I have written before, about my middle son, who, I’m delighted to say, celebrated his Forth Year clean & sober. Every time I see him,  I see the Man he is becoming. I use the term “Man”, meaning it in every sense of the word.

He began to use drugs by the time he was 15 years old. He loved PCP and believed, one day, that if he had a gun on that particular day, and shot toward his temple, the bullet would have gone around his head. Thank You, Lord, he did not have a gun. The law of Physics ceese to exist in the mind of a drug addict.

He is my middle son, with a documented IQ of 132, but that didn’t make him any smarter or more sober then any other Addict. He lived on the streets of New York, under bridges,  crashing in Crack Houses, Shooting Galleries, or on a subway car. He worked every day, salvaging scrap metal, working in a salvage yard, and doing odd jobs, however, he owned nothing. He did not have a drivers license, because he owed the New York State over $5,000.00 in tickets. Some for driving without the required license and some for the usual illogical Addicts antics. Driving without registration, uninsured, uninspected, you know the usual noncompliance issues.

My Pix, (his nickname) was busy digging the deapest hole he could. He was not going to be out done by another junkie, he was going to be the best he could be. How he suffered and how we, his family suffered, too.

It is not an easy, simple, journey, this recovery process, but it is so well worth the effort. He is successful and has his own place to rest his bones, now. His home is paid for and his vehicles are registered and insured. He has sacrificed to get back his license and drives two beautiful cars, a vette and a caddy. He has worked very hard to accomplish, what society calls success. But to the ones who love him, the success is in his bright eyes, hard work, and commitment to remaining clean & sober.

It is for this reason, that I thank my maker, (it makes no difference what name you use) for the joy of seeing him, without the chemicals that almost destroyed him.

He eats a lot of M&M’s but that just helps to get the monkey off his back.  He smiles, laughs, and sings to me now, usually over the phone, while he’s working, but it is great to know that I won’t be tempted to hang up the phone on him, when I hear his voice.  Recovery is a gift, not only to the one who was suffering, but also to his loved ones.