“I feel like I have my son back.”
“I remember through middle school, Will had anxiety issues that we could never collectively figure out,” Brockett said. “He would get anxious and feel terrible, and there was nothing we could do. Will played sports, had lots of friends, but never wanted to take medications for anxiety or his attention issues. If something was not going well, he would check out and pretend it wasn’t there.”
The family tried putting him on medication with little success, and by high school, Will found alcohol as a helpful way to reduce his anxiety.
Looking back, Brockett can see that signs of his son’s addiction were there, but the family was so preoccupied dealing with his older sister’s bouts with major depression that those signs never registered.
“There are always signs that addiction is becoming an issue, but other family issues made us blind to Will’s struggles,” Brockett said. “Will’s grades dropping and losing his spot on the baseball team after he started to drink occasionally in high school were a sign that issues were bubbling up, but we weren’t in a place to register them.”
Will graduated high school in 2020 and moved out of his parents’ house, and that was when his alcohol addiction started to progress. Will began to drink all the time after he moved out, and Jim realized the extent of his addiction during a family trip to the Florida Coast two months after Will moved out.
“We went to a friend’s beach house, and we found Will on the beach hammered in the middle of the day with a handle of vodka in hand,” Brockett said. This was when we knew there was a problem, and he was back living with us in less than a year.”
The deleterious effects of addiction on the mental and physical health of a person struggling with addiction are well documented. However, the negative externalities of addiction on family members most often take a backseat. For Jim and his wife, his son’s addiction gave them a feeling of helplessness and anger.
“Addiction is hard on families because you watch someone you love destroy themselves and you can’t just help them. They must be willing to help themselves,” Brockett said. “We watched Will act belligerent, lose jobs and steal from us. We felt helpless and didn’t know how to help him.”
Brockett said his son’s addiction changed his life because he watched his son change. He never felt like his family could live their life because they did not know how to help their son. Do you let your loved one stay in your home, or do you make them figure out their addiction on their own? These are hard questions that require even more challenging decisions. Keeping them in your home may hurt your ability to live, but kicking them out might leave them with nowhere to go.
Ultimately, Will was never kicked out of his parents’ home, and he slowly began to realize that he needed treatment. By the time Jim found Back2Basics, Will was ready to go.
“I thought he would fight me the whole way there, but he never once tried to get out of going to treatment,” Brockett said. “When it was time to drop him off, I knew he was ready to get help.”
The start of recovery was a challenging but essential period for Jim and his family. Jim did not have any contact with Will.
“It killed me not being able to talk to my son, but it was so important for both of us to not have any contact for a bit,” Brockett said. “It was important to give Will time to find himself, and it was an opportunity for us to live our lives without worrying if our son was safe.”
Back2Basics considers group therapy sessions as an essential part of recovery, and Brockett said the chance to work through things with his son was vital to his own healing.
“Group therapy sessions with Will taught me a lot about addiction and how to deal with the temper I had that stemmed from my inability to deal with the experience,” Brockett said. “It gave me empathy toward what my son was going through and taught me to forgive myself for being unable to help him.”
If Brockett could give one piece of advice to parents struggling with their child’s addiction, it would be to forgive yourself.
“As parents, we are always trying to fix our kids, and with addiction, you have to realize only they can fix themselves,” Brockett said. “Forgive yourself for being unable to help them when they are not ready because when they are ready, they will need your help.”
Will is a graduate of the Back2Baiscs program and has been sober for more than a year. Will lives in Flagstaff, while Jim lives in Florida. Jim said that despite his son’s distance, he doesn’t worry about him.
“It is funny because despite being so far away, I feel closer to my son than I have in a long time,” Brockett said. “I feel like I have my son back.” FBN
By Roy DuPrez
Roy DuPrez, M.Ed., is the CEO and founder of Back2Basics Outdoor Adventure Recovery in Flagstaff. DuPrez received his B.S. and M.Ed. from Northern Arizona University. Back2Basics helps young men, ages 18 to 35, recover from addiction to drugs and alcohol. Back2Basics is an adventure recovery program, up to six months, for young adult males ages 18-30 with substance abuse issues looking for a positive and meaningful life. In our program, clients are exposed to a weekly combination of both wilderness adventures and residential programming. For more information, visit https://back2basics-soberliving.com, call 928-814-2220, or email rduprez@b2badventures.com.
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