a sad and ugly heroin death for my child

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This topic has 7 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 5 months ago by Lisa.

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July 18, 2016 at 9:15 am #109926

Lisa
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my son Sage died last monday july 11; he was found by a friend dead on the floor of my apartment while i was out of town.

he was only 26…..i had sage when i was 19, and i was so in love with him.

he had been an addict for five or six years, went to a great rehab in northern thailand called New Life, was clean for several more months….

the night before he died a friend of his called saying he was sick. i said, take him to the emergency room, and Sage said he would go in the morning. He died sometime that night.

i am SO tortured by this – why didnt i actually ask to speak to my son that night? why didnt i drive the hour and a half to take him to the hospital? why did my child die alone on the floor? what actually happened? does it matter?

i can’t stop picturing his body, even though i know he is as peace now.
i can’t eat, can barely breathe, what do i do?

July 18, 2016 at 9:32 am #109927

Marianne
Participant

I am so sorry for your loss. I couldn’t imagine the pain you must be feeling. Please try not to blame yourself.

July 18, 2016 at 10:21 am #109929

Anonymous
Guest

Dear analisa:

I am so sorry for your son Sage, for the pain he experienced in his young life. And I am sorry for your pain, it being so hard for you to breathe. How do you breathe when you lose a son?

I remember … I was in my forties and very miserable. I had a roommate who was a heroine addict and an avid use of drugs of all kinds. He was on methadone treatment for his heroine addiction and shared some of it with me, red juice in small cups. He told me how much I can drink and still be safe. As you know heroine and methadone slow down the breathing and on occasion stops it altogether, resulting in death. So I drank that red, fruit flavored juice.

I couldn’t believe it- I couldn’t and still find it amazing, how good I felt. I didn’t know up to that point that it was at all possible to feel that good, not even close. And the good feeling lasted and lasted. I didn’t want to fall asleep at night so to not miss that feeling. There was absolutely no negative thought in my brain, not a split second of distress of any kind: ALL was good.

So when the affect finally died down, I was more than glad to drink of it some more, and again, it felt wonderful. After a few more times, it was no longer good. I felt sick, like I wanted to throw up. Eventually I moved out, lost my methadone source and like I wrote, I lost my motivation to get more because it made me sick.

I suppose that call you got that night wasn’t the first call you got about your son using. You were probably not so alarmed as to drive there to be with him because what happened that night happened many times before, him using, that is, many times in the last six years or so. So you get used to it, over time, less alarmed.

Please do post again, do share how you feel; what you think. I will read every time and respond. I am so sorry that you are hurting, understandably. You are hurting for losing Sage.

anita

July 18, 2016 at 4:36 pm #109960

Inky
Participant

Hi analisa,

I don’t want you to have ANY guilt for your son’s death. None. Nada. Zip. Please, please don’t feel guilty!!

1. Sage was an adult. An adult makes the decision when and if they will or should go to the ER. He at the time, didn’t see a need to go in.

2. You were away from him. His friend called I’m assuming in a “Sage is sick/what should I do” call. He himself had to refer to #1 above.

3. You have had several years of this. At 19 our children have to start to take care of themselves to a degree.

4. No one could predict he would die that night.

My friend’s son died that way, and she was on the property!! The boys had just raided the fridge an hour before he died in his sleep. It was 3 AM. Who knew?? Everyone sleeps at some point. Even doctors. Even you. You cannot predict!!

I am so sorry!!

May you have Peace and Healing.

Blessings,

Inky

July 19, 2016 at 1:16 am #110022

XenopusTex
Participant

I agree with Inky. In my line of work, I see families spend a ton of money on rehab, etc. Ultimately, it is a question of whether the patient wants to improve or not.

Understand the pain. But, please, don’t feel guilty. You cannot control what he did. It was his choice.

July 19, 2016 at 7:26 am #110030
Maria_L
Participant
They say that loosing a child is one of the hardest thing any human being can face. There are no words of comfort anyone can give that can make things bit better in the beginning. And july 11 was just a week ago. I believe that a part of you is still in denial and not aware what have happened and how it did, you are still lost in that warp that tells you over and over again you could have done something… It’s normal. My father died young from cancer, and my grandparents kept repeating ‘how couldn’t we notice something was wrong before it was too late’. My mother, my uncle too.. For months. And after that, they kept with pointing fingers at each other … ‘how couldn’t YOU notice something was wrong, till we could have save him! ‘ I think that in the beginning it was just to difficult to accept the fact that he is gone, and there was NOTHING we could have done to prevent it. Blame, self-blame… anything was better than acceptance. We all loved him to the moon and back, he kept the family together, made us all laugh.

Deep down in your heart you know that you did your best, you loved him as much as a parent can love a child. It was not your fault, you did your part the best way you could, but unfortunately it takes much more than your full effort. You couldn’t have fought the fight for him, only he was able to that. And you gave him the best ‘weapon’ possible – your support, your love, the clinic… If you came that night, are you sure that it would have been the only night? Are you sure that you’d be able to identify 24/7 that he is in life danger, and to ‘fly’ anytime from anywhere to save him? You know that is not possible to save someone like this, as much as you wish it is…

I advice you to seek love and support and comfort with someone close and dear, do not stay alone with your pain for now. You can try going to a psychologist that will help you deal with the grief, or a priest if you are religious (we found our biggest comfort here at the time). But whatever you do, I promise that only time will be the ultimate healer. Almost 20 years have passed since the death of my father, and now in our hearts are just the fond memories of the amazing being he was. I decided to honor his short but wonderful existence in my life by living the way he would have wanted me to.

Your son knew what he was doing, and I am sure he wouldn’t have wanted for you to blame yourself for his actions and the consequences. I am sure that if there was a way he could reach out to you now, he’d say that and thank you for all you’ve done.

Stay strong, and take one day at a time. Things will get better, I promise.
- This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by Maria_L.
July 19, 2016 at 4:22 pm #110075

Mark
Participant

Analisa,

Please don’t torture yourself. There is no way you could have known. You are only adding on to what is probably the worst feeling a human being can have.

I know this means nothing now, but they say that all humans have a baseline level of happiness. Grief and despair clouds our baseline, but no matter what happens eventually we will return to our baseline. They say it’s about three months. Hang in there. Let others help and support you.

In the meantime, practicing awareness can help start to tame some of the thoughts you are having. Listening carefully, following your breath (noticing where you feel it the most), and even wiggling your toes can really help with staying out of your own mind and develop some much-needed peace. Anytime you start to feel your thoughts begin to add on to the pain, just cut them off. Don’t get caught up in them.

It also may help to learn something new, such as a language, drawing, or an instrument. I know it’s hard to imagine learning at a time like this, but I have found when I am learning I am not thinking about what is bothering me. Even just a few minutes reprieve from your thoughts to start can really help. Then these stretches can start to expand, and hopefully eventually you will find yourself back around your baseline.

July 21, 2016 at 4:18 pm #110274

Lisa
Participant

thank you inky. that helps.
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