Last Valentine’s Day, I received a life-changing phone call from my then eighteen-year-old son. He had gotten mixed up with the dangerous side of the drug culture while attending college in Atlanta, and the situation was so bad that his stepdad and I had to dip into my savings to have him fly back into our state, Virginia, on an emergency basis. Even my degree in psychology and my previous experience with my husband’s alcoholism had not prepared me for what was about to ensue as soon as he landed at the airport.

My son refused my suggestion to check into a detox facility and he did not want my help in attempting a detox at home either. He was convinced he had his drug use under control. Instead of staying with me, he chose to go stay with his father.

Prior to December 17, 2017, my son had never used drugs before. His friends remember him being anti-drug. They said that he used to tell them that he did not need drugs to feel high, because he got his high off of living his life to its fullest. Like so many teenagers who first experiment with drugs, my son, too, had never imagined that he would become trapped in a maddening world of addiction.

It only took 60 days for my son to develop a full-blown addiction from the date of his first drug use. The broken boy who walked into my home on Valentine’s Day last year had lost a substantial amount of body weight, along with his hopes and dreams. It was very hard as a family to watch our son suffer from addiction which was enhanced by undiagnosed and untreated mental illness. We had no way of knowing if and when our son would become a statistic.

On February 26, 2018, my son survived his first drug-related suicide attempt. Following this event, my son fell into a quickly escalating pattern of relapse upon release from psych wards, accompanied by additional drug-related suicide attempts.

We tried to seek appropriate care for my son. But our state laws and the system made it so hard. Due to frequent hospitalizations, my son became an expert on the ins and outs of this system, managing to successfully convince the staff doctors to release him by meeting their ill-conceived criteria checklist which failed to take into account his full history. It was extremely frustrating and painful for us as a family when the mental health professionals would repeatedly disregard my son’s fresh threats to end his life, threats that they themselves had heard him making to us over the phone. Such is the condition of a broken mental health system in our state, and such is the maddening nature of the disease of addiction.

Fortunately, after many hospitalizations, my son agreed to accept the help offered to him through our county’s mental health services board (CSB). My son checked himself into a detox facility following his very last drug-related suicide attempt. From there, he was admitted to a reputable and licensed holistic rehab run by experienced and caring substance use disorder professionals.

I am happy to report that my son has been drug-free for 235 days and counting. I am equally blessed because my husband, too, has been living an alcohol-free life for 486 days and counting.

To show my love and support for my the recovery of the two most important men in my life, my family and I participated in Shatterproof’s 5K Walk/Run in October of 2018. Since July 2018, after experiencing Virginia's broken mental health system which fails to provide affordable quality treatment in a timely manner, I launched my very own social media advocacy effort called Village for Addicts, which aims to raise awareness and support for better substance use treatment options in our community. In addition to this, I became a Shatterproof Ambassador in January 2019.

This Valentine’s Day, I celebrate the blessings of being a wife and a mother of two strong men who are so brave to fight the disease of addiction. Addiction may be a cunning, baffling, and powerful disease, but we are stronger than addiction. We are Shatterproof!