There are better things ahead

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What is it we Baptists like to say? “Once saved always saved.”

You won’t hear “Once sober always sober” from an alcoholic nor will you hear a drug addict say “Once clean always clean.”

No, because there’s a devil in the bottle, T.G. Sheppard sang, just as there’s one in the syringe and the crack pipe that wants to see you dead or at least miserable. If you live through the coronavirus, you’re likely immune. With addiction, a relapse is as close as a sip or a brief snort.

I know a mother of a 7-year-old son and 5-month-old girl who knows too well. Let’s call her Debbie.

Until the coronavirus took all the air out of the tourism, she cleaned and did light maintenance on rental properties. Now she’s sheltering at home in a ragged mobile home with her kids.

“We’re good as long as it doesn’t go on too long,’’ she said.

An independent contractor, her bank told her to apply for some small business loans.

“If it works, we’ll be OK. If not … we’ll see,’’ she said.

But she holds onto this simple thought, “It’ll get better.”

She knows how bad it can get. She was an addict from the age of 18, when she started taking drugs with a friend, until she was 33. That friend had something Debbie didn’t.

“I always thought it was weird she could quit,’’ she said. That friend knew her limits, while Debbie stopped when the drugs ran out.

“I thought it was crazy to save it.”

Her friend quit entirely, got married and has a house full of kids and a career.

Meanwhile, the state Division of Family and Children Services took Debbie’s son and gave custody to her mother, the one who brought her up in a Christian home.

Of her chosen lifestyle, she said, “I wasn’t raised that way. I was in church. I never saw alcohol in my house. I never saw my mom and dad fight.”

The church is a congregation of fundamentalist Baptists who believe every word in a red-letter Bible.

Her mom won’t lie or even so much as glaze over the truth even when Debbie was in jail or rehab.

“My mom had my son. My mom didn’t tell him, ‘She’s away at school,’’’ Debbie said. “She told him, ‘Mommy was bad and she went to jail,’ or ‘Mommy was on drugs and had to go to rehab.’ ”

As for her son, “He didn’t care who he told.”

She violated a sensible rule against dating anyone she met in recovery. She did and the result was the little girl as precious as her son. As for the father, he helps support his child when he can but has relapsed more than once. In a way, that’s been good for her and bad for him, because he’s served as a reminder of where she could go again.

“You have to remember how bad the bad days were,’’ she said. “I got to see it through him.”

He took too much once and called a cab to get medical attention. On the way, he’s telling the driver there were two bodies back home under his bed.

She understands because she’s had those delusions and felt the paranoia.

“You see people that aren’t there. You see things that don’t happen,’’ she said.

Many drugs alter the senses and give you visions, but with one, meth, it comes in high def.

Well, you say, she could quit. Meth, though, is as insistent as a thirst after a week in the desert without water. It drags you to places you don’t want to go. While other illegal drugs are hard to quit, nothing has the power of meth.

“I did everything. I wasn’t picky, but the drug that grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go was meth,’’ she said. “Other drugs, I could get partway back. Meth was hard. It sucked my soul out so fast I didn’t see it coming.”

Meth took her down to 78 pounds. She was wearing a size 12 in little girl’s clothes, “like a second or third grader,’’ she said, “and I was in my 30s.”

Finally, the rehab worked and she’s been clean and sober for years. Now her mother has her children only when she has to work or when school is out.

You are struck by her intelligence, how she says she’s far from unique.

“We’re not stupid people. Most addicts are highly intelligent,’’ she said. “I was so shocked when I learned we’re everywhere. We … are … everywhere. We’re teaching school. We’re in business. We own businesses.”

Race, social class, income, religion, none of it matters, she says. Few things are as equal opportunity as addiction.

She can talk about it all with clear-eyed calm except for one thing.

“When you’re high or you’re drunk you don’t think about the shame….’’ she said, choking up as regret overtakes her.

“I put my mom through the ringer. The things I called her,’’ she said in a whisper. “I can’t ever explain how I feel about my mom. She loves me, and I’m doing everything I can so she doesn’t feel that way again.”

Her mother loves her unconditionally, and Debbie doesn’t want her mother to ever again suffer watching her suffer.

“I just want her to be proud,” Debbie said.

She wants all addicts to know, you can put it behind you and keep it behind you if you work at it every day. If you don’t quit, you can make a way to take care of yourself and your children and own something where you can put your kids to bed at night.

“This little trailer, as ugly as it is and as crappy as the area is, it’s mine,’’ she said in a way that let’s you know there are better things ahead.

As they say, people who have had the coronavirus may have lifetime immunity. Addicts face a lifetime of avoiding another ruinous sip, snort or a needle. Why do they call them fixes when they can break you over and over?

Debbie has a hard time believing she’s worth forgiveness from her family, her friends or God. But she is. After all, she’s no worse than the best of us.

Pray for Debbie and her children. It’s not her real name, but he’ll know who you’re talking about even if you don’t.