Stay Close: A Mother’s Story

I became head of their school when Jeff and my other son, Jeremy, were in fourth and second grades. We’d get ready for school each morning, have breakfast and pile into the car to travel to school. These were the days when they were young and I could love them as openly as I wanted. Which I did.

In middle school, Jeff was always a good student, making the honor roll and director’s list with averages of 3.0 or above. His writing was strong, he led class discussions with ease, and his homework was always completed well and on time. Chores like mowing the

In ninth grade, he was sent home early from a camping trip because he was caught smoking again. That Thanksgiving, while still on restriction for the smoking incident, he stole two cartons of cigarettes from his grandfather’s grocery store. When caught, he wept with remorse. As it turns out, while we were concerned about cigarettes, Jeff was already smoking pot, drinking alcohol, and watching pornography with his older friends. In his 10th grade year, a senior girl came to me tearfully and said that Jeff was asking other kids to buy drugs and alcohol for him. She was worried. When I con

lawn and raking leaves were done willingly and usually without being asked. Jeff played sports and made friends easily.

But there were a lot of red flags, as psychologists call them, starting small and growing in intensity, like the smoke that warns of the approaching forest fire. Jeff was in fifth grade when he was caught smoking on school grounds. In the summer between eighth and ninth grade, he was arrested (for the first time) with some friends for stealing cigarettes. In both cases, Jeff was apologetic. We wanted to believe that our kid was a good kid so we didn’t see the problems coming — the skilled manipulation, the dubious friends, and the premeditated theft.

fronted Jeff, he listened and told me all that he wanted me to know, to ease my worries. Then he said. “I’m OK, Mom. I’m not in any trouble. Trust me.”

How many times as parents do we hear those words, “Trust me”? I wanted to trust. Sometimes it’s easier to not question too deeply.

Things deteriorated quickly after that. Jeff never hesitated to lie to or manipulate us. He was bound and determined to do what he wanted. In 11th grade, he’d spend his entire school week laying careful plans for the weekends, telling us that he was going to a friend’s home for an overnight stay, or that he was camping in the field near our home, or a collage of other inventions. These were all ruses that allowed him to attend rave parties in a city where drugs were rampant. Only years later did we learn the truth.

After his second arrest, this time for drug possession, we began the long, difficult, painful journey toward recovery — with setbacks at every stage. I started going to Al-Anon meetings and taking Jeff to counselors and medical doctors, hoping to stop the problems. Jeff participated in an Outward Bound program and returned lucid, happy, and drug free. But it wouldn’t last. In fact, things would get much worse before they would get better.

The recovery centers, the psychologists, Jeff’s arrests, and all his many interventions must have made a difference, but I don’t know how much of one. Jeff was in rehab programs, jails, and institutions of many kinds. He lived on the streets and the beach. He stole, had things stolen, and, ultimately, he pawned almost everything he owned. He lost friends and destroyed his veins. At times, my articulate, ambitious son could hardly put two words together. I banished him from the house. I threatened, cajoled, pleaded, wept, wrung my hands. I punished, screamed, fought, ached, had nightmares, stuffed my emotions into my belly and suffered in silence. His father and I followed the advice of experts and friends and even people who knew nothing. We wrote intervention letters, paid for psychologists, recovery centers, and medicines. His father, brother, and I were like a starving family, ready to latch onto anything that might alleviate our pain and Jeff’s hunger for drugs. I would have sold my soul for his recovery, made a bargain with the Devil himself — but all this was to no avail.

Addicts live a tortured existence. Jeff has told me that he was filled with shame, regret, self-blame, and self-loathing. He says that addicts, even those who can’t mouth these words, hate themselves for what they are doing, despise the destruction they are causing, but they can’t imagine a life without drugs. About the final days of Jeff’s last descent, when he was shooting heroin into his neck and groin, he wrote, “I chalked death up to an unfor-

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tunate repercussion, not a deterrent. I couldn’t imagine my life without drugs in it. I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t want to stop using either. They say that addicts aren’t afraid to die, they’re afraid to live without drugs.”

Exhausted, I took a three-month sabbatical and moved to Italy for three months. This is where I learned another way to confront addiction. The director of a recovery community named San Patrignano — and a recovering alcoholic himself — struggled with his English as he steadfastly tried to help me understand the concept behind these two words: “stagli vicino”

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stay close to him. He repeated these words over and over again as he drove the point home to me, as if pounding it into my head, that Jeff needed to know that he was loved even when he was unlovable and especially when he was at his sickest. He pleaded with me to stagli vicino, to stay close to Jeff and give him love, compassion, and support, but no money. He explained, “Stay close to him. Your son is alive under the drugs. Don’t abandon him.”

Stagli vicino became my road map. In the end, Jeff put himself into rehab

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he chose, for himself. He surrendered to his addiction. Today he is alive and productive.

If Jeff were alone in his addictions, this would be the end of the story. But he’s not alone. There are many young people, and their families, hurt deeply by addiction. At one of my son’s first rehab centers, a place in Maryland called Father Martin’s Ashley, the counselors told me that for every addict at least four other people are affected. It is time to bring addiction out of the shadows and into a place of healing. There is great shame associated with this illness, I know. However, I also know that, when I was young, there were many topics we didn’t talk about — like breast cancer or abortion or homosexuality. Today, we talk openly about these things. We name the issues and try to face them.

Independent Schools and Addictions

In 2009, I published Stay Close: A Mother’s Story of Her Son’s Addiction, with the support and help of Jeff and my family. One of my former students, who is now a Ph.D. in business management, read our book and wrote to me: “I began independent schools in the fourth grade. I started drinking at 12 and doing light drugs at 13, heavier drugs after that. I came to school and the teachers looked right at me, taught me chemistry, and said nothing. How is that possible? I needed help. I know there were other kids using when I was there. I also know that it’s still happening in many schools. My question: Is there a way to reach out to schools and other students to provide support to those who are starting to experiment with alcohol and drugs or using for an outlet or a way to cope?”

I know that we care deeply for our students and that their education is our primary concern. I know that we advertise our schools as safe environments, often with a “no tolerance” policy for alcohol and drugs. However, I also know that independent schools are microcosms of life and that we deal with issues involving alcohol, drugs (including prescription drugs), eating disorders, self-injurious behavior, gambling, and sex.

So, I offer some things for us to think about:

Addiction doesn’t discriminate: I never thought that my son could be an addict. As head of school, I had dedicated my life to children and their education. I gave other parents advice about what might be best for their children. My husband owned a company and Jeff attended my school. How could this hell be happening to us? I learned, all too well, that addiction doesn’t discriminate. It happens to the rich and the educated as well as to the poor and the uneducated. It happens in our schools.

Parents often live in delusion: I lived in delusion and was quick to think of Jeff’s early problems with alcohol and marijuana as normal adolescent experimentation. I also wanted to believe that all would be well. When I questioned Jeff, he told me that my concerns were unfounded, “Trust me, Mom. I’m OK.” We want to believe the people we love; I wanted to believe. In addition, if I didn’t believe, then I needed to do something. What to do? Society gives us no rules for dealing with addiction.

Early intervention could help: Teachers see behaviors that raise questions and we hear about problems from many sources. What do we do with this information? Recently, a mom explained, “Ella, my second daughter, told me that, six months ago, she went to a teacher voicing her concerns about my older daughter and her drinking. The teacher never said anything to me or reported the concern. It wasn’t until my older daughter was arrested for driving under the influence that I found out. Why didn’t the teacher tell me or tell the guidance counselor? I trusted the school and I felt betrayed.”

Educate students, teachers, and parents: Many schools offer minimal drug and alcohol education to students. Jeremy, my younger son, said, “What I learned about drugs on the street was 300 percent more than I learned in school, and none of it was good.” I realize that often teachers feel the constraints of time needed to teach curriculum, but what is our responsibility to teach life skills? We want our students to attend college and we know that they could, and probably will, be faced with drugs and alcohol — and will have to make choices. Who is guiding those choices?

Can schools stay close?: A quick and easy response to alcohol and drug use is expulsion. Do we feel that if we eliminate the child that we eliminate the problem? When we expel or suspend a student for drug use, what do we think will happen next? A casual user of alcohol or drugs may understand that messing with drugs and alcohol will hurt his or her chances at a good college and good life. But what about the addict? And can we tell the difference between a casual user and an addict? I

Summer 2010

wonder if we might stay close and send out a message of support and care? If the student needs intervention and he or she gets help, might we give families a lifeline back to our community? There is an emerging and compelling body of research that addiction is an illness much like diabetes or depression. How can we allow the child to feel the consequences of his or her choices, but stay close through the process?

AA and Al-Anon work. AA is based on the Big Book, a guide to help alcoholics find sobriety. Al-Anon is for family members whose loved ones are addicts and alcoholics. I know of one school where students who have problems hold AA meetings during their lunch hour. They form a community of support. They understand the issues.

Shame, secrets, stigma, silence: Addictions are based in shame and families feel guilt, regret, confusion, and anger. Silence allows the addict to keep the silence, thereby keeping the addiction. Families keep the silence because addiction is a stigma and society often considers addiction a moral failure and not disease. Only by bringing addiction out of the shadows and into the teachers also need the support of a point person to whom they can talk about concerns. This might be a guidance counselor who is trained to deal compassionately with all the issues related to drug and alcohol addiction.

Indian Creek School (Maryland) has a model for dealing with drug and alcohol issues that I think is enlightened. Anne Chambers, head of school, explains the process this way:

1. A student comes to the dean of students or guidance counselor and explains that he or she has a problem or that he or she is worried about a friend.

2. We spend some time talking with the student or the friend to discern the

level of involvement.

1. We tell the student that this is a health issue and parents need to know. We are clear: We do not want to expel the student, but we are trying to help him or her address the problem.

2. We plan with the student what we will say together to the parents.

3. We bring the parents in with the student — say his name is Jeff — and begin the conference by saying, “We asked you to come in today because Jeff has told us that he is having a problem. Jeff, why don’t you tell your parents what’s going on.” If Jeff is able to express his needs, great; if not, we take the lead.

4. Parents react — some well, some not so well. If they go over the top, we intervene, “I know you’re upset, but this is a problem that needs to be solved and being angry won’t solve it.”

5. We explain that we want to keep Jeff as a student and that we see this as a health issue. In order for Jeff to be healthy, he needs to be evaluated by an addiction specialist. We explain that we will work with Jeff, the parents, and the addiction specialist to do what is best for Jeff.

6. We follow up. As a condition for him to stay in school, we expect permission to be given for us to talk with the therapist/addiction specialist or rehab facility and for there to be freedom for full disclosure.

7. If the student needs to spend significant time in treatment, we work with his teachers to adjust his academic load, but also work out what courses he would need take in order to graduate on time.

Anne Chambers says that this model works, “When the parents are approached and we are clear that we care about the student, they will do whatever is necessary to get their child on the right track. We have used this system probably twice a year and we’ve lost only two kids.”

Dr. MacAfee, my son’s addiction therapist, says that this is a powerful model and is used in other schools throughout the nation. “When kids and parents are approached in an

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atmosphere of acceptance and help, the results can be tremendous. It might not prevent the addiction, but it will curtail the devastating effects of an addiction.”

I presented our family’s story of addiction at the International School of Florence in 2009, and a student wrote to me, “The truth is your story matters and I think it is incredibly important for students to hear it. I’ve never heard something that is so real, so raw, and so close to all of us and I know this story will change people because it changed me. I always knew drugs were bad and plenty of people have told me that they are, even ex-addicts. The difference between their stories and your story is that you showed the true impact these substances can have not only on the addict himself but on the people surrounding him or her. I realized that addiction could happen to anyone. I used to think, foolishly, that addicts were all people from somewhat messed up backgrounds with sad lives. Obviously, this horrible stereotype is completely inaccurate and your family’s story clearly showed that. It made me realize that addiction could be in my family or in one of my friend’s. It made me realize that we’re not invincible.”

For my sons and me, every day we’re grateful. Every day, in the very marrow of our bones, we give thanks that today Jeff is okay, that he is alive and productive, that he has good hope of creating a better future. But we know that we only have today.

Jeff once asked me, “Never quit believing, OK, Mom?”

I won’t quit believing, Jeff.

Never.

Libby Cataldi was head of The Calverton School (Maryland) for 17 years (1987–2004). She is the author of Stay Close: A Mother’s Story of Her Son’s Addiction (St. Martin Press, 2009), and is currently at work on her second book. She lives part of the year in Florence, Italy, where she is a member of the Florence Dragon Boat Ladies, a rowing team of breast cancer survivors. She also serves on the board of the International School of Florence. For more information, visit www.libbycataldi.com.

Stay Close: A Mother’s Story of Her Son’s Addiction,