Matt

      Matt’s heroin use continued after being kicked out of the health department clinic. More and more money and items of value continued to come up missing. Tim was constantly buying back the pawned items that we knew were being stolen. I begged Matt to enroll in patient treatment. He refused to go, and Tim didn’t want to pay the initial co-pay. Our house was in constant turmoil. Tim was drinking more and more and was coming home less and less.

      I felt like Katie and I were left all alone to deal with the growing drug and alcohol problems. We didn’t know who to talk to or where to turn. Katie finally asked her friend for help. Her friends suggested a treatment center called the Hope House. She made a call for us, and Matt had a bed waiting for him in two days. I put on my big girl pants and told Tim to pull the co-pay from our bank account, which he did. I told Matt that if he didn’t go, then he could no longer live in our house. It appeared everyone was on board.

      The next day, Matt told me he had a lunch date with his on-again, off-again girlfriend. She picked him up, and they never came back. She took him to her parents’ house in another county about forty-five minutes away and they turned off their phones. I was able to call the girl’s mother one time before she turned off her phone too. I cried while pleading with her to bring Matt back so he could get into rehab. Her response was that she didn’t think Matt nor her daughter had a drug problem. I went to the rehab center the next day, hoping that Matt had reconsidered. He hadn’t.

      I still was not giving up on Matt. My brother suggested that I petition the court for what’s called an “emergency petition” to force Matt into rehab. Technically, the petitions are for loved ones of someone who suffers from mental health issues to force them into treatment because they may hurt themselves or others. Matt’s age (now twenty-four years old) kept the judge from granting me the petition. He was an adult, and at the time, addiction was not considered a mental health issue. I cried and cried, so disappointed.

      I wasn’t sure where Matt was or if he was even still alive. It had been almost a week since he left. While sitting in my car crying, I got a phone call from the Montgomery County Court House in Rockville, Maryland, asking me if I planned on attending Matt’s bail hearing. He had been arrested the night before for possession. I briefed her on what had transpired in the past week. She was going to try to delay Matt’s hearing until I got there. Matt was going to be released on his own recognizance. While waiting for his paperwork to be completed, I called the rehab center, and they had a bed available in two days.

      The forty-five-minute car ride home was nothing short of a ride from hell. Matt was going through withdrawal. It was a side of him I had never seen. He was ugly, angry, and out of control. The entire ride home, he was kicking and banging the windows. He called me every name in the book and said I should have just let him die in jail. He told me I had no right to interfere with his life. There were moments when I thought Matt was going to jump out of my car. It was by far the longest ride of my life, and I was sure we weren’t going to make it home alive.

      Katie was able to get Matt some Percocet to take until we took him to rehab. The next day, we went back to Rockville to meet with Matt’s court liaison. She made it very clear that he had two choices—jail or rehab. Matt chose rehab.

      That night before bed, Matt came to my room. I had never seen him so vulnerable. He and I were both crying. He told me how sorry he was for all the heartache he had caused. He told me he fled because he was in such constant pain that he couldn’t imagine his life drug-free. Rehab scared the hell out of him. I slept well that night. I truly thought my problems with Matt were in the past.

      I got a phone call from Matt’s counselor three days into his treatment. She said we needed to talk immediately about Matt’s mental health issues. Katie went with me to meet with the counselor. Matt greeted us at the door. He was smiling, happy, and looked amazing. I was emotional over his transformation. It was his (and Ryan’s) twenty-fifth birthday. Matt said to us, “Happy birthday to me. It’s the first time since I was fourteen years old that I’ve been sober on my birthday.” That was very hard for me to hear. Where was I on all those birthdays that I didn’t even know my teenage son was high? I had no idea that Matt had been using at such a young age.

      I found things out about Matt at the meeting that I was completely unaware of: Matt, being the people pleaser all his life, had suppressed his true feelings. Some of it was trivial but had festered so long deep inside that it was now something major to him. Matt cried most of the time while releasing all his bottled-up issues.

      He had issues with everyone in our family. One of his issues with me was that I never let him pick the theme of his and Ryan’s birthday parties. He thought I should have known that this bothered him because he always said that he wished he had his own birthday and didn’t have to share it. He told me that I’m his mother, and I should have known what that meant. I had no idea that’s what he meant, and I felt so badly that this bothered him for all those years.

      One of the most significant issues with his father was that Tim rarely attended Matt’s sports games or concerts because no alcohol was allowed. He felt like his father didn’t even know his name until he was old enough to sit on a barstool next to him.

      After Matt was sent back to his classes, Katie and I spoke a few more minutes with his counselor. She said Matt would always have drug issues until mental health issues were addressed. She gave me a list of psychologists and psychiatrists in the area. She was going to get Matt extra time in the center until I was able to find him help. There were twenty or so names on the list. For days, I called and recalled every one. Some had an answering machine taking calls, and I never got a callback. Most were not accepting any new patients, and the rest did not accept Matt’s insurance.

      Matt’s health insurance would only pay for a fourteen-day stay in rehab. The counselor got him an extra seven days while I tried to find a doctor. At the end of the twenty-one days, the counselor suggested that I pay out of pocket for additional days until I could find a doctor. It would be $65 per day—$65×7= $455 per week. About $910 for two weeks. This on top of the $1,500 co-pay I had already laid out. Like most average people, I could not afford this. I felt really bad, and I knew I was letting Matt down. He was discharged with no doctor. He desperately needed us, and we let him down.