his room. I am happy about that. Slowly, gradually, I am guiding him to do things, so at least his body has some movement and he keeps a regular routine.

The fact that Maria was deprived of her son’s legal capacity did something to him. According to her, he sobered up then, and the buried remains of his rationality lit up in his mind like a warning red light. Maria openly told Simon she did this because she can no longer cope with him and this is the only possible solution to save his life. Simon felt humiliated and ashamed by his mother’s step, but he processed his feelings in a healthy way. Maybe also because she promised him that if he gets medically stable, puts his life in order, and becomes capable of taking care of himself, she would return his legal capacity. Simon held firmly to her promise and started abstaining. He agreed to outpatient treatment with a new doctor he trusts and respects. Maria is currently waiting for a court ruling that will order several months of inpatient treatment.

If I had not taken that decisive step of depriving Simon of legal capacity, he might be dead by now; that was how bad things were. I truly reached a point where he could not have lasted long. I also achieved this: he now goes obediently with me to the doctor. Otherwise I could not have gotten him anywhere. At home he takes his tablet and is fine. He still sleeps for most of the day, but I’m happy he is not running around outside and does not have access to drugs.

Simon has been without legal capacity for a year, and for just as long Maria has been waiting for a court decision about the ordered inpatient treatment. She states with frustration in her voice that court proceedings are prolonged.

It’s taking far too long! The courts are not doing what they should. There are many chronic alcoholics and addicts who need treatment urgently. But a person like this will not voluntarily enter an institution! Their relatives suffer because they want to get them treated but cannot, because in court the files are studied for an incredibly long time and decisions are issued too late. It is very lengthy, sometimes taking two years.

Years ago, when Simon repeatedly relapsed, his father-in-law? no, "father of his friend, also an addict" of his friend, chose a rather drastic treatment method. Maria says plainly:

His father chained him to a radiator and flogged him. He brought him food and didn’t let him go anywhere until he got his act together. It worked. He got married and has two children—he’s fine now. He was Simon’s best friend.

I realize it is very painful for Maria that her only 32-year-old son is not doing equally well. She is pained by the awareness that Simon is still not definitively out of it, that he still has the threat of another relapse hanging over him. When she talks about Simon’s friend, I can feel she would be happy if she could say the same about her son. But she is a strong woman. Her heart hurts and she says one thing, but reason governs: reality is what it is. You have to believe it will be okay. There is no place for pity or self-pity; it helps nothing. And especially not for Simon. You have to move forward, along the path that has been laid out. Maybe slowly, one step at a time, but the goal is within reach. Hold on.

Simon was in prison for eighteen months. What happened?
We stopped financially supporting him, because all his money was going to drugs. So he started stealing. If anyone thinks prison makes such a person better, they are wrong. He did receive special psychiatric care there and was abstinent for the first months, but as soon as he left prison he started using again immediately. Boys like this, once free, find their source very quickly. And even if not, the dealers find them themselves. When Simon was released, he was abstinent for only one week. He ran around the kitchen by the table, circling it even a hundred times, did not know what to do with his hands and legs—that was the withdrawal.

Simon got hold of “magorák” in prison, which the inmates brewed there. Magorák is a very strong black tea of questionable taste. To intensify its effect, it is not brewed in the usual way but boiled, and strong opioid nephrotoxic analgesics, acylpyrin, and tobacco are added. It creates a state similar to intoxication, suppression, and disorientation. Because of its high concentration, it is harmful to the stomach (it can cause ulcers) and to the heart (it provokes tachycardia). In a person with high blood pressure, it can cause collapse.

Did you look back on Simon’s life and try to find where the mistake was made, and why he started using drugs?
At first, I looked for the fault in myself, then in my husband. We argued about it many times. We told each other that it was our fault, that we should have watched him more closely. But now I think it could not have been prevented to that extent. I would have had to keep him locked in the house all the time. But that is not possible! A boy also needs to go outside, among people... I had a very good relationship with Simon. Maybe the mistake was that I married for a second time when he was eight. Maybe I should have stayed single, because Simon rejected my husband. He did not want him. He never formed a good relationship with him; he only wanted me.

Maria sincerely regrets that after the wedding she did not try harder to help little Simon build a better, closer relationship with his new father. She says she should have pressed her husband more and motivated him to be more welcoming and communicative toward Simon in the beginning. Both she and her husband were busy with work, often traveling, sometimes dozens of kilometers from home. There was very little time and opportunity to build a close father-son bond. Maria realizes this deficit of closer connection is still taking its toll today, and at the same time notes that both men are so fixed in their stereotypes that it cannot be changed now. I feel that in this family Maria is the only one who realizes this, that is, the only one willing to speak about it openly. From the context, I infer that Simon and his father have long since given up in this regard and have unconsciously found neutral ground for non-conflictual personal clashes.

Simon never lacked anything. My husband and I gave him everything he needed. He had food, he had clothing. I bought him clothes, and I could also sew for him. He had more toys than anyone else. We bought him a bicycle, later we paid for his driving license and bought him a motorbike. Whatever he wanted, he had it. I also gave him money when he needed it.
What was the hardest thing for you during the period when Simon was using drugs?
It hurt terribly when I had to look at him and see how much he had lost in weight. Even his face. That was horrible. Also that he had such weak willpower and could not stop. It was terrible, too, that I was ashamed of my own son because he was a junkie. It could no longer be concealed; everyone around us knew. This troubled me deeply, because he is my only son. My husband has a firm temperament; he may not have perceived it as intensely as I did, perhaps also because Simon is not his biological son. The hardest part was also that when Simon was high, my husband was angry with him, because he hates drugs and has little patience with Simon, unlike me. It was very bad. Simon was often beaten by his father... But when he was under the influence, he felt no pain. Not right away, only the next day. Then even my husband regretted it and realized he should not have beaten him. But he is quick-tempered. I do not accept fighting. When I saw Simon being beaten, I pulled them apart. I told my husband: “Back off from him, because I will leave you and I do not want anything more with you. You will achieve nothing with beating! Simon needs calm handling. You have to deal with him calmly.” I did not want another pointless scene. It made no sense to provoke him or argue with him. When he was under the influence, nothing could be accomplished with him. Not by beating or shouting.
My husband and I argued so much that I was determined to leave him and divorce. I went through it very hard. I thought I would have a heart attack. I felt I could not take it anymore. I was at rock bottom and told myself that either I would do something to myself or I had to start acting decisively. And then I decided to take the step of removing his legal capacity. I told myself: I’ll get him out of this, even if I have to fall on my face. I moved quickly to make it happen, and fortunately I managed to do so.

Maria admits that at one point she was so desperate that she might even have been capable of doing to Simon the same thing his friend’s father did to his son.

I said to my husband: “Chain him in a room with a chain and seal the window. He’ll be like in prison. If needed, we’ll put bars there too. I’ll bring him food and drinks. He can survive a month and get through the crisis.” But my husband did not want that. He refused to give me a chain... I was so desperate that I was willing to tie Simon up with a chain like a dog and let him sit there for weeks.
I believe, Maria, that you have survived the worst. What troubles you most now, and what gives you comfort?
Maria sadly notes that deficits in cognitive efficiency and social skills, which emerged with addiction and toxic psychosis, still persist in Simon even while he is abstinent.

Simon was a very intelligent boy. He still enjoys history and philosophy. He really likes reading books—that is his main hobby. He writes poetry and short stories. Before, he wrote terrible things, but now that he is abstinent, he writes beautifully. My son is intelligent. But he lost seventeen years of life. He could have gone far, because he has the ability for it. He did not finish school, he did not complete bricklaying training, but he could have gone to another school. He would have done it and would be doing well today, because he is not stupid. He has a sharp mind.
He is now in fairly good shape. His health is not one hundred percent, but I consider these seventy percent a success. His behavior is also better. I am glad he is not going anywhere and is taking nothing. It also pleases me that his relationship with me has not changed, that he is still drawn to me—if he has a problem or needs something, he comes to me. When he took drugs, he sought solitude. He locked himself in his room and could not stand anyone near him. Not even me. He lay down and slept with his eyes open. Yet unfortunately that stayed with him even now, now that he is clean. Ah, that loneliness! He wants to be alone and mostly in the dark. He used to have friends, he could socialize, he was cheerful, and now he is alone and just alone... He still has those toe tremors. They do not shake as much as when he used drugs, but I still notice them.
I am very afraid that if he does not find a girl who loves him and takes care of him, things will go very badly for him. Because when I die, it will be the end for him; no one will help him. People are cruel, and he needs to regain his judgment so he can lead his own dignified life.
Right now I am happy that Simon is not going anywhere, that he is at home, in peace. He is putting his life in order, has gained weight, and I would be very glad if he were fully healthy so he could find someone. Then I will finally be at peace.
What would you advise families that have similar problems with a relative, as you did with Simon?
I would certainly advise them to be patient. To deal with such a person calmly and without unnecessary negative emotions. Patience, self-restraint, and love. And when the situation becomes unmanageable, I recommend turning to the court, removing legal capacity, and getting him treated. It is very important to find a good doctor. We went through an enormous number of doctors until we ended up with the one who now cares for Simon and whom Simon trusts and respects. You need a doctor who feels connected with the patient, is willing to talk with him, and gives him time. Before, we sat in waiting rooms all day, and when we finally got to the office, after five minutes we were already out. I like the current doctor, and I am very satisfied with him. Simon responds to the medication and is now fine.

Simon is currently enrolled in a Suboxone substitution treatment program and takes antipsychotics. Depending on how well the treatment works, he will later enter inpatient treatment, or continue with outpatient therapy. Despite years of turbulence, Maria managed to keep the family together.

Acknowledgment

I thank Maria for being so willing to meet me and open not only the doors of her home but also her heart. I appreciate her honesty and candor, which affected me deeply. I admire her raw humanity, which showed in her courage to openly acknowledge her own mistakes and failures. The strength of the human spirit lies in the ability to rebound from one’s own lowest point and to carry on one’s life with dignity without unnecessary grand words. That strength is embodied for me in Maria. Thank you for letting me be, even briefly, part of her time and space.

Author: Mgr. Lenka Jalilah Hrušková

The article was authorized. Maria did not change anything in it.