A few days ago, my son went to see a buddy of mine who runs a prison ministry. He’s been ordered into treatment and needed some financial help for the preliminary evaluation at the treatment center. He made it to see the jail chaplain, who wrote him a check for part of the cost. But somehow Chris skipped the evaluation appointment, as well as his midweek checkin with the probation officer. Chris was gone for several days, and I rehearsed my lines: “I’m letting you go, son,” I would say when he came home to recover from what I assumed was another binge. “You can’t live here anymore. Your dad and I won’t be able to help you. Let us know when you get sober.” I said these lines over and over. I knew he’d be back so I practiced detachment the best way I knew how. I prayed as if I had stalled the car in front of a fast-approaching train.
Of course he did come back. I held my emotions tight against my chest, trying to shield what was left of my heart. Chris climbed out of someone’s crummy old Honda, but when he said hello, I knew he wasn’t high. Confused, I tried to say as little as possible. I chanted my lines to myself, I’m letting you go, son. I’m letting you go. Suddenly exhausted I fled into my room He followed me and propped his elbow on the bed. I looked away.
Over the next few minutes, he told me about his failure to make the appointments for evaluation, how he’d blown off the PO. Same old sob story, I thought. I’m going to have to let you go.
Then he told the story about his meeting with the chaplain. Tears lit up his eyes in a way I hadn’t seen from him in years. “Pastor said my soul is broken,” he said. He paused.”He says I need to go to church to get past this.”
Later my son said he was awestruck. Out of all the counselors, shrinks, social workers and teachers who’d ever advised him, he said, “Pastor is the first person who really gets it. Gets who I am.”
Chris says he’ll go to inpatient treatment. I still guard my heart to keep from running toward the light of that hope. I know the ways of an addict, and those ways always serve their own needs. Sweet words have worked in the past, my cynical side says.
And yet, what if God really is the answer? I don’t know yet. I will keep practicing my line and if he does not enter treatment as he says, I will use it and mean it, dear son. And no matter whether you get clean or not, something tells me that letting you go is the best thing I can do. Go with God.