Our Journey From Chaos to Comfort – Part 2

This is Part 2 of the story of how our daughter’s life spun out of control, and the comfort and strength we found in the midst of all the pain. Click Here to read Part 1 .

On Father’s Day 2017, huge changes happened in Lauren’s heart. In church vernacular, she re-dedicated herself to Christ, and the results showed. About a week after this milestone, Lauren did something no one expected. She posted a heartfelt explanation on social media about the struggles she had with her addiction. This was momentous because she always feared people finding out. She would constantly ask us to not tell anyone. Yet there she was, proclaiming to the world: I am an addict and I need help.

In that post, LaLa reminded me of what I had forgotten about addiction: “Many people with addiction, including myself, have said at least once (for me at least, I said this hundreds of times) ‘I don’t want to do this anymore’ and may very well be tired of and disgusted of doing the drug, but physically and mentally cannot stop, repeating this cycle of saying, ‘I’m going to stop using’ and the very next day, or even hours later, doing that drug.” It was that very dichotomy that thwarted Lauren’s recovery.

Lauren’s anorexia was always an issue when she entered any residential treatment program. The facilities would tell us they would evaluate her and determine if she was a fit for them. None of them ever said they couldn’t help her. The A-lister program was no exception. They said Lauren could enter, as long as she reached certain weight goals each week. Although she had a rough start, she hit her stride and gained weight. Nevertheless, she was released early because she had been sick for a while and the staff felt her physical health was a concern. Lauren begged them to let her stay. I offered to sign a release of liability. I even mentioned the fact that she had gained the weight they wanted. In the end, nothing we said changed the decision. Lauren was asked to leave the addiction treatment facility with less than 12 days to completion.

On November 17, 2016, I picked up Lauren, brokenhearted, as I had been before, and would be again. I tried my best not to let her see that. Instead, I told Lauren how proud I was of her for trying hard. I encouraged her to build on the progress she had made. On that day, she was more than 25 days drug-free. After 25 days, much of the physical element of addiction has diminished. The body does not need the drug anymore, but the cravings are still screaming in the addict’s mind. They can go on for several years.

Lauren attended a Narcotics Anonymous meeting the night we got home. Eventually I learned she bought heroin at that meeting. Lauren’s pained words still echo in my mind, “…repeating this cycle of saying, ‘I’m going to stop using’ and the very next day, or even hours later, doing that drug.”

In the last 355 days of LaLa’s life, she had been in two residential addiction programs, two IOPs, and worked with one private addiction therapist. She also overdosed on heroin six times. Three of those times my wife saved her life with Narcan. Two of those times LaLa told the EMTs in the ambulance, “Please help me stop. I don’t want to do this anymore. Please help me.”

July 6, 2017, was the last time Lauren used heroin. I wish I knew what led Lauren to use again. I wish she had told us she was struggling with cravings. I wish I could hold her one more time.

About five hours before being reminded of LaLa’s difficult entry into the world, I was driving home from work on a beautiful summer day with the car windows down. I received a call from my wife. I heard her frantic voice scream, “Lauren is dead!” In shock I screamed while slamming my fist against the outside of the car door, “Noooooo, how much more can we take?!” In a frenzy, I told my wife I would be right home, hung up, and called her right back to tell her to call the ambulance, and to administer CPR, but those things had already been done. It was too late.

So, there I stood, outside our home, numb, watching the door of the van close that would bring my little girl to a medical examiner’s table. In a weird way, the macabre processional from her bedroom to the coroner’s van gave me a hollow sense of accomplishment. It whispered through my pain that, although Lauren was only 22 years old, I had finished my job as her dad. Whatever I had done well, whatever mistakes I had made, did not really matter anymore. She was beyond my touch; it was over.

Today, I don’t drive as much as I did during the summer of 2016. All of the chaos that LaLa’s addiction created is gone. After the loss of someone so deeply loved, time seems to crawl. Things that once were important just don’t mean that much now.

What is important for LaLa’s mom and me is to help others as much as we can. Not to fill time, but to warn them and to comfort them as they travel the same chaotic road we did. Lauren’s mom leads 12-week grief recovery programs. I try to help families figure out the best plan for the treatment of their loved one and talk with kids in high school about how small things can build up in their lives and they might end up somewhere they don’t want to be. Most of the time, we remind ourselves that we need to draw close to one another, like we did the summer of 2016, driving back and forth to Massachusetts.

This weeks featured image if by Brooke Shaden called “The Hungry Immortals”. It reminds me of the constant pull addiction and mental health can have on the people we love that may be battling them.