Our Parents Talk

William's Family

May-June 2004

 

“I'm ecstatic,” William's father Wallace says of his son's recent sobriety. Even though he has seen Will relapse many times, he believes the latest spell in recovery will last. “It's his kindness for others,” Wallace says. “I see him doing things like washing his sister's car or loving the dog. Historically, he has been more self-centered. The most shocking thing was walking into Will's apartment and hearing him apologize for a dirty glass in the sink. He used to think an appropriate place for a wet towel was in the middle of the floor. Seeing his pristine apartment makes me believe he cares about his future.”

 

The joy of today's good fortune does not wipe out the memory of bad times. Wallace remembers vividly the time he had to throw Will down on the floor of a convenience store during a confrontation and ask the clerk to call the police to take Will to a treatment center for detoxing before coming to MASH. He also remembers the plane ride to primary treatment following one of Will's relapses. During that trip, Wallace saw the needle marks on Will's arm for the first time; drops of blood oozing out brought the truth home to him as nothing else had.

 

The worst memory his father carries is also one of the best.

 

Wallace had heard Will was in trouble in Amsterdam and was coming home, but Will's plane arrived in Atlanta without him. Wallace immediately gathered $10,000 in cash and headed over the ocean to find his son somewhere in the city of over seven million people. He'd packed the money in a leather folder along with his passport, airline ticket and the telephone number of a friend in the Dutch capital.

 

Wallace arrived in the Amsterdam airport exhausted. On a train headed to his friend's house, he realized his leather folder was missing. He turned around and went back to the airport. No one had seen it. He went back to his friend's house empty-handed. When he got there, his friend was on the phone. “For you. British Airways.”

 

Someone had found his folder and turned it in. Wallace returned to the airport. A woman who worked for British Airways gave him his folder. The cash was intact. The passport was there. His friend's telephone number was on the pad of paper.

 

“You're the second person by this name I've helped today,” the woman said. Wallace's ears perked up. Wil's middle name is also Wallace.

“He's sick. You know what I mean?” she said.

 

“Yes. He's using drugs,” Wallace replied.

 

William had overdosed and was too sick to travel on the earlier flight. This kind woman had taken him to get treatment and had cared for him overnight. She had that very day put him on another flight to Atlanta. Will and his father had passed in the skies going in opposite directions. His mother Catherine would meet the plane, hardly recognizing her son.

 

When the woman at British Airways had seen Wallace's passport in the recovered folder, she recognized it and called the telephone number on the pad to tell him his folder and his son were safe.

 

“It's hard not to believe in divine intervention,” Wallace says.

 

***

 

Wallace and Catherine divorced in 1989. Will lived with his father. His younger sister Katie lived with Catherine, who remarried in 1992.

 

***

 

“He's an addict, a five-star addict,” a counselor at a primary treatment center told Catherine early on.

 

“Is there a six-star addict?” Will's mother asked hopefully.

 

“No, five is as bad as it gets” was the answer.

 

Even so, Catherine says, she was thinking that after four months at Serenity House, Will would be fixed. “Every time he got clean, I was hopeful. Every time he got into trouble, I remembered how they say an addict has to hit bottom before he gives up drugs. I thought, this is it—the bottom. But it wasn't.” Things only got worse.

 

“I didn't know it was a Catherine problem, not just a Will problem,” Catherine says. A puzzle analogy sticks in her mind: Draw a square and in the square you draw puzzle pieces. Each member of the family is a piece, and they all fit tightly together. If I can change my puzzle piece, then the others have to change, too. So I concentrate on changing me, not them,” she says.

 

“We learned a lot about dysfunctional family roles at MASH. When Will's sister Katie would act out, we explained the roles theory at the dinner table.” Catherine also learned to let Will hurt, to refrain from doing his taxes for him, to refuse to send money, and to let him figure things out himself.

 

Catherine and her husband and their 9-year-old son still get counseling. “Addiction is so big. You can't do it alone,” she says. “If you think you can, you're a bigger part of the problem than you realize.”

 

William's sister Katie, three years younger and living with their mother, wasn't aware of the depth of Will's addiction. At one point when he was in Amsterdam, she heard he was doing well, saving money, and had a nice girlfriend, so she went over to visit. She discovered all was not well when Will failed to meet her at the airport as agreed. After waiting for four hours, she had to find herself a place to stay. When they did get together, he had no home, no money and no girlfriend. He borrowed Katie's credit card “to buy lunch,” and disappeared for five days. She was understandably hurt and angry.

 

These were not new feelings. Earlier when Will was at Serenity House, her parents were totally consumed with him. Her father drove to Atlanta to see Will, “and he never did that for me. I was hurt, and I lashed out.”

 

Now she understands her parent's ill-advised focus on Will (and so do her parents). She is proud of her brother, and they are good friends, getting together often. That ability to have a good relationship is one of the signs of true recovery, she says. She also admires his compassion for the guys at Serenity House. “Addicts are self-centered,” she notes, “and he seems to care about other people now.”

 

Other signs of lasting recovery she observes are that he has given up smoking, he's eating well, he's taking care of his body and keeping fit. “He's become addictive about being clean,” she says. “He never does anything half-way. In high school it was chess, now it's jujitsu two hours a day.” Her only regret is that his obsession with many healthy activities is cutting into their time together.

 

“I am grateful for our family's experiences since Will became addicted,” Katie says, acknowledging that they have all learned things they needed to know. “The tools I learned in the family program at Serenity House are tools that I employ on a daily basis, with all relationships. I'm a codependent, one of the roles in a dysfunctional family. Now I am dating John L., a recovering Serenity House alum. I know about addiction and John knows about codependence. He's working so hard on his addiction, and we keep ourselves in check. We are becoming better people together.”

 

Letitia Sweitzer

 

If You would like to speak to Will or his parent just phone our contact number 866-947-6550 and we will have them phone you.