I am a strong supporter of The Innocence Project and of Wrongful Conviction awareness, in general. Research-backed estimates place the number of falsely convicted United States citizens to be upwards of 200,000 people. While a significant problem that demands our consistent attention, I did not start a blog to build a case for my son’s innocence. He is not innocent.
He pled guilty because he was guilty of several U.S. criminal laws—
Do not collect $200. Do not pass Go.
We can all sleep better now, right?
No.
What he is guilty of has required an inquest of my soul. After years of tossing and turning at night (and reading and listening and studying), I have concluded that the laws which ushered my son through prison gates are not only unnecessary— they are fundamentally harming the rest of us.
Early in 2017, I knew that my son was careening toward bonafide addiction.
He had moved away from home to his first apartment, and he was working a full-time job. Slowly, his after work hours went from having a good time to something entirely different— inconsistent communication, avoiding family, appearance changes, his apartment in complete disarray. He had that smell. If you have ever loved an addict, you know the one.
Sadly, I was not surprised (nor particularly impressed).
Our family Bibles are chocked full of beautiful people who have been the life of the party. I was, once upon a time, one of them. My son and I were born into genealogies plagued by sins of the father. Written beside their names are the names of many mothers and grandmothers who struggled and enabled and died too young under the weight of their own unhealthy ‘coping.’
My son is far from the first black sheep in his bloodline. Those who aren’t in active addiction have control issues and sharp tongues and other harmful quirks of character.
Like so many American families, the generational trauma and individual cases of stormy mental health date back as far as our oral history goes. I have sat bedside, watching cherished loved ones die for their love of the bottle— and I have had to leave others behind in the quest for my own sobriety and sanity. While I am grateful to be completely sober after a recklessly spent youth, BUT for the grace of God, go I.
Early in my oldest son’s partying, I was pre-occupied with survival: a mom of three teenagers. I told myself that he needed to walk his path— that he would learn and mature; it was out of my hands. This was ‘youth’ and ‘foolishness’ and the ‘freedom’ of fresh adulthood. I blamed the messy apartment on myself (and his grandma) for “cleaning up after him” for too many years. I blamed the school that kicked him out for his wilding. I blamed the bad influences he was hanging around. I blamed his reckless girlfriend. I blamed his dawn-till-dusk work schedule. I figured, yeah, he was drinking a lot— but this is what we “all” did when we were young.
I wasn’t in denial; I was normalizing my own past behaviors.
One afternoon he called to tell me that he needed to talk— right now. He couldn’t come to the house; we had to meet elsewhere.
No stranger to his impulsivity and sudden need of something, I drove to a local coffee shop where he was already parked. He excitedly got into my passenger seat and proceeded to enlighten me of his numerous recent ‘epiphanies.’ We sat there and talked for a long while in a way that we never had. This was adult stuff; he was seeing life differently and he was trusting me enough to share his thoughts.
As mentioned before, I am a therapist. I have worked in community mental health, private practice, and school mental health offices for over 15 years; all of which have exposed me to countless individuals under the influence of all manner of drugs and alcohol. I am a trained professional and I was also, ah hem, featured in a 1990-something yearbook as the female “Class Partier”— a title that was, I assure you, hard won.
So— even though I am no stranger to the effects and outcomes of drug use, it took me about 20 minutes to figure out that my son was absolutely flying. But, this was a high that I did not recognize. There was no tweaking, no sniffles, no jaw movement, no fidgeting, no glazed eyes, no disconnected thought. He made incredible eye contact and laughed appropriately in a meaningful give-and-take conversation. He was bright, deliberate, and connected.
As he talked, I, hilariously, convinced myself that this was weed— some new kind of potent marijuana for which I had no reference. Weed these days ain’t like the schwag we rolled up. Silly mom—
It was actually meth.
Not knowing what he was on, I somehow convinced him to come to my house for “dinner” and then, it all unraveled. His talkativeness became rambling. Nonsense gave way to delusion. By midnight, he was puking and writhing on the bathroom floor. We spent that night— all night— in madness. The balloons, he kept saying, They are everywhere.
Late the next morning, I did what moms (and therapists) do— I tried to get him help. He crashed on my couch, literally. He was sorrowful and melancholy and asking for help. After two days of making calls and fighting insurance companies and putting $25k on credit cards, we got him into a drug treatment program 2,000 miles away. I bought him a plane ticket and took him to the airport (all the while neglecting my own work and other obligations), hoping that this was the answer to the ‘problem.’
It was not.
We would drive him to two other rehabs over the next few years, both of which he also left ‘unsuccessfully.’ One returned him to county jail from whence he had come. Thus began several years of the ping-pong game of help-relapse-help-relapse. I could not begin to total the costs of this season in our lives— it broke all of us.
For those in the “He Did the Crime, Do The Time” Camp, I get it.
He did.
And— if anyone has the right to be fed up, it is me. I have endured more than 10 years of ‘what the hell’ phone calls and sleepless nights. His dad and I, and his grandparents, have given over tens of thousands of dollars to help him— through direct expense and loss of work days and God knows what-all. I have aged 15 years in the last five. Merely writing about the outcomes of his addiction-fueled bs is exhausting— and I understand why some parents simply walk away.
In case there is ever a doubt, in no way do I excuse his behaviors nor a provide him a side-step of adult responsibilities by writing about this journey. But, if you want facts and not feelings: my son is doing the bulk of his state prison time at taxpayer expense for a 1/2 gram of methamphetamine.
It is a felony which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and up to $15,000 in fines.
The Crime
In the middle of a 5-day bender on methamphetamine, my son walked into a local store, put on a $15 pair of shoes, and tried to walk out. He had the money to buy them in his pocket, and he did not need a pair of shoes. Whatever he was doing that day, he has told me, was outside of his conscious control.
Security surrounded him.
He was escorted, high as a kite, to the little back room where the police were called and he was interrogated. He gave the shoes back and then consented to a search. Never one to lie, he told the police that they would find a gun in his pocket— and what do you know— they did. Does it matter that the gun was legally registered to him in another state? No— he was on probation which turned this incident into a felony weapons charge. It also overturned his previously suspended youth offender charges (remember the Facebook debacle?) and revoked his HYTA status.
At the advice of a seasoned attorney, he took a plea deal.
As part of his plea, he was assured that he would receive addiction treatment. The larceny charges, which initiated his arrest, were dropped. The recommendations of his probation agent, the court’s social worker, and the prosecutor were all unanimous: Long-term substance abuse rehabilitation would be the most appropriate course of action in his case. He needed help. The judge overseeing the larceny/weapons case agreed, but the judge from the county where he lived at the time (e.g., where his probation was overseen) did not agree. She (yes, a female) sent him to prison for 2-10 years for a probation violation and a previous meth possession charge. He “only” got 1-5 for the concealed .22.
He was on the van that morning to the state prison intake.
My heartache as a mom is one thing. Meth is the devil and I hate it more than anything else on this Earth. It has stolen my child from himself and from our family. It has cost him a decade of his life. It has forever altered our collective trajectory— and we will feel this season in our bones until our dying breath.
Addiction is, indeed, a family disease.
My frustration as a mom is another thing. There have been times that I felt maybe lock-up was the best option we had to keep him alive. He hasn’t “learned” any other way and rehab “didn’t work.” There have even been moments when I was thankful the entire thing had been taken out of my hands by the law. There was nothing else for me to “do.” I could only watch and wait while the state does whatever the state was going to do and my son responds as my son would.
BUT—
My anger that he is not receiving any help to address the source of his ‘crimes’ is a relevant emotion. No matter how I look at his charges and his current life, I cannot understand how my son’s incarceration is positively impacting society— unless, of course, paying DOC salaries is our top priority.
Frankly, none of us are better off today as a result of him being behind bars. Least of all, him. While you and I are paying $48k a year to keep him in a place that is compounding his emotional and psychological stress— the original source of his ‘criminal’ behavior— he is surrounded by substances and substance use.
Against the “Rehabilitate ‘Em!” smokescreen mission-statement of the DOC, he has been plunged into an environment that only exacerbates traumas and stigmas while fostering greater personal instability. Oddly, the DOC has also tried all manner of substances to keep him calm, subdued, sober, and sleeping— and then they punished him for taking these substances.
After this little experiment is over, he will come home to begin his visible life again, still fighting the urges of addiction while also climbing a wall to overcome the compounding disconnection and shame that comes from years of incarceration.
