EXCERPT from my memoir “Hungry Tigers: A Candid Account of Addiction and Recovery”

     The following excerpt is from the epilogue of my book. Our son, Casey, died of a heroin overdose just a few weeks after I had finished the original manuscript. I added his story about six months later, when I was emotionally capable, though I cried the entire time I was writing it. He was 32 years old when I found him downstairs in our home, having lost his struggle with addiction. That was the most devastating moment of my life. And then, moments later, having to tell his mother that she had lost a second child. I thought she would die in my arms. Her pain haunts me deeper than anything I have ever known….

That last week of his life Casey told me he was having cravings to use like he had never had before.  I would call him from work during the day to check on him. He would tell me that he was struggling. He was continuing to experience suicidal thoughts and overwhelming urges to use. I told him to hang in there, that those cravings to use would ease with time and that his suicidal thoughts would become less intense as well.  I talked to him about acceptance and surrender and love and hope and perseverance and perspective, about staying in the moment, about meditation and the Serenity Prayer and anything else I could possibly think of to help him get through his turmoil.

But my words couldn’t save him. As my friend Kim H. said to me one day (whose son had also struggled with addiction), “Gary, if there were magic words, we would have said them long ago.”

On the Friday before Casey died, less than thirty-six hours before he passed on, I called him at home from work.  I asked him how he was doing. He mentioned again his strong urge to use.  He told me on that day that he knew he was going to die from “this.”  I said, “You mean addiction?”  He said, “Yes.”  I responded, “Yes, you’re probably right.  If you continue to use, it will probably kill you.”

That evening Casey got a call from Walt.  He had asked Walt to sponsor him just a week before.  He was trying his best to make things work.  Casey went downstairs and talked to Walt for quite a while.  When he came back up I was sitting at my desk in the den typing on my computer.  I asked him how it had gone with Walt.  Casey said, “Good.  He helped me a lot.”  And then he suddenly leaned over and threw his arms around my shoulders and began to sob.  He cried like I had never seen him cry before, like he was releasing years of pent-up suffering, or trying to. He cried like a person caught between hope and despair, a cry I had become all too familiar with in my own life.  He was clinging to a hope that perhaps he could conquer his demons, and attempting to resist the despair that he might never be able to.

The next day Casey went with me to the store for something.  On the way, the song Losing My Religion, by REM, came on. We both remarked how we liked the song.  It was the last song I remember hearing with Casey, of the thousands of songs we had listened to together over the years. That became the first song we played at his funeral, and it brings me to tears as I type this several months later. There is a line in this song that has haunted me since his death.  It goes: “Oh, no – I said too much – I haven’t said enough.”   I know in retrospect that I, that we, gave Casey everything we had and then some. It simply wasn’t enough.  I only know that Casey wanted to live, that he wanted desperately to be free of his pain. And now he is.

I believe in my heart that Casey served a great purpose on this Earth.  His story, for one thing, has helped a lot of people.  His pain has allowed others to reach out – and they, in turn, were helped by doing so.  No one can measure that.  No one can diminish its greatness.  And while Casey was here, for most of the days of his life, he brought joy to others.  He brought them love and laughter and compassion. He gave of himself to many, and this is how he will be remembered by those of us who were lucky enough to have known him.