Names were removed to maintain anonymity.
As an intern at Bacon Street Youth and Family Services, I wear many hats. Technically, I am a member of the Prevention team, but it has been a mission of mine to learn all aspects of the agency.
Every Monday, I work in the office assisting the Client Services Manager. It is on these days that I answer the calls to the agency. A lot of them are about insurance or scheduling appointments, but many of them are the kind of calls that tug at your heart. The kind of calls that make you think of your past experiences and how they have shaped your personal identity. For me, it’s the mothers. The mothers that call to ask for help for their child who is drinking alcohol or smoking marijuana. The mothers that are embarrassed to tell me that their child cannot return to school without a negative drug screen. Those are the ones that get to me. Because I have been there. I know what it is like to feel the shame, fear, and guilt that swallows you whole when you discover that your child is struggling with substance abuse.
Society is typically quick to blame the parents for a child’s addiction, but I am not. I want my stories to help others feel like they are not alone… but also to know, sometimes, loving and supporting your child is simply not enough. Sometimes you need outside help.
And for my family, Bacon Street helped us put all the broken pieces back together.
This was long before my internship. When I decided to enter the Human Services field, I knew that I had to be a part of Bacon Street, and part of that is being vulnerable enough to share my own stories.
Where do I even begin? There is so much to tell but I will start with our family dynamics. When my husband and I married in 2003, we each had children from our first marriages. I had two sons, ages 5 and 3, and he had a 5 year old daughter. Fast forward to 2005-my husband and I had two daughters of our own. So, a “his, hers, and ours” blended family. We loved our big family and arranged it so that our custody schedules with my boys and my stepdaughter were the same so everyone could be together at the same time. It wasn’t always easy having 5 “little” kids under the same roof but we made so many memories together. It wasn’t always easy dealing with the “ex’s” either, but somehow we navigated through it and always tried to work for the best interest of the kids.
When the teen years came around for the oldest three, I remember thinking, “oh that won’t be my child,” when it came to drugs, alcohol, or sex. I had strict rules, too. All cell phones had to be on the kitchen counter by 9:00 p.m. and no picture messaging was allowed. Believe me, I was not the favorite parent during that time. Despite all my efforts to keep them out of trouble, somehow trouble found the oldest two. I have so many stories! Stories that include me forcing my oldest son to take urine drug tests every morning before school for over a year, and stories about how each of my sons thought at one point that their girlfriend was pregnant. But this story, the one I am about to share, is one that rocked our family to the core. It caused us to break apart in so many ways, forcing my husband and I into marriage counseling and all the kids to look at the choices they had made (and would make in the future) through different eyes.
I will never forget the day. July 6, 2015. A day that changed our family forever.
It was hot and my younger two girls were playing in the pool, while I planned the youngest child’s birthday party that was to happen the next day. My oldest son was at work in town and my youngest son was working with my husband just a couple miles from our house. My step daughter had gone fishing with friends but they decided to leave when they saw a storm coming in the distance. She was a high school AND cosmetology school graduate, still just 17 years old-but super independent. I had mentioned to my husband many times that I was worried about her drinking habits at such a young age, but somehow I always ended up being the bad guy. I wish I had been overreacting. I wish that I had done things differently-because if I had, maybe she would have never been hurt. I got a phone call that afternoon that no parent wants to get. But what made it even worse was that the phone call came from my youngest son. I will never forget the way his voice sounded. The fear, the emotion…his choked voice.
He said, “Mom, you need to come now. Come to Diascund Rd. There’s been an accident.” He just started crying harder, saying “she’s laying in the road, come quick.” And in the background, I could hear my husband crying and throwing up.
The thing is, Diascund road is less than 2 miles from our house. The other thing…the horrible thing…my husband and my son were driving on that road during the storm when my husband made a phone call to his daughter to see if she had made it home. But it wasn’t his daughter that answered the phone.
It was a man. The man said, “Sir, I’m sorry, but your daughter has been in an accident. I have called 911 and they are on their way.”
In less than a minute, my husband drove up to the scene of the accident, his daughter laying in the middle of the road unconscious, and her truck smashed. And my son…my heart still breaks when I think of how he felt when he saw his sister lying in the road covered in blood and dirt. After receiving the call from my son, I hopped in my car and was there in less than 5 minutes. The ambulance was pulling up at the same time as I was so there was a lot of confusion, but it was a sight that is forever stuck in my head. Oh, and the sounds…I will never forget the sound of my husband vomiting from fear or when my step daughter’s mother arrived at the scene and let out a cry like I have never heard before.
All I could do was stand there and hold my son tight and try to assure him that she was going to be okay.
From the looks of her truck, though, I was really worried. She had skid off the road during the storm, crashed into a tree, and was thrown from her vehicle. As the emergency medical technicians assessed her and prepared her for transport to MCV, they discovered alcohol in her system. The one thing that I had feared for her actually happened.
She at MCV for a little over a week. It was a miracle that the worst injury she sustained was a mild traumatic brain injury and a few gashes on her legs that required stitches. We were all so shaken by the accident but incredibly grateful that she was alive. My husband stayed with her the entire time she was at the hospital, so I was only getting bits and pieces of information regarding the accident.
It wasn’t until she came home from the hospital that I learned she was facing an underage DUI charge (a class 1 misdemeanor) and an identity fraud charge due to possession of another individual’s ID card that she was using to buy alcohol. I’m not going to lie. This was a very stressful time for our family. My husband and I argued constantly about the situation, how to handle it, and what the future would look like for all of us. After countless lawyers visits and court hearings, my step daughter’s drivers license was suspended for a year. Also, she was ordered to complete community service and attend an alcohol education/treatment program. This is where Bacon Street Youth and Family Services came into the picture.
At first, she went weekly to Bacon Street for urine drug screens and to talk with her counselor. Sometimes, my husband and his ex-wife would sit in on sessions with her, but most of the time, it was just my step daughter and her dog. That’s right. Her one year old Labrador retriever was allowed to attend her counseling sessions with her. Her counselor knew the importance of the dog in her life. The counselor at Bacon Street knew that allowing the dog to attend the session would promote relaxation for my step daughter, encourage her to communicate with openness and cooperation, and that it would also strengthen the client-counselor relationship. Eventually, her weekly sessions turned into monthly sessions and finally after a year, my step daughter had developed strategies needed to make good decisions and had clear goals for her future.
I truly believe that Bacon Street’s holistic and person-centered approach to treatment played a huge role in fixing the broken parts of my step daughter after her accident.
It has been 6 years since the accident and I am so proud of the woman she has become. She has a successful career, an abundance of happiness, and is still so independent. If you are still reading, especially if you are one of those moms like I was, know that the hard times will pass.
It is okay to reach out for help.
Even in the darkest of times, there will always be someone you can reach out to- someone who will be judgement-free, meet you where you are in life, and be full of compassion so that the light can return.
If you ever feel like you need a judgment-free and compassionate shoulder to lean on please call 757-253-0111. Even if we’re not the right fit, we can help you find it.