On Wednesday my daughter texted me at 7:25:

“Call me when you can”

Is there a worse phrase a Mother can see? I immediately called her and said

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing… I mean… V died.”

V was a boy she knew since Kindergarten. V was a boy who came to my daughter’s early elementary birthday parties. V was on the same soccer team as my daughter. V was really smart and whenever they were in class together, they ended up as partners.

V was a highly intelligent, sweet kid with involved parents who cared and loved him. And yet we all saw this coming from a mile away.

Risk drew him in like a magnet. Trouble with authority. Skipping school. Drugs and alcohol from an early age.

I’m a little bit devastated. The past few years I would hear of something he had done, and I kept thinking, he’s a smart kid. He’ll figure it all out…

But he didn’t.

So I’m about to get on my soapbox:

Let’s stop washing away things by using drugs and alcohol.

While some can have a drink or partake minimally in drug use after a tough day, many can’t. Substance abuse is very very real- and we can blame and sue some drug companies, but really, that’s just a bandaid…

Drug and alcohol use to a certain extent is a bandaid. We think it will make us feel better…but does it?

Let’s stop fighting about words and books and who is right and who is wrong.

Let’s start trying to heal our kids and ourselves from the demons that take us over from the inside.

We worry about what the future will hold for our kids. I just worry that most kids won’t be around to see a future.

Stop treating drugs as some sort of rite of passage, or something that kids just do.

Having to bury your 20 year old because they OD’ed is not a rite of passage…it is every parents worst nightmare.

98 thoughts on “Anything Can Happen Friday: A Parent’s Worst Nightmare”

  1. Dang, this one feels like a punch in the gut. Substitute V for Brady. Brady work for me right out of high school. Athlete, charming, personable. Loved to party. Choked to death a few years go while doing drugs.

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  2. This is horrible! He didn’t even have a chance to live and now he never will, like so many other kiddos. This is happening way tooo often and scares the shit out of me. And the scary part is as parents we can never say that will never be my child. We have to force hard conversations and stay consistent. So sorry for everyone that knew and loved V.

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    1. I want to make it simple. Donā€™t use substances that can be addictive. 100,000 ods last year and itā€™s on the rise. Drugs canā€™t solve anything and we have to stop blaming and look ourselves in the mirror because we are the problem. I know Iā€™m on my soapbox but this could be anyones kid, or grandkid, or parentā€¦.

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  5. “Letā€™s stop fighting about words and books and who is right and who is wrong. Letā€™s start trying to heal our kids and ourselves from the demons that take us over from the inside. We worry about what the future will hold for our kids. I just worry that most kids wonā€™t be around to see a future.”
    Agreed….
    šŸ˜¦
    Deepest sympathies to you and your daughter.

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  6. This is absolutely horriblešŸ˜£. He didnā€™t even have the chance to grow up and make real life mistakes. I honestly have no words except to send my regards to his familyšŸ™šŸ½

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  7. Sadly suicide because of drug and alcohol dependence also come into play. I lost a nephew this way years ago and a niece has been in and out of treatment centers for several years and lost custody of her daughter. The biggest issue is mental health and the lack of treatment in our society. People who have mental issues almost always have drug or alcohol dependence.

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  13. Oh my! Iā€™m really sorry about your daughterā€™s friend. Who knows what demons he held at bay. Last month my youngest son called me with a similar situation. A young man my son went to middle and high school with took his life. Obviously my son was upset. This was a friend he knew from school. They played guitar together and hung out sometimes. He said heā€™d heard he had been in rehab after college and although they hadnā€™t seen each other much after high school, theyā€™d still keep in touch through social media. Kids go their own ways but they all seem to keep updated in each otherā€™s lives thru social media. He said most of their communication was light hearted and didnā€™t indicate that he was struggling. He said this friend Contacted him a few weeks ago asking guitar advice since that was an area they had in common, both musically talented and both collected vintage guitars.But, my son was really shaken hearing the news. . He attended the funeral via zoom since he lives out of state but my son was truly upset. We discussed how most of his friends are successfully working in various jobs and that this particular kid struggled the last decade after college. It hit him hard. He discussed how its really hard to understand why it is that some people canā€™t cope with life. It hit him hard. A sad lesson to learn in life. Iā€™m sure your daughter is shaken up. Tragic for sure.

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      2. LA I wonder if the Pandemic made things worse for these kids or if this sad ending was inevitable. I donā€™t know. I do know that some people are vulnerable early on and struggle their entire lives. My oldest son who is is now 48, had a good friend in high school and when this young man was in his early 30ā€™s he overdosed. Everyone was stunned because he was not a druggie. He was successful, creative, but always struggled with emotional issues . My oldest son was one of the few athletes in school who was also a highly gifted student and a talented artist as well. He met his friend, J in an art class in middle school. They were friends for years. His father was a Rabbi. (A renegade rabbi of sorts. Very Avant-garde.) So he came from a nice family. Very progressive. This kid was one of my favorites of all my sonā€™s friends. And yet my son would come home from schood and tell me about all the trouble J got into. But J was a doll whenever he was at my house. Creative and innovative. Heā€™d bring over the game Pictionary and loved how we all would have fun and play it. Once he opened up and said his family fought if they played games together but over at my house everyone laughed and just enjoyed it. Maybe there was too much pressure at his own home. I dunno.
        But he and my son were on the same traveling soccer team and became district champions. The Rabbi was even one of their coaches. Everything seemed so normal and yet I wonder what drove this kid to escape and OD.?

        I had heard Jā€™s mom died of cancer when he was in his 30ā€™s and then a few months later he ODā€™d. What a shock to the community. I think that sometimes certain people just canā€™t cope with difficult situations in life. itā€™s tragic. Some souls I guess are just meant to be here a short time. šŸ˜¢ Iā€™m so very sorry. I hope your daughter is doing ok. ā¤ļø

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  14. I am profoundly sorry for the death of this young man, and for the grief all who loved him will bear. May he rest in peace, and God’s love (if that is part of their beliefs) and the love of family and friends sustain his parents as they mourn.

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  16. I’m so sorry to hear this news about V. I’ve heard of this happening way too often, and it scares me. How do you teach a child to stay away from drugs when drugs are everywhere and so is peer pressure? Even when you try your hardest to do everything to educate and protect your child, it can still happen. What is the answer?

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    1. As a society we need to band togetherā€¦if we could all wear masks for two years and not see one another we should be able to help ourselves and our kids from something way worse than covid

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  17. I say a prayer of gratitude every time I hear a story like this because you are so right, it could happen to any parent. There is no way to get a message like “call me when you can” from the kids without worrying. Hugs to you both.

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  18. Very sad to hear this and hope your daughter is shouldering this loss well. And yes that is the ultimate nightmare of any mom. As for V, I feel like alcohol and drugs were a tool and poor V would have found something else if they were absent. I do hope V is at peace now and V’s family can find some way to heal. This only makes me want to be more observant in the future. I know I cannot control my son from ever doing drugs as he has free will, and words will not stop him. I just hope we can have a dialogue about the effects and consequences of drug use so he has the information to accurately decide if this is something he wants to try, what they are and what they do, and the dangers of peer pressure. And if he struggles I will do everything I can to help him even when it’s hard.

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  19. I speak as a parent with a child who has a drug and alcohol problem. He has gotten to the point he can manage his problems, he knows and accepts he has a problem. I believe he is past the abuse because of his actions now – he loves life, he has a job that he is very proud of (nutritionist & chef at an aids nursing home). Anyway, you hit on the societal problem with this issue of abuse. Society approves of the abuse, then makes excuses for the results.

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  21. Yes…many years ago a friend died from a drug overdose when she was 27. She was 15 when her boyfriend got she started. So young. In and out of jail. I didnt know what to do.

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  22. Went through a Vicodin phase myself many years ago. Those little pills might not have taken away the pain of a divorce and shitty boss, but they sure helped mask it. Too much detail to go into, but thank god my supply got cut off when it did. I am 100% convinced I’d have been dead a long time ago.

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  23. Very sad to read of this. A couple of years ago, I discovered that one of my families summer friends from Manhattan..her beautiful daughter committed suicide. She was a year younger than me. Her family came up every summer. Her mom was a buyer for a Dept. Store and they had an apt. also in Paris which I visited and we met when I studied there. Upon hearing the story, she had fallen in love with a man behind bars, got involved in drugs, he dumped her and she committed suicide. I remember her father, a music professor in the city and how he adored her. I just could not fathom and reconcile the girl I knew and her suicide. It was very sad.

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  26. I’m so sorry for your daughter and all the friends and family members of V. My daughter went through this and it’s still so difficult for her. A teammate from college who nobody had a clue he was suffering, drove to TX to his parents house and blew his brains out. He was saving them the trouble of going to CA for his body.

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    1. I donā€™t think my daughter has really absorbed it yet. Oddly, she is visiting her bff since elementary school this weekend, so hopefully they can help each other through it

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      1. My daughterā€™s friend committed suicide less than two months ago. She also spent time with friends in common and flew to be with his sister. My daughter is suffering. Itā€™s going to affect them always.

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  28. Oh what a tragic experience for everyone. Iā€™m so sorry for the loss of a young life LA. And the ripples will go on for a long timeā€¦
    Some poor young folk just seem too sensitive for this world; some have a predisposition to addiction or depression; as a whole, our Western society approves of alcohol & prescription drugs as balm for stress, rather than other practices such as therapy/meditation/art/fitness. We are all responsible for what we model to our young ones. And addictive behaviors can run in families- alcoholism certainly runs in mine, on both sides- so I donā€™t drink, & my 21yr old son knows why. This pandemic has brought untold stress on the young generation; Iā€™m so sad about the future for all of us. My best wishes for your mourning LA, & may good actions come out of this loss ā¤ļøG

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  29. What a sad story. I’m sorry for you, for your daughter, for V, for V’s family, for all the young people who find it socially acceptable, for those who use drugs to mask the reality of the world, to numb various kinds of pains. Generalities don’t work well, but I’m going to try a few. We as a society have lost our moral compass and we need to find it again. We have become soft and have forgotten that surviving tests and trials can make us better people. We don’t realize that physical and mental addiction to drugs is very real and pernicious and that the best way to avoid it is to just say NO!

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  32. i went to a memorial service last weekend for a young man I knew since he was a child. in fact Jon was my son’s best friend. I died from drinking. It is a sad epidemic we are facing. It is not a way to deal with reality.

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  33. No words, LA. It’s an ever increasing problem and I don’t get it. Simple as that. It frightens me as there does not appear to be any solutions, and I’m not comfortable without solutions. Not all suicides are drugs or drink related. I just don’t comprehend – it is just too big to get my head around, and “shit happens” doesn’t cut it.

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  37. This one hits close to home. This is a serious issue, that I do believe is going o get worse in the coming years. We all need to work together to get these kiddos the the help they need. Itā€™s like going through hell, yet whatā€™s the alternative? You just wrote about it; and I am so sorry for our collective loss. Condolences to all of you, LA.

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