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Recovery in the News
Life lesson of son's addiction led to heartfelt solution
Marney Rich Keenan
The Detroit News
December 29, 2007
By the spring of 1997, a sense of dread rarely if ever left Mark Thomson of Grand Rapids. His teenage son's addiction seeped into every aspect of his life.
"Like one of Pavlov's dogs, I experienced shots of adrenaline, through my system as I had come to expect bad news whenever the phone rang, especially late at night," Thomson writes in an unpublished manuscript. "This young man who was so angry and so depressed had become utterly foreign to us."
Beginning with experimentation with marijuana in the eighth grade, by his sophomore year in high school Thomson's son Bob was smoking pot regularly. The pot eventually led to cocaine, which led to fights, criminal charges including possession and assault, several therapists, false starts at Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings, stints in rehabs, punishments and deep remorse only to be followed by broken promises. Finally, in October 2004, after a four-month residential rehab stay, Bob's many attempts at recovery finally took.
To date, Bob has been clean and sober for more than two years. He's lost 40 pounds, has a job and is getting a college degree.
Recently, Mark Thomson, Bob's father, finished writing an as yet untitled book on his long, anguished journey with his son's addictions. Thanks to Thomson's gifted writing, honesty and insights from his mental health career, he shouldn't have any problem getting it published.
"So many of us parents going through feeling lost in the wilderness and at the mercy of a killer," Thomson writes. "Something which kills hope, kills love, kills faith and ultimately will kill our kids. I wanted to help other parents to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem."
Bob's addiction came from out of nowhere. Mark and his wife, Annie, had carved out an ideal family life in a pleasant Grand Rapids suburb. Married since 1971, the couple has two older daughters, and they were active in their Catholic community.
For close to 25 years, Mark has worked at St. John's Home in Grand Rapids, a treatment program for kids with severe emotional problems, first as a social worker, then as a therapist and now its program director.
How is it that someone with his background in working with damaged and hurting kids all of his adult life could not cure his own son?
"Part of the answer is that I was among the legion of mental health professionals who believed that alcohol and drug problems are driven by some unresolved, deeper issue such as depression, family problems or in Bob's case, a chronic learning problem," Thomson writes. "It did not even occur to me that Bob's involvement with drugs was so advanced and that maybe, just maybe, it was the drug problem which was the cause of his learning problems, poor self-esteem and his increasingly aggressive behavior, not the other way around."
Another part of the problem is that many parents underestimate the pull of drugs on youngsters. Studies show teens that begin using drugs prior to age 15 have four times the rate of serious problems with drugs or alcohol as they get older. That's because instead of developing tools to manage stress, they use drugs. By the age of 17 or 18, they are overwhelmed and underskilled, so they get high.
Over and over Thomson says he enabled his son: switching schools, bailing him out of jail immediately, paying thousands for therapists who were not helping.
"Looking back the best answer I can come up with is that I did all of these things because I thought it would make things better," Thomson writes. " 'If only he felt better, maybe he would stop using,' I told myself. I became an enabler with credentials -- a potentially lethal combination. My pride as a professional therapist was on the line."
Through the years, the impact of his son's addiction took its own toll on Bob's life. In time and through the help of Al-Anon meetings, Thomson found a way to let go. He came to understand that just as his son needed a program of recovery, he, too, needed a support system.
The journey not only led to the book, but also to Discovery, a new program for teens with alcohol and drug problems at St. John's Home. After serving as Discovery's first director, the board of directors recently named Thomson director of the agency.
Near the end of the book, Thomson writes about a recent round of golf he played with Bob. He played miserably the first few holes but was able to make up for it in a phenomenal finish. He writes: "I hope it reminds me that there is more to a round of golf than the final score, and if I worry too much about the outcome I will never enjoy the game and its many gifts: the natural beauty of the course, the company of a good friend who happens to be my son, and the opportunity to redeem the most hopeless and inauspicious of beginnings."