Our family has been waging war against the enemy, drugs, for 15 years. We are a small family of 3. Our only son, RJ was diagnosed with ADHD at an early age, and was treated with Ritalin. His attention at school was problematic, largely because of his high IQ, and boredom was frequently the cause of trouble.
RJ started smoking pot before high school, and by the time he reached high school, he was mixing with the wrong crowd. This didn't stop him playing football, being high school valedictorian and getting scouted into an Ivy League University. Little did we know the heartbreak that was waiting for us all.
The various problems that cropped up during the University years were always overshadowed with our goal "If only he can graduate college. We just cant let anything get in the way. We can't interrupt his academic progress now. The stakes are too high."
RJ soon felt painfully out of place at Harvard. He took to "using" more and heavier. Being so far from home, the problem escalated, and we were out of touch. If I could have the time over, I would have withdrawn him from school. and brought him back closer home to recover, before doing anything else. Massachusetts is too far from home, and we were out of touch during a very troubled time.
Along the way we tried a variety of therapies. It started with discipline, then taking him to see a Psychiatrist. During his years at Harvard he was treated at the Student health services for a mood disorder, and his use of alcohol with which he was self-medicating. The prescriptions were soon abused.
Needless to say, his Harvard trajectory was punctuated by a couple of periods of withdrawal, both involuntary, as well as voluntary. Obviously the disease of addiction was wreaking collateral damage in ways that we were too far removed on the West Coast to detect. The attendant affects had long since taken their toll on family relationships and communications.
In one of his years of "administrative leave" he attended a Scientology rehab center in Nevada which supposedly had a 93% success rate. After that he returned to Harvard and graduated. All in all, it took him 7 years to complete an undergraduate Arts and Science degree.
In the four years since his graduation in June 2005 he has managed to hold a job for roughly three months at a time. He has tried Narcotics Anonymous, as well as taking Buddhist vows. The longest time he has been sober is 6 months. Today he lives virtually homeless, jobless, without a phone, a car. He is 30 minutes away from two loving parents who are at their wits' end.
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